Visiting Professor
Environmental studies and geography

kpratt@macalester.edu

Curriculum Vitae

Katie Pratt is a Minneapolis native and passionate explorer of all things geographic. Her area of concentration is nature-society interactions and environmental politics, especially in relation to forest conservation. Regionally she specializes in Latin America and she has spent time living in Ecuador, Chile, and Costa Rica.

In her current research, Katie has been studying the everyday politics of community-based forest conservation in southern Chile. She is interested how grassroots conservation efforts take shape around the material interactions of people, things, and environments. Her goal is to help practitioners close the gap between abstract ideas of how conservation should work and the unspoken practical knowledge that often determines project success.

Katie’s research interests have been deeply shaped by her love of playing outdoors. When not teaching or working on research, Katie spends her time biking, cross-country skiing, paddling, and hiking. She has been involved in outdoor education for over a decade and she continues to lead Outward Bound trips in the wilderness areas of northern Minnesota. Bringing the classroom to the field and the field to the classroom is one of the challenges she enjoys most in teaching.

The following clip regarding Katie's Environmental Politics and Policy course, appears on MN2020's website:

Courses

GEOGRAPHY

• GEOG 111: Human Geography of Global Issues
• GEOG 248: Political Geography
• GEOG 249: Regional Geography of Latin America
• GEOG 294: Urban Ecology: Communities, Politics and Sustainability (same as ENVI 294)

ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES

• ENVI 215: Environmental Politics and Policy