Sara Diamond

Sara is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Geography and the Environment at the University of Texas at Austin. Her dissertation research examines natural resource use, governance, and gendered impacts of environmental policies in multi-use conservation areas in the Peruvian Amazon. She is broadly interested topics related to gender and natural resource use, natural resource governance, environmental policy, and environmental justice.

Sara has worked as a consultant for a variety of public and private conservation and policy institutions, most recently for the Wildlife Conservation Society—Peru, to examine natural resource use and livelihood needs at household and community levels in the Tamshiyacu Tahuayo Communal Reserve Area in northeastern Peru.  She has also worked with the Center for Biological Diversity, Amazon Watch, The Green Science Policy Institute, Women’s Earth Alliance, the Amazon Conservation Association (Peru), and the Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental de Amazônia (Brazil), among others. Her publications in both English and Spanish have focused on the complexities of social-ecological relationships in the context of development initiatives such as mining and dam building.

While at the University of Texas, Sara has been the recipient of a 9-month FLAS fellowship, a Tinker Summer Field Research Grant, the Donald D. Brand Pre-Dissertation Fellowship, among others, and she has twice won the Office of Graduate Studies Professional Development Award. Before joining the Geography Department, Sara earned her B.S. in Environmental Science at Antioch College, and a M.S in Entomology at the University of California at Davis.