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Program Coordinator
Amazon Dams Program
Center for Latin American Studies
381 Grinter Hall, PO Box 115530
Gainesville, FL, 32611-5530
Phone: (352) 273-4729
E-mail: simonea@ufl.edu
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Research Interests
Inter and transdisciplinarity, integrative science, environmental anthropology, indigenous knowledge systems, sustainability, collaborative management of social-ecological systems, collaborative research networks, social-ecological impacts of hydroelectric dams, and Amazonian conservation and development. Advancing theoretical and methodological approaches for inter and transdisciplinary research and production of knowledge between the biophysical and the social sciences, as well as between academy and society, to foster sustainable development.
Geographic Expertise
Amazonian region, Brazil, Latin America
Simone Athayde is an interdisciplinary ecologist and educator, and has carried out extensive educational and research activities in collaboration with Amazonian universities, NGO’s and indigenous organizations in Brazil. Currently, she is Coordinator and Co-Principal Investigator of the Amazon Dams Program, hosted in the Tropical Conservation and Development Program (TCD) in the Center for Latin American Studies, UF. With an interdisciplinary team of Brazilian and US researchers and graduate students, the Amazon Dams Program emerged from the Amazon Conservation Leadership Initiative (ACLI), and aims to develop an international collaborative network for integrative research on social-ecological effects caused by the implementation of hydroelectric power plants in three watersheds in the Brazilian Amazon. Simone is also a Research Associate in the Xingu Program of the Instituto Socioambiental (ISA), Brazil, and has carried out extensive ethnographic and participatory research among indigenous peoples in the Xingu Indigenous Park. She holds a Specialization in Environmental Education and two master degrees, in Botany (UFPR, Brazil) and in Ethnobotany (University of Kent, UK). In 2010, she earned her doctoral degree in Interdisciplinary Ecology from University of Florida, with concentration in Anthropology. She has earned awards from the TCD Program (2011 Schmink Award for Outstanding Dissertation in Conservation and Development), from the International Society of Ethnobiology, from the Ministry of Culture in Brazil, and from the Center for Entrepreneurship and innovation at UF.