Dean Hardy

Assistant Professor, School of Earth, Ocean and Environment and Department of Geography

PhD, Integrative Conservation and Geography, University of Georgia, 2016

As a geographer trained to work across ways of knowing socio-environmental challenges, my research investigates landscapes as socio-natural, drawing on environmental justice studies, political ecology, hazards geography, and critical race theory. I am currently working on three projects. My primary project broadly investigates how racialized uneven development affects land loss due to increasing flood risk and gentrification in coastal systems. This work has focused on Sapelo Island, GA to date, but will be expanding to Savannah, GA beginning summer 2022. A second project analyzes urban segregation as socio-ecological using watersheds as the defining boundaries in the greater Atlanta, GA metro region. And, a third project examines the environmental justice implications of the increasing shift from public to private land conservation in the United States focused primarily on the SC Lowcountry.