"Between the Black-Box and Open Community Participation: Spatial Planning Models for Evaluating Development and Conservation Paths (Cases in Mexico and Costa Rica)"

Biography:

Juan Carlos Vargas-Moreno is a Doctoral Research Fellow at Harvard’s Center for International Development and a doctoral candidate at Harvard's Graduate School of Design. He specializes in environmental planning with an emphasis on rapidly changing regions of developing countries. His research focuses on planning and analysis of spatially-explicit alternative futures scenarios for development and conservation by using computer modeling and principles of regional landscape planning to forecast land use and natural resources utilization. His doctoral research explores new approaches for bottom-up, community-based, scenario-driven planning as a mechanism to influence public policy and ensure sustainable livelihoods for communities in regions undergoing rapid conversion from rural to urban conditions. He has been a researcher for the Ministry of Environment and the National Park System of Costa Rica, the AVINA Foundation, and the Fundación Mexicana para la Educación Ambiental (FUNDEA). He is a recipient of Research Grants from the Ministry of Science and Technology of Costa Rica (2005) and the Harvard Design School (2004). He holds degrees in Architecture and Urban Design from University of Costa Rica and a master degree in Landscape Planning and Ecology from Harvard Design School.