Dr. David Lopez-Carr, Associate Professor of Geography, University of California – Santa Barbara, and Director, Human-Environment Dynamics Lab. David is also a representative to the University of California Global Health Institute (UCGHI) and a steering member of the Univeristy of California’s Center of Expertise on Migration and Health (COEMH). His research revolves around population and environmental health and development.
David Lopez-Carr’s upbringing in rural northern New England ignited his curiosity for the field of geography. While receiving his undergraduate degree from Bates College, David quit football in search of an academic inspiration. It was at this point in his life that he determined the study of human-environmental relations to be his passion and received his BA in Spanish Literature with a minor in Geology. To pursue his academic passion, he earned a PhD in Geography from the University of North Carolina, Chapel-Hill. He strengthened his credentials by completing a fellowship in biostatistics from the Carolina Population Center.
David works on links among population, health, rural development, agriculture, and marine and forest resource use, with a geographic focus on Latin America, Africa, and Asia. He has co-authored over 100 conference papers and approximately 100 articles in the field. He has served as PI on grants from NASA, NIH, and NSF, enjoyed collaborations with the IHDP, USAID, WWF, TNC, CI, and the IPCC, and has authored publications on land use/cover change, protected areas, migration and fertility. Specific health-related projects include evaluation and planning integrated population, health, and environment programs in global priority conservation zones, working for Direct Relief International on mapping health-environment dynamics, and for the Obama administration’s $63 billion six-year Global Health Initiative. His university courses include Population Geography, Geography of Latin America, and Population, Development, and the Environment in the Developing World.
David may be contacted at carr@geog.ucsb.edu
His web site is http://geog.ucsb.edu/~carr/
Updated: November 2011
Health and Medical Geography 