Tracy
Van Holt
Assistant Professor
Department of Geography
Flanagan 250 Bldg.
East Carolina University
Greenville, NC 27858
Phone: (252) 737-2432
Fax: (252) 328-6054
Email:vannholtt@ecu.edu
Research
My research interests are human-environment interactions as they relate to natural resource use, the consequences of landscape and environmental change, climate change, conflict, and sustainable development. I work with communities and research questions in tropical and temperate ecosystems as well as wetland and coastal environments. My research integrates geospatially explicit remotely sensed data with social and environmental data to:
1) understand the social and ecological consequences of environmental change and
· Compare traditional vs. scientific knowledge and how individual etic measures and environmental factors influence knowledge. Explain expertise within cultural consensus models.
·
Understand the land-water interface--how landscape
change relates to ocean color and associated changes in nutrient flow, food
webs, species distribution, and ecosystem health.
Local and
Landscape Predictors of Fish-Assemblage Characteristics in the Great Swamp
2) identify how people adapt to succeed, organize, and resolve conflict in changing physical and policy environments.
An Exploratory Framework for the Empirical Measurement of Resilience
·
Examine trade-offs between knowledge, technology,
experience, and environment on fisher success and how closed- vs. open access
to resources mediates success.
·
How do knowledge, resources, individual actors,
organizations, and locations interact to influence the onset, persistence, and
emergence from conflict? Sudan conference
Methods
GIS, remote sensing (Landsat & SeaWiFS)
Ecological surveys: community ecology approaches, biodiversity, abundance/presence, stable isotopes, food web dynamics, population dynamics, behavioral ecology (animal movements)
Social data: content analysis, text analysis (automated and manual), social network analysis, consensus analysis, fuzzy set qualitative comparison analysis (fsQCA)
Statistics-general statistics, logit models, multivariate methods (cluster, discriminate analysis)
Teaching
I strive to provide students active based learning techniques through problem-based courses. I make topics relevant for student’s lives and offer multiple formats for students to communicate their knowledge. I am a visual learner and I try to demonstrate how students can visualize complicated concepts to simplify them.
Courses
· The Mocha Cappuccino. Ethical Markets in Latin America (UF, Latin American Studies) and Agricultural Geography (ECU, Geography Dept)
o Examines social, political, economic, and environmental aspects of coffee, chocolate, sugar, and milk production. We identified the issues that Fair Trade and corporate responsibility solved and the issues that are left unresolved.
· Text Analysis, at the NSF Summer Institute for Research Design in Cultural Anthropology
o Taught doctoral students text analysis methods and helped with NSF proposals.
· Geospatial Analysis for the NSF Short Courses in Research Methods in Cultural Anthropology.
o Taught anthropology professors across the US basic GIS/remote sensing and how
o integrate geospatial analysis into their research and teaching.
· Research Design at East Carolina University (ECU, Institute for Coastal Science and Policy)
o Teach geology, anthropology, and biology students research design. Students write NSF.
· Introductory Biology Laboratory (UF, Biology Dept.)
o Taught intro biology for undergrads.
· Maps & Graphs (UF, Geography Dept)
o Taught undergrad/grads about map making skills.
· Critical Thinking in Environmental Science
o Undergrad students learned how to read text critically (TA).