Professor Emerita and Distinguished Teaching Scholar, Latin American Studies/Anthropology
E-mail: schmink@ufl.edu
Research Interests
Tropical conservation and development; gender and development
Geographic Expertise
Brazil, Latin America and the Caribbean
Background
From 1980 to 2018, Schmink worked to build interdisciplinary research and training programs in the Center, integrating social science and natural science perspectives to address conservation and development issues with a focus on the Amazon region. Over the years she worked with colleagues to raise significant grant and endowment funds to support fellowships, research grants, internships, and other activities for UF students and faculty. From 1990–2003, she directed an “Agroforestry Development Program for Small Producers in Acre, Brazil”, funded by USAID-Brazil and carried out in partnership with a local non-governmental agency called PESACRE. She also has helped to develop programs at UF focused on gender and development issues, most recently the MERGE program (Managing Ecosystems and Resources with Gender Emphasis). Schmink carried out research in the Brazilian Amazon region for over 40 years, and published numerous books and articles, as well as teaching courses related to conservation and development at UF.
Since retiring in 2018, she has worked as a local volunteer in Alachua County, Florida with the Community Weatherization Coalition, the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Committee, and as a volunteer mediator with the county court. In 2018 she received a Champions of Change award, from the UF Office of Sustainability and the Healthy Gators Coalition, which recognizes individuals and groups that have made significant contributions to the UF community in the areas of sustainability. In 2022, she was part of the EMPOWER team (representing the Community Weatherization Coalition, the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Committee, Alachua County, City of Gainesville, and Gainesville Regional Utilities) selected as one of 24 LEAP Communities supported by technical assistance from the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Renewable Energy Lab in 2022-2023, to ensure Alachua County’s most vulnerable communities participate in and benefit from the transition to clean energy, with an explicit focus on reducing inequitable energy burdens and increasing utility resilience in low-income neighborhoods that are racial and ethnically diverse.