Name: Karina Yager

Affiliation: Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY

Contact details: Karina.yager@stonybrook.edu

Statement of interest: Dr. Yager’s research is focused on the social and ecological impacts of climate change in the Andes of South America. Her interdisciplinary research examines land use and land cover change (LCLUC), utilizing remote sensing, alpine vegetation studies, peatland studies, ecosystem change, and ethnographic fieldwork with indigenous pastoralists. Yager’s current projects are focused on the impact of disappearing tropical glaciers on pastoral agriculture, and deciphering climate and societal drivers of LCLUC in the Andes. She has been part of the GLORIA (Global Observation Research Initiative in Alpine Environments) network in South America for over a decade. Her doctoral degree is in Anthropology from Yale University; she did her in postdoctoral research at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and is currently Assistant Professor  in Sustainability Studies in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University, New York.

Geographical/topical area of interest: Andes of South America, Bolivia, Chile, Peru