Tropical Conservation & Development Program
UF Center for Latin American Studies
Category: Alumni
TCD Alumni reunite in Belem, Brazil for COP-30
TCD alumni from across years, disciplines, and geographies gathered to reconnect personal and professionally at COP-30 in Belem, Brazil. Throughout the summit, they engaged in a range of activities, participating in panel discussions, presenting research, leading workshops, and contributing to policy dialogues. Their shared educational experiences at UF TCD will always be present in their
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Dr. Katharine McNamara is the recipient of the 2025 Marianne Schmink Outstanding Dissertation Award
Our congratulations go to Dr. Katharine McNamara for being selected the 2025 recipient of the Marianne Schmink Outstanding Dissertation Award from UF’s Tropical Conservation and Development Program in the Center for Latin American Studies. Dr. McNamara is the 16th recipient of this prestigious dissertation award that honors Dr. Marianne Schmink for her significant and transformative contributions to graduate
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UF Distinguished Alumna Talk “Climate change impacts on Indigenous Peoples and local communities”
Please join us for a special talk from UF Distinguished Alumna Dr. Victoria Reyes-Garcia on Wednesday, April 30th at 4 PM in the Keene Faculty Center. After her talk, we celebrate her UF award with a reception to provide additional opportunity to continue the discussion and share together the end of the semester. If you plan
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Remembering a beloved member of our TCD community
We were deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Meshach Pierre, a recent UF/TCD/Sociology alum who received a Master’s degree and a TCD graduate certificate. For his Master’s degree Meshach examined the human dimensions of human-jaguar conflict in the Rupununi region of Guyana, his home country. He applied the interdisciplinary conservation criminology framework in
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Recent published paper by TCD’s Marianne Schmink; alum Danny Pinedo and collaborators on Transformative change for Amazonian socio-bioeconomies.
Access the article “Transformative changes are needed to support socio-bioeconomy’s for people and ecosystems in the Amazon” here. Current social-technical and political conditions threaten the integrity of the Amazon biome. Overcoming these lock-ins requires structural transformations away from conventional economies towards ‘socio-bioeconomies’ (SBEs). SBEs are economies based on the sustainable use and restoration of Amazonian
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Small TCD world …
You don’t really expect to meet UF students, let alone TCD alumni in the Rupununi region of Guyana, one of the most sparsely populated areas on earth, but this is just what happened today! Sarina Kawall (MDP/TCD) was in the Rupununi, returning research results to communities’ courtesy of a TCD Practitioner Grant, when she ran
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