Nov. 11, 2025 GES Colloquium
Navigating a socio-ecological inquiry
Scientific inquiry into the socio-ecological challenges of forced displacement, environmental degradation, and shifting land use requires an interdisciplinary and multi-scalar approach. This research examines the interplay between local ecological knowledge, environmental pressures, human migration, and the broader global economic and political systems that shape these processes.
What comes to mind when you think of Costa Rica? Volcanoes, toucans, and turquoise rivers?
My journey as an avian ecologist working in Costa Rica brought me to a complex dynamic between the natural beauty of the country and the xenophobia towards people from Nicaragua. Listening and learning from first and second-generation Nicaraguan immigrants living in Costa Rica has shaped my doctoral research. My research explores how displaced Nicaraguan migrants and Costa Ricans know their natural surroundings and how they build a relationship with the land through everyday practices. This inquiry has pushed me beyond the boundaries of traditional ecological research, requiring an interdisciplinary lens and an openness to multiple ways of knowing. It has also allowed me to articulate the importance of engaging with the philosophy of science to question how we produce knowledge, whose knowledge counts, and how scientific practice can evolve to be more inclusive and reflexive.
Susana Mateos
Graduate student at North Carolina State University | Profile
Susana grounds her work in community engagement and collaborative learning. She has worked with the Antioch University New England’s community engagement team since 2020, where they have engaged with over 200 environmental leaders through the North American Association of Environmental Education community. Susana is a PhD student in the Forestry and Environmental Resources department. In addition to her current formal education, she works on a collaborative project with the California State University Desert Studies Center and Bureau of Land Management, to engage off-highway vehicle users, land managers, and tribes across the Mojave Desert. Trained as an ecologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, she has been involved in avian conservation projects in southern California and Costa Rica. Her bird conservation path brought her to learning from the communities that live among the biodiversity she loves. While studying manakins at Parque Nacional Volcán Tenorio, she began engaging with a rural Costa Rican community, learning about their connections to the natural environment as first and second-generation migrants from Nicaragua. Using political ecology and ethnoecology as theoretical frameworks, she seeks to understand the complex socio-ecological dynamics (power relations, resource distribution and environmental justice) within the community.
__ Recorded from NC State’s GES Colloquium, this podcast examines how biotechnologies take shape in the world: microbiome engineering in built environments, gene editing and gene drives, forest and agricultural genomics, data governance and equity, risk and regulation, sci-art, and public engagement in practice.
Genetic Engineering and Society Center
Colloquium Home | Zoom Registration | Watch Colloquium Videos | LinkedIn | Newsletter
GES Center at NC State University—Integrating scientific knowledge & diverse public values in shaping the futures of biotechnology.
Produced by Patti Mulligan, Communications Director, GES Center, NC State
Find out more at https://ges-center-lectures-ncsu.pinecast.co
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