A.R.T Lab Members

ASU School of Sustainability

Ashwina Mahanti
PhD Candidate​

Thesis: Her current research on food systems’ governance involves collaborating with the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) to further advance their sustainability agenda. She is interested in understanding the process of institutional learning and change within Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives (MSI).
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Ashwina is a fourth-year PhD student. Prior to starting her PhD at the School of Sustainability, she worked as a consultant for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and helped create the climate change action plan for the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. She was also involved in assessing the reporting capacities of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC). For her Masters project at the University of Michigan, she worked with the World Bank to assess the vulnerabilities of agro-pastoral communities in Latin America and West Africa to climate change and the role local institutions play in enabling adaptation. During her Masters’ program, she worked as a research associate at the International Forestry Resources and Institutions (IFRI) and helped develop a database on the role of local institutions in climate change adaptation.
Please see ASU website for publications
Contact: amahanti@asu.edu
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Jagadish Parajuli
PhD Student, 2015-Present

Thesis: TBD
Jagadish is a PhD Student at the School of Sustainability, Arizona State University. He has over a decade of work experience in International/National Non-Government Organizations including World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and is interested in freshwater governance, climate change adaptation, community sustainability, Glacier Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF), socio-ecological systems, and natural resources management and policy. 

​Please see ASU website to learn more. 
​Contact: jagadish.parajuli@asu.edu

Rebecca Shelton
PhD Student, 2016- present

Thesis: TBD
Rebecca Shelton began the PhD program at Arizona State University in the Fall of 2016. As a research assistant for MEGADAPT and the Pathway to Sustainability Transformation Laboratories Program, she is investigating social learning in water resource management and transformative agency in socio-ecological systems. For her thesis research she plans to examine the cognitive (sense of place) and ecological barriers that stall or bar economic transitions in rural, primary sector economies such as agriculture (case study: Kentucky Tobacco) and mining (case study: Kentucky coal). During her master's degree she studied the effects of agricultural management practices on greenhouse gases and nitrogen loss at the field level.​
Contact: rebecca.shelton@asu.edu
​LinkedIn:​https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebecca-shelton-7678a469
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Andres Baeza-Castro
Post-Doctorate, 2015-Present

I obtained a doctorate degree in Ecology and Evolution at the University of Michigan researching malaria population dynamics and its interaction with agriculture development, water management, and land use change.  Broadly, my principal research interest is in understanding the processes and feedbacks in coupled socio-ecological systems that perpetuate vulnerability, environmental degradation and health hazards. I develop computational and mathematical models at the interface of social and ecological dynamics to provide insight on how to break vicious cycles and poverty traps. These models are typically informed by empirical observations of patterns and processes gathered from diverse sources, including interviews with human subjects, remote sensing, and other earth system techniques. I am currently a postdoctoral researcher in the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University under the mentorship of Dr. Marco Janssen and Dr. Hallie Eakin. My project is to develop a multi-agent-based model to simulate autonomous institutional decision in the context of water management in Mexico City (see MEGADAPT).
I also enjoy watching, playing, and reading about Soccer, spending time with family, and finding excuses for celebrations.

Selected pubs
1.  Baeza, A. et al. Climate forcing and desert malaria: the effect of irrigation. Malar. J. 10, 190 (2011).
2.  Baeza, A., Bouma, M. J., Dhiman, R. & Pascual, M. Malaria control under unstable dynamics: reactive vs. climate-based strategies. Acta Trop. 1–10 (2013). doi:10.1016/j.actatropica.2013.04.001
3.  Baeza, A. et al. Long-lasting transition toward sustainable elimination of desert malaria under irrigation development.Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 110, 15157–62 (2013).

​Contact: andres.baeza-castro@asu.edu
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ASU School of Geographical Sciences & Urban Planning

Karina Benessaiah
PhD Candidate

Thesis: Social-Ecologies of Crisis: Assessing the back-to-land movement in Greece
Karina Benessaiah is a PhD candidate in the school of geographical sciences and urban planning at Arizona State University.  Her research focuses on understanding how people adapt to rapid, multifaceted social-ecological changes – often called crises – and assessing emerging societal and environmental transformations. She uses approaches and methods from global land change, political ecology, resilience, and sustainability science to study these dynamics. Her work has brought her to various parts of the world to assess small-scale shrimp farming in Nicaragua, REDD+ feasibility in Panama's protected areas, post-hurricane vulnerabilities in Honduras, indigenous ecotourism in James Bay (Quebec), illicit economies in Central America and the back-to-land movement during Greece’s economic recession for her dissertation.  On her "spare" time, she loves to travel, read, garden and make her own ceramic pots. 
​Please see ASU website for publications
​Contact: karina.benessaiah@asu.edu
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Elizabeth Tellman
PhD Candidate

Thesis:  Her thesis studies clandestine activity (i.e., behavior that is intentionally secret because it breaks formal laws or violates informal norms) and its influence on patterns of urban expansion. 
Beth Tellman is a PhD student in geographical sciences at Arizona State University. Her research focuses understanding how environmental change shapes flood vulnerability and how illicit human activity drives land use change. She employs tools and methods from land system science, hydrology, and the social sciences to model social and natural systems across time and space using satellite, cadastral, and ancillary socioeconomic data. Current projects include examining political drivers of urbanization and water infrastructure in irregular settlements, and the historical pathway of adaptation to flood risk (in Mexico City with NSF project- MEGADAPT), estimating the return on investment of watershed conservation for flood mitigation in Latin American cities with SNAP, quantifying the effect of the cocaine commodity chain on deforestation patterns in Central America, and modeling global biophysical and social flood vulnerability using Google Earth Engine with a company she co-founded, Cloud to Street. Beth received her M.S from Yale School of Forestry in Environmental Science and B.S in Sustainable Globalization from Santa Clara University. She is a former Fulbright fellow, National Science Foundation Graduate Fellow, and a fellow at Echoing Green. She likes to climb rocks, play guitar and saxophone, and adventure in nature in her free time.
​Please see ASU website for publications
Contact: btellman@asu.edu

Shalae Flores
Undergraduate, 2012-present

Thesis: Centering Unheard Voices Amid Water Scarcity and Governance in Mexico City
Shalae is a senior undergraduate who studies geography in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning. Her research uses spatial analysis to answer questions of social power and political corruption amid the water crisis in the megacity of México City. In her thesis, Shalae seeks to understand the power and influence of organized protests as feedback mechanisms to water crises and conflict within the sixteen delegations of Mexico City.
Contact: saflore4@gmail.com

UNAM

Lakshmi Charli-Joseph
Academic Technician in Socio-ecological Systems’ Analysis
PhD Student (Sustainability Sciences Program, UNAM)

Thesis: Promoting transformative pathways to sustainability: The Transformation-lab in the Xochimilco social-ecological system
Lakshmi has a B.Sc. in biology (UNAM) and two M.Sc. in environmental planning and management (UAX; UNESCO-IHE). For the past eight years she has been involved in educational and capacity development projects related to wetland management, water governance, and sustainability science. She coordinated the design and development of the Postgraduate Program in Sustainability Sciences at UNAM and is currently working in research projects related to governance and social learning in sustainability science in Mexico. 
Contact: lakshmi.charli@iecologia.unam.mx
Webpage: ​http://lancis.ecologia.unam.mx/academicos/lakshmi_e
LinkedIn: http://lnkd.in/bEcccN
ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Lakshmi_Charli-Joseph

Lab Alumni

Katja Brundiers, PhD
​Graduated December 2016

Katja Brundiers is the Community-University Liaison for the School of Sustainability, where she develops and administers student-centered research on practical sustainability problems. Before joining ASU, Katja headed up a boundary organization at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (Switzerland) that facilitated collaborative research projects between students, faculty, and community partners (business, government, NGOs). Katja brings to the position her experiences as a sustainability consultant to the University of British Columbia (Canada) and as a member of the UNESCO Committee on Education for Sustainable Development. She also worked as a civil servant at the Swiss Federal Office for Spatial Development, as a consultant in a private planning agency, and as a researcher in an international development research project for the government of Sri Lanka. She holds a master's degree in geography and anthropology from the University of Zurich.
Please See ASU website for publications.
Contact: katja.brundiers@asu.edu
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Julia Bausch, PhD
Sustainability Science, Spring 2017