Kate Beach

Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies

Dr. Kate Beach is a health and population geographer whose research explores socio-ecological systems, with a focus on the relationships between human wellbeing and environmental change. She examines how land use and land cover change (including forest degradation, urbanization, and agricultural in-/extensification) and a changing climate (shifts in meteorological patterns, increasing frequency and intensity of extreme temperatures, and natural hazards) act as both a cause and consequence of human population dynamics, energy transitions, and environmental health outcomes.

Current projects fall under two broad areas. The first examines the connections between energy, land, and demographic transitions in Southern and Eastern Africa, including her work identifying and characterizing the “woodfuel energy transition" (the widespread shift from firewood to charcoal) and its ties to deforestation, informal economies, and shifting household demographics. The second focuses on the spatial dimensions of diseases, including cancer and vector-borne illnesses. She examines how underlying population and environmental structures shape the geography of diseases like stomach cancer and COVID-19. Additionally, she uses spatiotemporal modeling techniques to measure how the incidence of diseases transmitted by vectors, such as dengue, are impacted by a changing climate. A central thread throughout her work is an emphasis on how socioeconomically vulnerable populations are disproportionately affected by these relationships. Her research is place-based: research questions are informed by direct observation in the field and by long-standing collaborations with local partners working to address issues of urgent relevance to affected communities.

Methodologically, Dr. Beach draws on computational approaches, including geospatial analysis and GIS, spatial statistics and econometrics, and survey design and analysis, to integrate environmental, social, and public health data. In the classroom, she enjoys teaching how to thoughtfully and responsibly integrate data to measure human-environment relationships. Students interested in Dr. Beach’s work are encouraged to reach out to get involved.

Before joining Bowdoin's Environmental Studies Program, she completed a Bell Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. She earned a BA in Geography and a BS in Environmental Planning and Design from Rutgers University, and a PhD in Geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she completed a Carolina Population Center Pre-doctoral Traineeship.

Education

PhD, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill
BA, Rutgers University