| Back to Institute 2000 Home Page | Back to Home Page | Short Biographies of Institute 2000 Leaders Dr. Charles Wood (social sciences) Dr. Michael Binford (natural sciences)       Research Interests Selected Publications Contact Information           Research Interests Selected Publications Contact Information      Dr. Charles Wood Dr. Charles Wood is Director of the Center for Latin American Studies and Professor in the Department of Sociology of the University of Florida (Gainesville, FL, USA). He received his Ph.D. (Sociology, demography) in 1975 from the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Wood speaks fluent English, Spanish and Portuguese. Research Interests Dr. Wood's areas of specialization include Latin American Studies, population and the environment, demography, sociology of development, and the comparative study of race and ethnicity. His current research focuses on determinants of deforestation in the Amazon, property rights and resource use among small farmers, cattle ranching and deforestation in Brazil, Peru and Ecuador, the demography of unequal development in Brazil, and the analysis of census data and racial identity in Brazil. Dr. Wood is principal investigator of a project funded by the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI) focusing on cattle ranching and land use in Brazil, Peru and Ecuador. Selected Publications Charles H. Wood and Roberto Porro (eds.), Land Use and Deforestation in the Amazon (in review). Bryan Roberts, Robert Cushing, and Charles H. Wood (eds.). 1995. The Sociology of Development. Volume I, Volume II. London: Edward Elgar. Charles H. Wood and Robert Walker. "Tenure security and resource use among small farmers in the Amazon" (in review). Charles H. Wood and David Skole. 1998. "Linking satellite, census and survey data to study deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon." Pp. 70-93 in D. Liverman, E. Moran, R. Rindfuss and P. Stern (eds.), People and Pixels: Linking Remote Sensing and Social Science. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Charles H. Wood and Stephen Perz. "Population and land use in the Brazilian Amazon." Pp. 95-108 in Sir Shridath Ramphal and Steven Sinding (eds.), Population Growth and Environmental Issues. Greenwood: Westport, CT. Additional Information A full curriculum vitae for Dr. Wood is available in PDF format. More information about the University of Florida's Center for Latin American Studies can be found at http://www.latam.ufl.edu. Contact Information Center for Latin American Studies University of Florida 319 Grinter Hall PO Box 32611-5530 Telephone: 352.392.0375 Fax: 352.392.7682 e-mal: cwood@latam.ufl.edu      Dr. Michael Binford Dr. Michael Binford is Professor of Geography at the University of Florida (Gainesville, Florida, USA). He currently teaches courses on physical geography, remote sensing, geographic information systems, and land use/land cover change. He received an MS in Fishery Biology and Experimental Statistics from Louisiana State University, and a Ph.D. in Zoology (Limnology) and Geology (Geomorphology) from Indiana University (1980). Research Interests Dr. Michael Binford is a physical geographer specializing in the study of environmental systems, or human-environment interactions. He has published papers on the effects of climate variability on cultural rise and collapse, agroecosystem bases for sustainable agriculture, environmental systems as a basis for landscape planning and ecological restoration, and technical aspects of measuring lake sedimentation rates. The research requires spatial approaches, and uses Geographic Information Systems and Remote Sensing techniques extensively. The work also involves collaboration with anthropologists, archaeologists, geologists, economists, and planners. Recent NSF and NOAA-funded research investigated the long-term (3500 years) environmental history of the Tiwanaku civilization, hydrological control of Lake Titicaca and landuse in its drainage basin on the border between Bolivia and Peru, and biogeochemical processes that led to 600+ years of raised-field agriculture. Dr. Binford is co-principal investigator in the project "Landuse and Land-Cover Change: Decadal-Scale Dynamics of Land Ownership, and Carbon Storage Patterns in the Southeastern Lower Coastal Plain Region of the US", supported by the Land Use/Land Cover Change Program of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Office of Earth Science. Selected Publications Hill, K, and M.W. Binford. In press. The role of category definition in habitat models: practical and logical limitations of using Boolean, indexed, probabilistic and fuzzy categories. Chapter 1I in J.M. Scott, J. M., P. J. Heglund, F. Samson, J. Haufler, M. Morrison, M. Raphael, B. Wall (eds.). Predicting Species Occurrences: Issues of Scale and Accuracy. Kolata, A.L., Michael W. Binford, Mark Brenner, John W. Janusek and Charles Ortloff. In press. Environmental thresholds and the empirical reality of state collapse: a response to Erickson. Antiquity. Biesboer, D.D., M.W. Binford and A.L. Kolata. 1999. Nitrogen Fixation in Soils and Canals of Rehabilitated Raised-Fields of the Bolivian Altiplano. Biotropica 31:255-267. Binford, M.W., A.L. Kolata, M. Brenner, J. Janusek, M.T. Seddon, M. B. Abbott, and J. Curtis. 1997. Climate variation and the rise and fall of an Andean civilization. Quaternary Research 47:235-248. Steinitz, C., M.W. Binford, P. Cote, T. Edwards, Jr., S.Ervin, R.T.T. Forman, C. Johnson, R. Kiester, D. Mouat, D. Olson, A. Shearer, R. Toth, D. White, and R. Wills. 1996. Biodiversity and Landscape Planning: Alternative Futures for the Region of Camp Pendleton, California. Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Binford, M.W. and A. Kolata. 1996. The Natural and Cultural Setting. Ch. 2 in A. Kolata, (ed.) Tiwanaku and its Hinterland: Archaeological and Paleoecological Investigations in the Lake Titicaca Basin of Bolivia. Smithsonian Institution Press. Washington, D.C.  Binford, M.W., M. Brenner and B.W. Leyden. 1996. Paleoecology and Tiwanaku Agroecosystems. Ch. 4 in A. Kolata, (ed.) Tiwanaku and its Hinterland: Archaeological and Paleoecological Investigations in the Lake Titicaca Basin of Bolivia. Smithsonian Institution Press. Washington, D.C. Additional Information A full curriculum vitae for Dr. Binford is available in PDF format. More information about Dr. Binford and his activities can be found at http://www.geog.ufl.edu/faculty/michael_binford.html. Information on courses taught by Dr, Binford is available at http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/mbinford/. Contact Information Department of Geography University of Florida 3141 Turlington Hall PO Box 117315 Telephone: 352.392.0434 Fax: 352.392.8855 e-mal: mbinford@geog.ufl.edu | Top of Page | Back to Institute 2000 Home Page | Back to Home Page |