Monica V. Ogra

I'm a geographer with research interests in the environment, gender, international development, wildlife conservation, and qualitative field methods. My research in India has been on the gendered aspects of human-wildlife conflict, and the ways in which biodiversity conservation efforts intersect with rural livelihood issues around national parks. My theoretical interests include sustainable development, cultural and political ecology, feminist environmentalism, animal geographies, and institutional ethnography. My current research project, a cross-cultural study about conceptualizations of gender in the policies and practices of international conservation organizations, is funded by a Gettysburg College Research and Professional Development (RPD) Grant. Here at Gettysburg College, I teach courses including "Environmental Issues" (ES121), "Introduction to Geography" (ES 161), "World Regional Geography" (ES 162), "Environmental Science and Society" (ES 196), a first year seminar called "Women, Wildlife, and Water: Gender and the Global Environment" (FYS 148), and an upper-division seminar course, "Global Environment and Development" (ES 334). I also teach the Globalization Studies Capstone (GS 440). In coming years, I hope to be able to offer a new service-learning seminar course about the human-animal relationship, tentatively entitled "Animals and Society." I am a member of the Off-Campus Studies Committee, a supporting faculty member for the Women, Gender, and Sexualities Studies program, and serve on the Globalization Studies Advisory Committee (GSAC). In my spare time, I enjoy gardening, reading, cooking (and eating) Indian food, traveling, hiking, and snowshoeing with family and friends.