GWSN Member Highlight: Dara Wald

Dara Wald graduated with a PhD in Human Dimensions of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation from the University of Florida in December 2012.  Dara recently accepted a position as a postdoctoral scholar in the Center for Policy Informatics at Arizona State University.

Dara’s research has covered a wide range of social conflicts over environmental problems, including conflicts with Maasai ranchers over land tenure changes, discrepancies between various groups on how to protect and manage Florida open space, and conflicts regarding the management of outdoor cats. Dara uses a wide range of social science methods to explore how cognition, social interactions and the media influence environmental conflict.  At Arizona State University, Dara will continue this line of research and combine various techniques to explore how technology influences social interactions, organizations, communication and conflicts over natural resource use and policy.

Dara currently teaches an online course entitled, “Networking Women in Sustainability, Science and Action” at the University of Florida, which welcomes enrollment from students around the world. This course covered a range of topics, including culture and gender issues related to sustainability, the various disciplines that work to solve sustainability challenges, and women’s perspectives on participating in leadership, policy, globalization and research on sustainability. Discussions focused on science-based professions in and out of academia and the influence of socio-ecological sustainability on every aspect of life on earth.

Amid preparing for her new post-doc position, Dara will present a paper entitled, “A Multivariate Model of Stakeholder Conflict over the Lethal Management of Outdoor Cats” at the upcoming 2013 International Congress for Conservation Biology (ICCB) in Baltimore, MD.

To learn more about Dara’s research, visit her website at: http://daramwald.com/.

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