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Carly Sponarski

RELP Cohort: 2016
School: Education

Originally from a coast community in southwestern British Columbia, Carly is intrigued by and has respect for communities, resources, and social processes that shape the relationships between people and resources. Growing up in a coast town, witnessing a community and economy that depends upon primary and secondary resource extraction, instilled a captivation and commitment to understanding nature resource management issues. Over the years she has been a student, practitioner and researcher engaged in socio-ecological systems.

During her education, Carly has learned how to work with people from different disciplines (e.g., environmental and urban planners, designers, geographers and scientists). Through these experiences she grew to want to strengthen her understanding of human dimensions in conservation and natural resource management. Carly returned to school for her doctoral degree in the Department of Geography at Memorial University in St. Johns, Newfoundland. She has been influenced by academic, volunteer and personal experiences, which inspired her doctoral studies focus on enhancing and understanding human dimensions aspects of human-wildlife interactions through a case study examining human-coyote interactions. After completion of my degree, Carly wanted to further her social science research skills as a postdoctoral scholar in Dr. Nicole Ardoins Social Ecology Lab at Stanford. During my time at Stanford, she hopes to integrate her natural and social science background into the projects she is involved in as well as diversifying her background to include environmental education. Passion is at the heart of Carlys research. As her professional and personal identify evolve with time, she wants her research to make both theoretical and applied impacts.