Karl Zimmerer

Karl Zimmerer is Professor of Environment and Society Geography and is in the Ecology and Rural Sociology programs. He directs the GeoSyntheSES lab. His research, teaching, and broader activities center on global food geographies. Karl focuses on the human-environment geography of biodiversity in land use and food systems (agrobiodiversity). He uses social and political ecology to address the transformations of urbanization, peri-urban expansion, climate change, migration, and socioeconomic transformations globally. Karl’s work advances theoretical and analytical models using case studies and community participation in diverse regions worldwide to strengthen sustainability and social justice.

Karl’s new work concentrates on the human-environment analysis of biodiversity in land use and food systems amid global change (ReVista: Harvard Review of Latin America 2024; Frontiers Sust. Food Systems 2022, J. Latin American Geography 2021, One Earth 2021, Nature Plants 2017), the knowledge-policy integration of environmental geography and interdisciplinary approaches (Ency. Human Geography 2022, Agrobiodiversity: Integrating Knowledge for Sustainability 2019), and inter-landscape spatial connectivities (Agricultural Systems 2022, Nature Food 2022, Frontiers Sust. Food Systems 2020). His interests interweave mobility and migration (Geoforum 2022; Food Security 2020, Land 2021, 2020, Anthropocene 2019, Ecology & Society 2013), COVID survival and seed-system strategies (SEPIA XX: Perú, El Problema Agrario en Debate 2024, Food Security 2020; Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene 2023), and diverse subaltern food spaces and biodiversity in relation to large-scale agriculture (Elementa 2024; Journal of Peasant Studies 2023; Annals AAG 2017, Landscape and Urban Planning 2015, Resilience: International Policies/Practices/Discourses 2015). Karl is the founding and chief editor of Urban Agriculture. This work is funded through national, international, and philanthropic-organization grants.

Karl teaches geography and interdisciplinary courses on global food geographies at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Karl has served in department and institute leadership at Penn State (2007-14) and at University of Wisconsin—Madison (2002-07), and he is active in wide-ranging national and international organizations and editorships. Karl has received honors from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Guggenheim, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Bellagio Center-Rockefeller Foundation, and he is the recipient of Penn State’s Medal for Outstanding Research in the Social Sciences as well as honorary awards from the Conference of Latin Americanist Geographers (Eminent Latin Americanist Geographer), American Geographical Society (Melamid Medal), and the specialty groups on Latin America, Biogeography, and Cultural and Political Ecology of the American Association of Geographers. On-line CV available here.