Dr. Wendy Jepson

Research

I am a broadly trained geographer interested in human-environmental interaction.  My current theoretical interests address political ecology, environmental governance, technology-society interaction, and communities with particular focus on environmental justice and water resources. 

Past research documented and explained the complex economic and political processes that caused agricultural expansion and land-cover change in the Brazilian Cerrado, the world's most biodiverse tropical savanna. I also have studied the rise of new energy systems and local communities in West Texas.  My current research examines the complex political, economic and social production of environmental inequities in low-income rural and peri-urban Mexican-American neighborhoods (colonias) in the Lower Rio Grande Valley along the Texas-Mexico border.  In this region, the country’s poorest communities face ad-hoc water delivery and inadequate potable water, which threaten environmental well-being and erodes prospects for a healthy life.  I was awarded a research grant from the National Science Foundation to support this line of inquiry, and along with archival research, I am in the early stages of writing a monograph entitled A Poverty of Water on the Lower Rio Grande.

Grants (Since 2008)

• National Science Foundation, "Household water security in low income, rural and peri-urban communities in south Texas" (#0924232, Geography and Spatial Science, 9/2009-2/2013)
• Wind Energy Initiative, "Socio-economic impacts of wind energy," subcontract with NextEra Energy Resources/TCU, with Christian Brannstrom (TAMU), 1/09-12/11
• Glasscock Stipendiary Fellowship, "On the Poverty of Water: Discourses of Water Scarcity and Poverty in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, Texas," Glasscock Center for Humanities Research, Texas A&M University, 9/2008-9/2009

Selected Publications (Since 2005)

• Jepson, W., C. Brannstrom, and N. Persons (2012) "'We don't take the pledge': Environmentality and environmental skepticism in the epicenter of US wind energy development"   Geoforum, forthcoming issue
• Jepson, W. (2012) "Claiming water, claiming space: Contested legal geographies of water in south Texas"  Annals of the Association of American Geographers, forthcoming issue
• Brannstrom, C., Wendy Jepson, and Nicole Persons. (2011) “Social Perspectives of Wind-Energy Development in West Texas” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 101(4):839-851.
• Jepson, W., Brannstrom, C., Filippi, A. (2010). Access Regimes and Regional Land Change in the Brazilian Cerrado, 1972-2002.  Annals of the Association of American Geographers 100(1): 87-111.
• Millington, A., and Jepson, W., eds. (2008). Land Change Science in the Tropics Boston. Springer Publications.
• Jepson, W. and A. Millington, (2008) The Changing Countryside. In Millington, A. and Jepson, W. (eds.), Land Change Science in the Tropics. Springer Publications, Boston
• Jepson, W., Brown, J.C., and Koeppe, M. (2008). Agricultural Intensification on Brazil’s Soybean Frontier in Southern Rondônia. In Millington, A. and Jepson, W. (eds.), Land Change Science in the Tropics. Springer Publications, Boston.
• Jepson, W., Brannstrom, C., and Stancato, R. (2008). Brazilian Biotechnology Governance: Consensus and Conflict over Genetically Modified Crops. In Otero, G. (ed.), Food for the Few: Neoliberal Globalism and Biotechnology in Latin America. University of Texas Press, Austin, pp. 217-242.
• Brannstrom, C., Jepson, W., Filippi, A., Xu, X., and Redo, D. (2008). Land Change in the Brazilian Savanna (Cerrado), 1986-2002: Comparative Analysis and Implications for Land-Use Policy. Land Use Policy 25(4): 455-608
  
• Brown, J. C., Jepson, W.,  Lomas, J.,  Kastens, J., and Price, K. 2007. Multi-temporal, moderate spatial resolution remote sensing of modern agricultural production and land modification in the Brazilian Amazon. GIScience and Remote Sensing, 44(2):117-148.
• Jepson, W. 2006. Private Agricultural Colonization on a Brazilian Frontier, 1970-1980. Journal of Historical Geography, 32(4):839-863.
• Jepson, W. 2006. Producing a Modern Agricultural Frontier: Firms and Cooperatives in Eastern Mato Grosso, Brazil. Economic Geography, 82(3):289-316.
• Jepson, W. 2005. Spaces of Labor Activism, Mexican American Women and the Farm Worker Movement in Texas’s Lower Rio Grande Valley. Antipode, 37(4):679-702.
• Jepson, W., Brannstrom, C., and Stancato, R. 2005. A Case of Contested Ecological Modernization: Governance of Genetically Modified Crops in Brazil. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 23:295-310.
• Jepson, W. 2005. A Disappearing Biome? Reconsidering Land-Cover Change in the Brazilian Savanna. The Geographical Journal, 171(2):99-111.

Students

Current Students

• Abhineety Goel, Doctoral Candidate (Geography), Chair
  Doctoral Dissertation: "Institutional Change and Resource Security in the Omkareshwar National Park Complex, India"

• Audrey Joslin, Ph.D. Candidate (Geography; ABS-IGERT), Chair
  Doctoral Dissertation: "Labor and Territory in Environmental Governance Regimes for Biodiversity Conservation in Ecuador's Paramo"

• Heather Lee, Ph.D. Student, (Geography), Chair
  Doctoral Dissertation Project: Groundwater Governance in Central Mexico

• Swetha Peteru, Ph.D. Student (Geography), Chair
  Doctoral Dissertation Project: Forest Transition and Landscape Genetics on Latin America

I also serve as a committee member for several students, including Craig Hutton (Ph.D. Geography), Paulami Banerjee (Ph.D. Geography), Kristian Seguin (Ph.D. Geography), Fiona Wilmot (Ph.D. Geography), David Toledo (Ph.D. Ecosystem Science and Management); Margot Wood (Ph.D. Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences); Michael Treglia (Ph.D. Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences).

Recent Graduates

• Nicole Persons, M.S. (Geography, 2010; Wind Project), Committee Member
• Danny Redo, Ph.D. (Geography, 2010), Committee Member
• Rajanesh  Kakumani, M.S. (Urban Planning), Committee Member
• Sunny Lim, M.S. (History), Committee Member
• Chelsea Hanchett, B.S (Geosciences), Senior Thesis
• Anna Nordfeldt, M.S. Student (Geography), Committee Member

Recently Taught Courses

• GEOG 201 - Introduction to Human Geography
• GEOG 430 - Environmental Justice (Writing Course)
• GEOG 620 - Land-use and Land-cover Change
• GEOG 622 - Environment and Society on the US-Mexico Border
• GEOG 689 - Applied Biodiversity Science II (with W. Heyman)

Affiliations and Service

• Faculty Advisor, TAMU Baha'i Club
• Chair, Genomics and Society Working Group, Whole Systems Genomics Initiative, Texas A&M University
• ALIGNED Board Member, AAG project on increasing diversity in the Geosciences
• Fellow, Mexican-American and US Latino Research Center, Texas A&M University
• Editorial Board Member, GeoJournal