Research Advisory Board
The role of the Research Advisory Board is to provide an independent source of advice, guidance, and expertise to the INFRACURSIONS project.
The board exists to:
- Provide critical insight and feedback on research design, methods, and interpretation
- Ensure alignment with community priorities and values
- Foster accountability, transparency, and reflexivity throughout the research process
- Support capacity building and knowledge exchange
- Help to envision and plan outputs and events
Research Advisory Board Members
Dr. Daniel Larrea Alcázar
Dr Larrea Alcázar is the Director of the Science and Technology Programme at Conservación Amazónica-ACEAA, Associate Researcher at the National Herbarium of Bolivia, Editor-in-Chief of the journal “Ecology in Bolivia” and Member of the Science Panel for the Amazon (SPA, https://www.sp-amazon.org/).
Professor Matthew Brown
Professor Brown is based in the Department of Hispanic, Portuguese and Latin American Studies at the University of Bristol. He trained as a historian and works across the fields of language and cultures. The central thread to his research has been the place of play in society, and the way in which embodied practice are used to legitimate or resist power. He is Chair of the University of Bristol’s Ethics of Research Committee. See Matthew’s profile
Professor Marjo de Theije
Professor de Theije is based in the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She researches resource extraction’s cultural, social, economic, and environmental aspects, and has published extensively on small-scale gold mining in the Amazon region, especially in Brazil and the Guianas. See Marjo’s profile
Professor Susanna Hecht
Professor Hecht is a geographer based in the School of Public Affairs and Urban Planning at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She is a specialist on tropical development in Latin America, especially the Amazon Basin and Central America. Her research focuses on the political economies of development ranging from corporate frontiers of cattle and export commodity agriculture (like soy, oil palm) to populist land occupation. See Susanna’s profile
Professor Mette High
Professor High is an Anthropologist at the University of St Andrews and Founding Director of the Centre for Energy Ethics. Her research explores questions of ethics and economic life in Mongolia and the United States. Underlying all her research is a keen and ongoing desire to understand how global economic processes intersect with intimate moral views. Professor High is also director of the SFC-funded Alliance, a cross-sector catalyst for collaborative research to help bring about an equitable transition to a net zero future for Scotland. See Mette’s profile
Professor Claudia Leal
Professor Leal is based in the Department of History and Geography at Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. She co-edited A Living Past, which presents a general view of Latin American environmental history in the last two centuries, is author of Landscapes of Freedom, a book that explores how the environment shaped the building of freedom after emancipation, and is currently finishing a book on the history of national parks in Colombia. See Claudia’s profile