Farmer Cognitive Function and Agricultural Productivity Among Farmers in Bahia, Brazil

Leah VanWey, Professor of Environment and Society and Sociology, Brown University

Leah VanWey is a social demographer and environmental social scientist. She currently has two lines of research. One line studies population change, socioeconomic development, and environmental change associated with the expansion of mechanized agriculture in Brazil. The second is examining household responses to a payment for reforestation program in the Atlantic Forest in Brazil, together with the social and environmental impacts of the program. She is committed to interdisciplinary research, and has worked with anthropologists, geographers, demographers, sociologists, urban planners, historians, geoscientists and ecologists at various times. At Brown, Professor VanWey has served as Senior Deputy Director of the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society and Associate Director of the Population Studies and Training Center. She currently serves as Associate Provost for Academic Space. She received her PhD from the University of North Carolina, where she was a trainee in the Carolina Population Center, and has previously taught at Indiana University