People

Current members

Yann le Polain de Waroux (Associate Professor)
I am an Associate Professor at McGill University, jointly appointed by the Institute for the Study of International Development and the Department of Geography. I am a development and environmental geographer specializing in issues of land use and livelihood changes in rural areas. I have a PhD in Geography from the Georges Lemaître Centre for Earth and Climate Research (TECLIM) at Uclouvain, Belgium, and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment and the School of Earth, Energy and Environmental Sciences at Stanford University before joining McGill (see my Curriculum Vitae).

Olivia del Giorgio (PhD)
I am a human geographer and land use scientist, with a background in ecology. My work examines the social and ecological implications of globalization and land-use change in the Gran Chaco region of South America. Motivated by my interests in environmental and social justice, humanitarian mapping, and agrarian reform, the focus of my PhD research is to investigate the drivers and social-ecological repercussions of land control changes in regions experiencing the expansion of large-scale, industrial agriculture. To do so, I am combining remote sensing and GIS with political ecology and ethnographic methods (see my website). Contact Olivia.

Louise Fontan-Ducret (PhD)
I am interested in frontier dynamics and the socio-economic dynamics behind deforestation and land-use change in South America. My background in literature, sociology and anthropology has made me a strong advocate of multidisciplinary approaches. I have previously worked on the Chiquitanía region in Bolivia, and have now shifted to the Gran Chaco region, shared between Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay, for my PhD research. Contact Louise.

Ariadna Mora (MSc)
My academic background is research-oriented and interdisciplinary. I hold a degree in architecture from the University of Panama, where I have conducted research projects in the former Panama Canal Zone on topics such as urbanism, thermal comfort, land cover, public spaces, transitional spaces, heritage, revitalization of public spaces, and sustainability. In 2023, I collaborated on projects with the Research Center of Social and Political Science (CIEPS AIP) in Panama. For my Master's degree, I plan to do research on land-use frontiers in the Darién region of Panama. Contact Ariadna.

Lab Alumni and past members

Graduate students

Michelle Hahn-Baker (M.Sc. Geography, 2022-2024)
Marie-Claude Carignan (M.Sc. Geography, 2021-2024)
Patrice Matthews (M.Sc. Geography, 2020-2023)
Lily Shebell (M.A. Geography, 2019-2022)
Beatriz Gobbi (M.Sc. Geography, 2013-2015)
François Dambly (M.Sc. Geography, 2010-2012)

Undergraduate honours

Aris Kalofoutis (B.A. Hons. Geography, 2022-2023)
Lucy MacKinnon (B.A. Hons. International Development Studies, 2021)
Anna O’Driscoll (B.Sc. Hons. Geography, 2020-2021)
Marine Loison (B.A. Hons. International Development Studies, 2019)
Sydney Kreimes (B.A. Hons. International Development Studies, 2018)

Visiting scholars

Christian Levers (Postdoctoral scholar, visiting from University of British Columbia, summer 2019)
Diego Cabrol (Postdoctoral scholar, visiting from Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, summer 2019 and winter 2021)
Victoria Junquera (PhD, visiting from ETH Zürich, spring 2019)
Vivian Valencia (Postdoctoral scholar, visiting from University of Michigan, spring & summer 2018)

Independent studies projects

Hannah Zhao (B.A., 2024)
Wanrong Huang (B.Sc., 2021)
Chantal Ménard (B.Sc., 2019)
Ottilia Scott (B.A., 2019)
Kana Yokoji (B.A., 2018)
Sandrine Royer (B.A., 2018)
Teneille Arnott (B.A., 2018)

Research assistants

Sara Escallon (B.A., 2023)
Matthew O’Boyle (B.A., 2023)
Juliette Mennicken (B.A., 2022)
Isabel Klassen (B.A., 2022)
Lucia Stroetzel (B.A., 2021-2022)
Janice Neumann (Ph.D., 2021-2022)
Kerstin Schreiber (Ph.D., 2020-2021)
Wanrong Huang (B.Sc. 2020-2021)
Tristan Grupp (BSc, 2018-2019)
Dara Salih (B.A., 2019)
Ammar Addenwala (B.A., 2019)
Peter Garber (B.A., 2018)