Natalia Piland
Research Interests: public participation in scientific research and conservation in the tropics, human perspectives of non-human nature, and transdisciplinary collaboration.
Background: I am a postdoctoral researcher in the U.S. Forest Service's Stewardship Mapping Project. Before joining that team, I was the Interdisciplinary Scientist for the NY Cities Team at The Nature Conservancy, and a postdoctoral scholar at the Tropical Rivers Lab in Florida International University where I worked on various dimensions of human-nature relationships in the Amazon and in Miami. My doctoral research focused on avian diversity change along urban-rural gradients in Latin America (advised by Dr. John Bates at the Field Museum of Natural History/University of Chicago). As an urban ecologist, I am also deeply interested in the ways in which humans interact with nature and the ways in which scientists interact with society. One of my fundamental convictions is that science has an objective, and thus is not neutral, and this motivated my involvement in our labor union during grad school, Graduate Students United, and other organizing spaces. I have lived in multiple cities in the United States and in Perú, and my free time is consumed by dabbling in new hobbies, Pokémon Go, and guilt-less lounging with my partner and my cat, Catulus.
Contact: npiland@gmail.com