HMEI Welcomes Kevon Rhiney as 2023-2024 Barron Visiting Professor

Kevon Rhiney, Associate Professor of Geography, Rutgers University – New Brunswick, has been named the 2023-24 Currie C. and Thomas A. Barron Visiting Professor in the Environment and the Humanities in the High Meadows Environmental Institute (HMEI). His current research investigates the development and justice implications of global environmental change in the Caribbean, particularly the ways socio-ecological shocks (ranging from climate extremes, market volatilities to novel crop diseases) are unevenly experienced and negotiated by historically marginalized communities.

While at Princeton, Rhiney will teach two undergraduate courses; Neoliberal Natures: Society, Justice and Environmental Futures this fall 2023, and a seminar course focused on Climate, Race and Justice in spring 2024 and will organize a series of public-facing events that highlight the work of activists and experts working at the intersection of climate, natural disasters, and environmental justice.

“It’s an absolute privilege to be appointed as a Barron Visiting Professor.  I am so excited to be in community with such amazing scholars at Princeton who are doing innovative and impactful research in the environmental humanities”, Rhiney said. “I plan to use the opportunity to foreground my work and activism on the impacts of climate change on small island states and territories in the Caribbean.”

Rhiney’s work has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Annual Review of Environment and Resources (ARER), Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Geoforum, and World Development, and featured in print media, including the New York Times, Irish Times, and the National Post (Canada).

He is the editor for Geography Compass (Development Section) and serves on the international editorial boards for the Royal Geographical Society/Institute of British Geographers Wiley Book Series and the Political Geography Journal. He also served as a contributing author for the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5C.

His appointment in HMEI is made jointly with the Departments of Anthropology and African American Studies.