Laura Dev
Gardner 251 | University of Wisconsin-Platteville | Platteville, WI 53818
devl@uwplatt.edu | (650) 455-0237
PROFESSIONAL POSITIONS
Assistant Professor | January 2022-Present
University of Wisconsin-Platteville
Environmental Sciences and Society Department
Postdoctoral Scholar in Public Political Ecology | 2020 – 2022
University of California, Merced
Management of Complex Systems Department | Mentor: Tracey Osborne
EDUCATION
Ph.D. | Environmental Science, Policy & Management | July 2020
University of California, Berkeley
Society & Environment Division
Dissertation title: “Plants & Pathways: More-than-human worlds of power, knowledge, and healing”
Committee: Nancy Lee Peluso (Chair), Carolyn Merchant, Charles Briggs
Examination Fields: (1) Political Ecology of Forest Resources; (2) Indigenous and Feminist Science and Technology Studies (STS); (3) Environmental Anthropology and Multispecies Ethnography; (4) Amazonian Ethnobotany
M.S. | Graduate Degree Program in Ecology | May 2012
Colorado State University
Thesis title: “Timing is important: The seasonality of precipitation can influence how ecosystems respond to grazing”
Advisors: Julia Klein, Cynthia S. Brown
B.S. | Biology and Mathematics | May 2006
Tufts University
magna cum laude
RESEARCH POSITIONS
Postdoctoral Research | 2020 – 2022
University of California | Merced, CA
Kawsay Ñampi: Indigenous-led Climate Change Mitigation in the Amazon Rainforest | PI: Tracey Osborne
Asesor – Community-Based Participatory Research & Facilitation | 2017 – 2019
Alianza Arkana | Pucallpa, Peru
Farmacia Viva Indígena Sanken Yaka: Living Indigenous Pharmacy Medicinal Forest Preserve in the Shipibo Community of Paoyhan
NSF East Asia & Pacific Summer Institute | 2011
Institute of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau Research | Nam Tso, Tibet
“Grazing and climate change: Does the timing of seasonal water availability influence sensitivity to yak grazing on the Tibetan Plateau?”
Graduate Student Researcher | 2010 – 2011
Shortgrass Steppe Long-Term Ecological Research Station (LTER) | Nunn, CO
Nutrient Network Experiment | PIs: Cynthia Brown and Julia Klein
Biological Sciences Technician | 2009
USDA Agricultural Research Service | Fort Collins, CO
Rangeland Resource Research Unit, Prairie Heating and CO2 Enrichment (PHACE) Experiment | PI: Dana Blumenthal
PUBLICATIONS
Peer-Reviewed Publications
Laura Dev, Karly Marie Miller, Lauren Withey, Juliet Lu, Tracy Hruska. “Ambiguous Spaces, Empirical Traces: Accounting for Ignorance when Researching Around the Illicit.” Progress in Human Geography (2022)
Laura Dev. “Healing in the Chthulucene: Becoming Beyond Human with Medicinal Plants.” Dialogue and Universalism, 29 no. 3 (November 2019)
Ashton Wesner, Sophie Sapp Moore, Jeff Vance Martin, Gabi Kirk, Laura Dev, and Ingrid Behrsin. “Left Coast Political Ecology: A Manifesto.” Journal of Political Ecology 26, no. 1 (October 6, 2019): 529–44. https://doi.org/10.2458/v26i1.23539.
Laura Dev. “Plant Knowledges: Indigenous Approaches and Multispecies Listening Toward Decolonizing Ayahuasca Research,” in Labate, Beatriz C. & Cavnar, Clancy (Eds). Plant Medicines, Healing and Psychedelic Science: Cultural Perspectives. (Cham: Springer, 2018)
In Review
Juliet Lu, Laura Dev, Margiana Petersen-Rockney. “Criminalized Crops: Environmentally-justified illicit crop interventions and the cyclical marginalization of smallholders.” Political Geography (Revise & Resubmit 2022)
In Preparation
Tracey Osborne, Laura Dev, Silvia Cifuentes, Marcelo Santos daRocha Silva, Elisa Marchi, Seanna Howard, Lauren Withey. “The Climate Justice Imperative for Tropical Forests: Key Lesson from the Amazon.” WIRES Climate Change.
Laura Dev. Interspecies Entwinements. Monograph aimed at an academic press.
Reports
Brian Ikaika Klein, Stephanie Postar, Laura Dev, Hilary Faxon, and Matthew Libassi. “How COVID is Reconfiguring Labor in Extractive Industries.” Edge Effects Magazine. (October 14, 2021). https://edgeeffects.net/malagasy-gold/
Paul Roberts and Laura Dev, “Learning from the Peruvian Amazon,” Val Hammond Research Report. (West Sussex, UK: Roffey Park Institute, 2016).
GRANTS, FELLOWSHIPS, AWARDS
UW-Platteville Sustainability Award | UW-Platteville | 2022
Student Research and Engagement Fund | UW-Platteville | 2022
Sustainable Forestry Continuing Fellowship | ESPM, UC Berkeley | 2019
Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award | UC Berkeley | 2019
Community Engaged Research Award | Graduate Diversity Council | 2018
Graduate Student Award | Association of Environmental Professionals | 2018
College of Natural Resources Summer Fellowship | UC Berkeley | 2018
Distinguished Fellows Video Competition – Third Place | UC Berkeley | 2017
Foreign Language Area Studies Fellowship – Shipibo | UC Berkeley | 2015
James Duke Ethnobotanical Fellowship | ACEERS | 2014
Berkeley Graduate Fellowship | UC Berkeley | 2012
Graduate Research Fellowship | NSF | 2011
East Asia and Pacific Summer Institute | NSF | 2011
Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) | NSF | 2004
INVITED TALKS
“Plant Knowledges: Indigenous Approaches and Multispecies Listening Toward Decolonizing Ayahuasca Research.” Cultural and Political Perspectives on Psychedelic Science Symposium, California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, CA, United States, August 2018
“Healing as an Ecology of Selves: Ritual as resistance, research as ritual.” Ecology and Religion Summit, California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, CA, United States, April 2016
CONFERENCE PARTICIPATION
Panels Organized
“Methods of engagement: Feminist approaches to collaborations in studying beyond the human.” 4S – Society for Social Studies of Science, New Orleans, LA, United States, September 2019
“Encounters with the Illicit: Characterizing Landscapes of Ignorance.” American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, United States, April 2019
Papers Presented
“The Forest for the Trees: Equivocations in tropical forest conservation and climate change mitigation efforts in the Amazon.” American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, Virtual/New York, March 2022.
“Transplanting Ayahuasca Healing Practices Across Terrains of Power.” Workshop: From Ritual to Justice: Toward a Decolonial and Feminist Approach to Ayahuasca. SALSA-Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America Annual Meeting, Virtual, June 2021
“The Unruly Commodification of Ayahuasca.” American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, Virtual, April 2021.
“Criminalized Crops: Environmentality and the Production of Marginality.” Illicit Geographies Workshop. University of Alabama (Virtual), October 2020.
“Trouble with Trees: More-than-human practices toward creating a ‘medicinal forest garden’.” Environmental Justice in Multispecies Worlds Conference, Madison, WI, March 2020
“(Re)generative equivocations in the creation of a ‘medicinal forest garden’.” 4S – Society for Social Studies of Science Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA, United States, September 2019
“Trouble with Trees: Collaborations beyond the human in the creation of a ‘medicinal forest garden’.” International Union of Forest Research Organization – Conference on Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK). Vancouver, BC, Canada, August 2019
“A plant-centric view of ayahuasca’s cosmopolitcal engagements with more-than-human economies.” American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, United States, April 2019
“Healing in the Chthulucene: Becoming beyond human with medicinal plants.” International Society for Universal Dialogue Annual Meeting, Lima, Peru, July 2018
“The Role of Plants in Knowledge Production: Collaborators or Objects of Study.” Psychedelic Science Conference, Oakland, CA, United States, April 2017
“Shipibo healing rituals recontextualized in changing ecological, economic, and social contexts.” ENTiTLE – European Network of Political Ecology Meeting, Stockholm, Sweden, April 2016
“The seasonal timing of precipitation and temperature mediate rangeland vegetation response to grazing.” Poster Presentation, Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting, Minneapolis, MN, United States, August 2013
“Does the seasonal timing of precipitation influence grassland sensitivity to grazing?” Front Range Student Ecology Symposium, Fort Collins, CO, United States, February 2011
“Global change and grazing in North American grasslands: A regional study across precipitation regimes using field experiments and modeling.” Poster Presentation, Front Range Student Ecology Symposium, Fort Collins, CO, United States, February 2010
“Modeling Cancer Mathematically.” Young Mathematicians Conference, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, United States, August 2004
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Course Instruction
University of Wisconsin-Platteville
Instructor of Record | The Land Ethic (GEOG1370) | Spring 2022
Instructor of Record | Guided Research (GEOG3530) | Spring 2022
University of California, Berkeley
Graduate Student Instructor | Environmental Health & Development | Spring 2019
Graduate Student Instructor | Political Ecology | Fall 2018
Colorado State University
Graduate Teaching Assistant | Systems Ecology | Fall 2011
Laboratory Instructor | Biology: Organisms & Populations | Spring 2012 & Spring 2011
Laboratory Instructor | Biology: Cells & Organisms | Fall 2010 & Fall 2009
Graduate Teaching Assistant | Ecology | Spring 2010
Guest Lectures
“Plants and Healing: Indigenous worlds and interspecies practices”, Religion, Psychology, and Modern Literature, University of San Francisco (November 2020)
“Kawsay Ñampi: Conservation of the Living Forest”, Amazonian Cultures and Conservation: Rebuilding Relations from the Ground Up, UC Santa Cruz (February 2020)
“Situated Knowledges & Plant Knowledges: Indigenous approaches and interspecies listening”, Political Ecology, UC Berkeley (November 2018)
“Environmental Ethics: Holding open questions in science, work, and life”, Top Ten Global Environmental Problems, UC Berkeley (April 2015, April 2016, April 2018)
“Plants, Healing, and Environmental Change”, Environmental Philosophy and Ethics, UC Berkeley (November 2017)
TRAININGS & CERTIFICATES
Wildland Firefighter Certification I | National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG) | 2022
Principles of Pedagogy | UC Merced | 2021
Summer Institute for Preparing Future Faculty | UC Berkeley | 2019
Graduate Student Inclusivity Training & Certificate Program | UC Berkeley | 2018
SERVICE & INVOLVEMENT
Academic and Departmental Service
University of Wisconsin-Platteville
UW-Platteville Sustainability Committee 2022
University of California, Merced
UAW Union Steward 2020 – 2021
Environmental Science, Policy, and Management | UC Berkeley
Space Coordinator, Society & Environment Division | 2018 – 2019
Faculty Liaison, Society & Environment Division | 2018 – 2019
Graduate Student Association | 2014 – 2019
Left Coast Political Ecology Network
Organizing Group | 2018 – 2019
Front Range Student Ecology Symposium | Colorado State University
Secretary of Organizing Committee | 2011 – 2012
Outreach and Advertising Committee Chair | 2010 – 2011
Outreach and Advertising Committee Member | 2009 – 2010
Nonprofit Volunteer Work
Piri Piri Threadworks | Collaboration with Shipibo Meken Artisans Collective
Co-Founder | 2016 –
Alianza Arkana | Pucallpa, Peru
Research Coordinator | 2017 – 2019
Affiliate Researcher | 2014 – 2019
ADDITIONAL SKILLS
Foreign Language
Professional Proficiency in Spanish. Basic Mandarin. Basic Shipibo
Ecological Modeling
Experienced with theoretical and Bayesian modeling in Matlab and R
Writing & Arts
Website design, technical writing and editing, photography, dance, herbalism, and creative writing
Laura Dev 