Joel Correia is an assistant professor of Human Dimensions of Natural Resources and co-director of the Just Social-Ecological Transitions Program. He is a human-environment geographer examining environmental and climate justice alongside the social science of conservation, particularly focused on South America’s largest forests – the Amazon and the Gran Chaco – and the impact of development on Indigenous and local communities.

His book, “Disrupting the Patrón: Indigenous Land Rights and the Fight for Environmental Justice in Paraguay’s Chaco,” dives into the realities of the region’s ranching industry and deforestation, Indigenous legal struggles to reclaim land and their efforts to rebuild territorial relations. His other published research advances transdisciplinary approaches to the social impacts of climate change, outcomes of land restitution, biocultural approaches to conservation and infrastructure development.

Correia earned his B.A. at Humboldt State University, his M.A. in Latin American studies at the University of Arizona and his Ph.D. in geography at the University of Colorado Boulder.