I am a PhD candidate in human/environmental geography at UC Berkeley, currently in the midst of my final stint of dissertation field research in Central Idaho. My project focuses on wolf-livestock conflict and coexistence, public lands grazing, and the challenges of regional economic transition. I am working closely with the Wood River Wolf Project and its partners, conducting ethnographic and archival research in the area for the next several months.Human-wildlife conflict is one of the the most intractable issues facing ecologists and environmental policy makers today, with increasing recognition of the need for social science attention to the "human dimensions" of these issues. The wolf question remains a durable and polarizing issue in the West and around the world as wolves return to landscapes from which they have been absent for decades or even centuries. Wolf-sheep-human interactions are perhaps the most iconic historical example of wildlife conflict, and a lens onto larger questions of urban-rural divides, regional political economic futures, and adaptation and resilience under changing socio-ecological conditions.I come at these concerns from training in the social sciences, ecology, and a concern for the future of both conservation and rural livelihoods. I've already conducted several months of research since 2015 with the support from my department, but need your help to see me through to the finish line! With your support I'll be able to successfully complete my research over the summer and move into writing this fall - blogs, articles, and book forthcoming!We all need inter- and trans-disciplinary science and research to better understand and intervene in the complex problems of our world today. Please help support one scholar who's been trying to do his part.Thank you!Great questions! I am a PhD candidate in human/environmental geography at the University of California, Berkeley. I’m ABD (“all but dissertation”) and going into my 6th year (the average in my department is around 7).My BA is from UC Berkeley, and I have a Masters from the University of Manchester in Environmental Governance (2011). My training has been largely in the social sciences, but emphasizing environmental problems and political economy (my research has covered everything from social movements to water rights to seed banking).You can find out more about me at my Berkeley page (legit) here , or visit my personal website (still early stages, but with links to everything) at fantasygeographies.com My focus is on human-wildlife conflict and coexistence, specifically wolf-livestock issues. I am interested in how livestock producers make the management decisions they do with regards to predation and grazing, but approach this question historically and contextually (and thus get into a lot of broader issues).I am working closely with the Wood River Wolf Project ( woodriverwolfproject.org ) and its partners, conducting interviews, ethnographic research, and archival investigations to help map historical changes.I am living in Bellevue, Idaho, in the Wood River Valley, in Blaine County, between the Sawtooth Mountains and the Snake River Plain. It’s beautiful up here.Blaine County is a pretty fascinating area historically (the valley was an important locale for early settlement, politics, and economics – including sheep production - in the territory), and today as a political outlier from the rest of Idaho and microcosm of “New West” cultural and economic dynamics.As you should! I recommend checking out their website ( woodriverwolfproject.org ) for some of their history and a sense of their practices, and this recent publication in the Journal of Mammalogy on the effectiveness of some of their techniques.Terrible question! (Just kidding, just generally don’t ask a grad student that.)I started this research back in 2015, and my hope is to wrap up the bulk of it by the end of August 2017. I hope to finish a draft of the dissertation by spring 2018, though we’ll see how closely I stick to that timeline…As for publications, the monograph may take a bit given academic publishing. In the meantime, I hope to put together some blogs, popular publications, and journal articles - I’ll let you all know as those progress.(And yes – I’ll also be sure to acknowledge all of you who helped out in the eventual book!)I’m working on my PhD, of course, so a monograph and journal articles are primary (good ol’ currency of academia).However, I also hope that my work contributes in some way to both popular understandings of the wolf question and policy interventions in Idaho and other states confronting the challenges of coexistence.Part of this may involve speaking engagements and/or pieces with a more lay audience in mind (details TBD - if you have suggestions, feel free to send them my way!)I did, indeed, receive support from my department along the way, including generous funding from the Brechin-Chlebowski Endowment that has allowed me to make it this far. I also applied for multiple large and small grants (30 separate applications by my last count) over the past 4 years, with unfortunately very little to show for it. I also taught (working as a TA) for 6 semesters to pay my fees and support myself and my partner – but you can’t do fieldwork and teach at the same time.Eventually I made the decision to proceed with what support I had, squeaking by in the interest of actually doing the work and finishing up.Funding for public education and government-supported science grants have been slashed in recent years – that’s hopefully not news to you. Furthermore, while there are numerous calls for interdisciplinarity and for social science attention to complex environmental problems, funding streams, in my experience, have not kept up.I don’t believe that “the market should decide” what research gets done, and I feel passionately about the importance of the research I’m doing, even if it hasn’t garnered large grant support. All of you who’ve supported me so far make me feel like I’m not too off-base feeling that way, so thank you!It’s quite possible (I’ve been doing this a few years now), but I also may not have. Feel free to send suggestions and contacts to [email redacted] Feel free to shoot me a question here, by email, or via social media. If you’re interested in setting up some kind of future speaking engagement, I’m happy to consider it!