Aaron Van Neste
Research Interests: Environmental history; fisheries science; science policy; history of ecology and environmental science; Ocean Studies; the history of natural history
Aaron Van Neste is broadly interested in relationships between humans and more-than-human environments, including fisheries, plantations, endangered species and biodiversity, wildlife trafficking, pollution and climate change, the roles of NGOs, corporations, scientists, managers, fishworkers, and indigenous communities. His dissertation will explore the origins and persistence of the concept of inexhaustibility in fisheries science and management in the global 19th and 20th century, and the division between ecology/restoration science and fisheries management. Prior to beginning his PhD, Aaron’s research interests have included visual representations of the prehistoric world (“paleo-art”); habitat mitigation requirements for state and federal water projects; railroad expansion and wetland reclamation; and parasitic trematode population distributions in the Equatorial Pacific.
Publications
“Fishy Understandings: Epistemic Conflict in the Debate Over MPAs.” Columbia History of Science Group (Friday Harbor Labs, WA, March 9, 2019).
Presentations
“Mechanization by Insect: Multi-species Ecologies in the Malaysian Plantationocene.” McGill-Glasgow International Conference on Forced Migration and Environment in the Indian Ocean World (Montreal, Canada, Dec. 6, 2018).
Previous Degrees
B.A., History of Science with Honors, Stanford University
M.S., Earth Systems, Stanford University