Christian J. Rivera (Ph.D. University of Florida; M.A. Columbia University; B.A. Princeton University). Rivera is an Environmental Teaching Fellow and Postdoctoral Research Associate in the High Meadows Environmental Institute and an affiliated scholar in the Department of Anthropology and Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.
His interdisciplinary research program draws on his training in ecology, evolution, and conservation biology and the conservation social sciences. Rivera’s work aims to advance theory and practice under three broad themes: human-wildlife relations and interactions, dynamics of social-ecological systems, and conservation science. He has over ten years of experience working on issues of endangered species conservation, wildlife hunting and trade, biocultural approaches to conservation, and ethnoprimatology in the U.S., Southeast Asia, and Latin America.
Rivera’s current research integrates approaches in anthropology and conservation biology to understand issues of wildlife utilization, consumption, and trade in human-dominated environments, notably in the urbanizing Amazon and New York City. His work applies social-ecological systems approaches towards the conservation of biological and biocultural diversity in a rapidly changing, interconnected, and urbanizing world. At Princeton he teaches courses on interdisciplinary conservation science (FRS 109: The Wildlife Trade; ENV/ANT/EEB 307: Systems Approaches to Conservation).