Stephanie Spera – Associate Professor of Geography, Environment, & Sustainability, University of Richmond School of Arts & Sciences

Stephanie Spera’s research seeks to understand landscape-level human-environment feedbacks with regard to social, economic, and environmental drivers and consequences. She analyzes large datasets, develops algorithms, and integrates spatial data to characterize landscapes and landscape-scale dynamics. Her skillset includes a strong foundation in environmental sciences, but she integrates tools and methods from other disciplines to understand how we can best manage our landscapes. Her interdisciplinary training and methodologies allow her to speak across traditional disciplinary lines and focus work on different ecosystems. She collaborates with ecologists, climate scientists, sociologists, and economists to analyze the regional socioeconomic drivers and environmental consequences of land-use change. Her research tackles pressing environmental issues and generates robust scientific results that inform policy.

Broadly, she asks, ‘How do we ensure that we manage our landscapes sustainably?’ She is interested in how and to what extent humans are modifying the landscape; what is driving changes in land cover; how these changes are affecting the environment; and how humans are, in turn, responding to these changes. Her most recent work focuses on answering these questions focusing on agricultural land-use change and regional climate dynamics in the Brazilian Cerrado, a biodiversity hotspot and agricultural breadbasket.

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