I am an associate professor of social science (environmental studies) at Yale-NUS College in Singapore. I hold a PhD in Environmental and Natural Resources Policy (2014) from the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF), with a concurrent Masters in Public Administration degree from the Maxwell School of Syracuse University.
As an interdisciplinary scholar, I employ diverse methodological approaches (ethnographic and quantitative) and draw from multiple disciplinary backgrounds including environmental sociology, political ecology, environmental and economic anthropology, STS, ecological economics, and more recently cultural studies. My broad research agenda explores the political economy and cultural politics of historical and contemporary food issues, particularly in the context of globalization, sustainable development, and climate change. The topical areas I have examined thus far include the green (“low-carbon) economy and its discontents, food security in development frontiers, contradictions of alternative food systems, politics of the urban food commons, history of food waste, and agrarian implications of agritourism, all in the context of Southeast Asia. More recently I am working on a project to examine food security, vulnerability and precarity in rural and urban communities impacted by climate change (extreme weather events) in the Philippines.
Yasmin, my partner, is currently assistant professor of sociology at the Singapore Management University. She holds a PhD in Sociology (2015) from Syracuse University, a masters degree in Human Development and Education from Harvard, and Psychology from the University of the Philippines. Her research is at the nexus of migration, labor and skills in Southeast Asia. We have two energetic toddlers who enjoy living in our residence on campus.
Marvin Montefrio 