Colin West

Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Anthropology

CPC Office: 208-G CPC East
CPC Phone Number: (919) 962-4516

Campus Office:
Campus Phone Number:

Colin West is an ecological anthropologist in the Anthropology Department. His work focuses on the human ecology of global environmental change. He is interested in how individuals, households, and communities adapt to challenges posed by global environmental and socioeconomic change in semi-arid regions of the world. Current and past projects document adaptations among natural resource-based livelihoods such as subsistence farmers, agro-pastoralists, fishers, commercial ranchers, and commercial farmers. His work combines ethnographic, statistical, GIS, and agent-based modeling (ABM) techniques. This mixed-method approach allows him to understand how demographic dynamics of households interact with larger drivers such as climate change, policy measures, and population trends. His fieldwork focuses primarily on the West African Sahel but he has ongoing projects in Western Alaska and the Southwest United States.

Information updated on 7/23/2012