Bethani Turley, PhD student

bethani.turley@pdx.edu 

Bethani is a PhD student in geography interested in extractive industries, energy transitions, and rural geographies. Her research has focused on the critical geographies of unconventional and renewable energy transitions in Appalachia and the Western US. Prior to PSU, Bethani has also worked in urban farming, and folklore and traditional arts. 

Thien-Kim Bui, PhD student

Thien-Kim is interested in legal geographies of water resource management, and how resource management intersects with settler colonialism and racial capitalism. 

Elizabeth Bartholomew, Masters student

Liz is interested in critical physical geography and combining spatial analysis with qualitative methods to understand new landscapes of lithium mining in Oregon. 

Bryce Sprauer, Masters student

Stephanie Dyer, Masters student

Alumni

Jillian Farley, Geography MS degree, 2023

Jill is interested in water management, environmental justice, and environmental economics. She wants to investigate creative solutions for equitable access to natural resources. She is also interested in researching how to value and protect those resources beyond their benefit to humans.

Jillian Malone, Geography MS degree, 2023

Jillian is interested in geography education, sustainability, and transformative educational practices. She is using an emotional geography lens to study sustainability education.

Heather Day Melgar, Geography MS degree, 2023

Heather is interested in nature-based climate solutions for urban heat mitigation. She used qualitative research methods to study the use of nature-based climate solutions in Portland. 

Becky Anderson, Geography MS degree, 2022

Thesis: Efficiency in the Upper Deschutes Basin: Understanding the Hydrosocial Implications of Irrigation Canal Piping

Becky is interested in water resource management, including groundwater. She is studying relationships between irrigation efficiency, groundwater, and water manager perceptions of these issues from a critical physical geography perspective.  Becky is currently a researcher with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy's Babbit Center, examining water and land use in the Colorado River Basin. 

Krista Harrington, Geography MS degree, 2022

Thesis: "We've created cheap energy off the backs of salmon:" Dam Removal Politics and Alliances in the Lower Snake River Basin

Krista is interested in political ecology, water governance, and climate resilience. Specifically, her research focuses on dam removal perspectives surrounding fisheries management and tribal food sovereignty. As a geographer in the West, she has an affinity to lotic water systems and is dedicated to an equitable and collaborative management future on their behalf. Krista is currently pursuing a PhD at Oregon State University.

Noel Vineyard, Geography MS degree, 2021

Thesis: Rowing Concerns: Collaborative Governance and Stakeholder Determination in the Central Oregon's Deschutes Basin

Noel's research interests lie in the fields of political ecology, legal geography and the management of water and other natural resources. His most recent research project explored the relationships between collaborative natural resource governance and stakeholder formation in Central Oregon's Deschutes Basin. In his future work he is interested in the relationships between water systems and the mining industry in the state of Nevada. Noel is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Nevada, Reno.