Rinku Roy Chowdhury, Ph.D.
Professor of Geography
Graduate School of Geography
Clark University
Worcester, MA 01610-1477
Office: Jefferson 201B
Email: rroychowdhury@clarku.edu
Phone: (508) 421-3828
Rinku Roy Chowdhury completed her bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Environmental Science at Wellesley College, a master's degree in Conservation Ecology and Sustainable Development at the University of Georgia, and a Ph.D. in Geography at Clark University. Before returning to Clark in 2015, she taught geography at Indiana University at Bloomington and co-directed the Anthropological Center for Training and Research on Global Environmental Change (ACT). Prior to that she was a faculty member in the University of Miami’s Department of Geography and International Studies and the Abess Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy.
Current Research
Roy Chowdhury's research focuses on the institutional, ecological and spatial diversity of human-environment interactions in forest-agricultural mosaics (Mexico), urbanizing ecosystems (multiple sites in the U.S.), and coastal mangrove vulnerability to anthropogenic and climate change (the Americas and South Asia). She is particularly interested in linking theoretical, methodological and field-based approaches from the social and ecological sciences to understand smallholder land and agribiodiversity management, how institutional structures and local agency interact to shape landscapes, and the evolution of adaptive strategies in the face of climate and political-economic change. She is active in the U.S. Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) network (primarily affiliated with the Florida-Coastal Everglades and Baltimore Ecosystem Study sites) and as a member of the Global Land Project's scientific steering committee.
Courses Offered
GEOG 106: FYI Water & the City
GEOG 141: REsearch Design & Methods in Geography
GEOG 259/359: Global Change, Food & Farming
GEOG 286/380: Urban Ecology
Recent Publications
Ryan, C. D., Groffman, P. M., Grove, J. M., Hall, S. J., Heffernan, J. B., Hobbie, S. E., . . . Trammell, T. L. E. (2022). Ecological homogenization of soil properties in the american residential macrosystem. Ecosphere, 13(9) doi:10.1002/ecs2.4208
Meyfroidt, P., de Bremond, A., Ryan, C. M., Archer, E., Aspinall, R., Chhabra, A., . . . zu Ermgassen, E. K. H. J. (2022). Ten facts about land systems for sustainability. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 119(7) doi:10.1073/pnas.2109217118
Larson, K. L., Andrade, R., Nelson, K. C., Wheeler, M. M., Engebreston, J. M., Hall, S. J., Avolio, M. L., Groffman, P. M., Grove, M., Heffernan, J. B., Hobbie, S. E., Lerman, S. B., Locke, D. H., Neill, C., Chowdhury, R. R., & Trammell, T. L. E. (2020). Municipal regulation of residential landscapes across US cities: Patterns and implications for landscape sustainability. Journal of Environmental Management, 275, 111132. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2020.111132