Environmental & Ecological Anthropology
Professor of Environmental & Ecological Anthropology at San Diego State University. Chair, Department of Anthropology.
Research
My ongoing projects exploring the intersections of ecology, culture, and vulnerability across the Pacific.
Community-based Marine Resource Management
I am currently involved in an NSF project called TEMPO, which is a team of researchers, students, nonprofit organization staff, and community partners studying temporary ocean management, funded by the National Science Foundation. TEMPO stands for Temporal Eco-social Management and Productivity of Oceans.
Learn more →Sensing Disaster · Simbo Island
Fieldwork on Indigenous ecological knowledge, disaster vulnerability, and tsunami response among Simbo communities in the western Solomon Islands…
Learn more →Free-Dive Spearfishing Community
Documenting the history and current practices of San Diego’s free-dive spearfishing community, exploring local ecological knowledge and resource stewardship…
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Latest Publication · University of California Press
Local Knowledge and Vulnerability in Oceania
“Matthew Lauer critically examines many key concepts within Indigenous ecological knowledge and disaster research and demonstrates the problematic assumptions built into them.”
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Teaching at SDSU
