My PhD research focuses on booms in maize cultivation in the Mekong uplands. Driven by rising demand for maize feed from the Thai livestock industry, the maize booms have converted large areas of traditional extensive shifting cultivation and forests in Northern Thailand to intensive monocropping of maize. However, as maize cultivation in Thailand faces scrutiny for its environmental impacts, it is expanding across the border in neighboring countries. I am examining these cross-border value chain dynamics and their environmental and socio-economic impacts, and the implications for agrarian transitions in the Mekong uplands, especially for maize smallholders.

Education

2015: M.Sc. in Sustainable Development in Agriculture (AGRIS MUNDUS) from University of Copenhagen and Montpellier SupAgro (France). Thesis: Assessing the contribution of Grevillea robusta trees to farm-scale carbon fluxes in the Central Highlands of Kenya

2012: B.A. in Environmental Studies from Wellesley College (USA)

Employment

2019 - present: PhD fellow at Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, Section of Geography, University of Copenhagen

2016-2016: Research Associate at the Stockholm Environment Institute (Bangkok, Thailand)

2012-2013: Research Assistant at the Stockholm Environment Institute (Bangkok, Thailand)