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Kelly Kay joined UCLA Department of Geography in 2017, where she studies political economy and the geographies of nature and society, with a focus on land in North America. Her current projects investigate various issues, including the acquisition of softwood timberland by financial investors and its impacts on ownership changes within timber-dependent communities. She is also examining the transitions outlined in Los Angeles' Green New Deal plan in collaboration with Andrea Furnaro, and the struggles of Native Hawaiians to reclaim water rights following the end of plantation sugar production in Maui. Her work has been published in a variety of Geography and Environmental Studies journals, including Nature Climate Change, Progress in Human Geography, and Antipode. Kay's current book project, tentatively titled 'Landscapes of Finance: Time, Timber, and the Fate of Forest-Dependent Communities,' focuses on the changing experiences of rural life within timber-dependent communities amidst the rise of a new class of investor-owners managing timberland. This research uses ethnographic methods and archival data to document modern socio-ecological relationships in financialized timberland, providing a historical context from earlier timber company towns.
London School of Economics • London, UK
Worked in the Geography department focusing on environmental topics.
University of California, Berkeley • Berkeley, CA
Conducted postdoctoral research in Geography.
Department of Economics admits primarily for the PhD program.