Ria Mukerji

University of New Mexico

Ria Mukerji is a PhD student in the department of geography at the University of New Mexico (UNM). She received her bachelors in environmental studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz and her masters in geography from the department of geography and anthropology at Louisiana State University (LSU) (Geaux Tigers!). 

Mukerji’s work focuses on the political ecology of hazards. At LSU she focused on the paradoxes between safe vs. economic development when it comes to floodplain management, focusing on the devastating floods of 2016 in Louisiana. At UNM she is working on a comparative study between headwater dependent mountain river systems in northern New Mexico and Latin America. She is interested in the intersection of risk and hazard perception and indigeneity.