2025-26 AY PT Research Fellowship: Social-Ecological Trade-Offs in the Bolivian Amazon
The Stanford King Center on Global Development’s Academic Year Part-Time Research Fellowship Program connects King Center faculty affiliates and affiliated researchers with undergraduate students committed to providing research support during autumn, winter, and spring quarters.
Students have the opportunity to engage in world-class research that has real-world impact. Undergraduate student research fellows are paid $19/hour*. Students must be enrolled full-time to participate and must be able to commit to research 8-10 hours per week.
*Students must attend orientation and submit an I-9 form to verify employment and receive payment. Students who cannot accept pay may be allowed to receive academic credit for this research.
Research Project Description:
This research employs a case study approach in Eastern Bolivia to better understand the social-ecological factors (e.g., climate change, land succession, migration, globalization) that are impacting–and possibly restructuring–patterns of land use and land control in the Amazon Basin. Through semi-structured interviews with ranchers and geospatial analysis, this project aims to better understand how this understudied and diverse group of actors is making decisions about natural resource management and the implications of these decisions for the social-ecological future of the region.
Importantly, cattle ranchers are an overlooked group in the field of critical geography. Yet, these actors manage vast territories across the Amazon Basin and thus have potential to mobilize land use transformations with sweeping implications as they seek to respond to diverse social-ecological stressors, including climate change and land succession. As such, this project will examine the factors driving the intensification and expansion of commodity agricultural production in the Amazon Basin and how ranchers are responding to this trend. This work will provide key insights regarding social-ecological trade-offs in agricultural commodity frontiers to inform pathways (policies and programs) that galvanize and support sustainability transformations in mixed-use landscapes. The research fellow will assist with literature reviews as well as qualitative and quantitative data analyses related to this multi-year, multi-part study.
Primary Research Mentor: Nicole Ardoin, Associate Professor and Senior Fellow, Doerr - Social Science Division
Co-Research Mentor: Lily Colburn, PhD Student, Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (E-IPER)
Stanford undergraduate students in good academic standing and enrolled full-time are eligible to apply. Co-term students must have undergraduate student status; if co-terms are in graduate billing status (after 12 quarters) they are ineligible to participate.
All majors are welcome!
Students Responsibilities:
- Support the development of annotated bibliographies and a narrative literature review regarding land use and land change, land rent, culture, social-ecological systems and trade-offs, commodity frontiers, climate change, sustainable development, and ranching.
- Qualitative interview transcription and analysis
- Geospatial analysis of land use and land change in Eastern Bolivia
Students qualifications:
- Advanced Spanish language skills required (reading, writing, speaking)
- Experience conducting literature reviews desired, but not required
- Experience with qualitative research methods desired, but not required
- Intermediate-Advanced geospatial analysis skills desired, but not required (QGIS, ArcGIS, Google Earth Engine)
Time Commitment:
The time commitment is 8-10 hours per week (equivalent to a 3-unit course) each academic quarter. The expectation is that students will work the full academic year with their mentor (Autumn, Winter, and Spring quarters). Students planning on studying abroad are not eligible.
To Apply:
Along with the application, applicants are asked to submit:
- a cover letter
- resume or CV
- unofficial Stanford transcript (first quarter frosh do not need to submit transcripts for autumn quarter applications)
Research Mentor Questions for Applicants:
- Please provide a detailed description of your Spanish language skills.
- Please provide a detailed description of your geospatial analysis experience.
- What are three goals you have regarding your participation in this project?
