About me

I am an award-winning geographer taking a multi-disciplinary approach to understanding the world. My work includes scholarly research on resource management, journalistic investigations into transnational political networks, and professional reports on disinformation and the far right, spanning features in Fortune, CNN, and The Washington Post, as well as collaborations with Amnesty International, The New York Times Visual Investigations Team, and Forensic Architecture. Generally, I believe that the world is a complex place where ideas and material needs mix in messy ways that require immersive understandings of resources and information.

I received my Master’s in Philosophy, Aesthetics, and Critical Thought at the European Graduate School in 2016, and my Bachelor’s in International Studies at Trinity College (Hartford, CT). Through these experiences, I have developed ongoing studies in the comparative development of Russia/Eurasia and Latin America and the Caribbean as it pertains to revolutionary politics, populism, and natural resources. In 2020, I graduated from the Earth, Environment, Society program at Portland State University in 2020, receiving my PhD with a dissertation on collaborative water resource management and climate adaptation in Hood River, Oregon.

I edited an anthology on the political ecology of food and housing called Grabbing Back: Essays Against the Global Land Grab (2014), and wrote a book on the transnational far right called Against the Fascist Creep (2017). My articles on the far right have appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as the Oregon Historical Quarterly and Boundary 2 Online, while my articles on political ecology have been published in the Hydrological Sciences Journal and the Annals of the American Association of Geographers Review of Books. In 2022, the International Association of Hydrological Sciences awarded me the Tison Award for an article reviewing different approaches to human-water systems.

I have appeared as an expert on local network news affiliates, as well as featuring in such international sources as The NY Times, Washington Post, BBC World Service, Vice News, Aftenposten, CBC, Financial Times, Il Foglio, Al Jazeera, and others. Since 2016, I have taught classes at Portland State University’s Geography Department on globalization, water, food, sustainability, and climate change.

Here’s my Mastodon account

You can find me at @areidross on Twitter.