Katherine Meier is a PhD Candidate in the combined Anthropology (biological) and Environmental Studies program at Yale. In this interdisciplinary program, she combines classic methods in primate field ecology with a range of social science frameworks and methods to holistically understand human-ape-environment relations at the Lac Télé Community Reserve in the Republic of Congo. Her research includes forest phenology, great ape (and elephant) dietary ecology, ethnographic interrogations of human-ape relations, and regional political histories from archival and ethnographic sources. Katherine’s research experience began in the world of primate field ecology as she carried out an independent study on lemur habituation in Northwestern Madagascar and then continued on to spend a year as a research assistant for a wild orangutan ecology study site in a peat-swamp-forest in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. These experiences led her to her current PhD program and current transdisciplinary research project, marrying her affinity for remote swamp-forest fieldwork and great ape ecology with an increasing interest in the roles of people and their histories in shaping socio-ecological landscapes. In her dissertation, Katherine focuses on the agency of seasonal flooding in co-producing socio-political and ecological ‘patchiness’ as well as the implications of these processes for future great ape conservation in the region. Broadly, she believes in holistically understanding places, the co-ecologies of their peoples and wildlife, and how conservation can be more effective globally, particularly for great apes and people.
