Dr. Keri Brondo is the Director of the International Studies Program and an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Memphis. Her research and teaching expertise are within international development, environmental anthropology, conservation voluntourism, and gender and social justice. Her work focuses on the relationships between rights to natural resources, conservation and development policy, and local livelihoods, particularly on Honduras' north coast and islands. She is a former Fulbright scholar and Title VI FLAS recipient, and is regularly called upon to provide expert testimony for amnesty cases and has served as amicus curie for the the Interamerican Commission on Human Rights on behalf of the afroindigenous Garifuna community.
Keri has over a 14 years of leadership experience within her discipline's largest professional association, the American Anthropological Association (AAA). She served as Chair of the AAA Committee on the Status of Women in Anthropology (COSWA), Chair of the AAA Committee on Practicing, Applied and Public Interest Anthropology (CoPAPIA), and currently serves on its Executive Board. She is author or editor of 3 books and over 60 articles, book chapters, agency reports, reviews and commentaries. Her books include Cultural Anthropology: Contemporary, Public, and Critical Readings (Oxford University Press, 2016), Land Grab: Green Neoliberalism, Gender, and Garifuna Resistance (University of Arizona Press, 2013), and Intersections of Faith and Development in Local Global Contexts (co-edited w/ T. Hefferan, Wiley-Blackwell, 2010). Her next book project, tentatively titled, For the Love of Swamper: Multispecies Entanglements in Honduras' Affect Economy, explores the relationship between conservation voluntourism, protected area management, and local livelihoods.
Keri completed her Ph.D. in Sociocultural Anthropology at Michigan State University with a Concentration in Culture, Resources, and Power (Department of Anthropology), a Graduate Certificate in Latin America and Caribbean Studies (Center for Latin America and Caribbean Studies), and a Graduate Specialization in International Development (Center for the Advanced Study of International Development). She earned her BA in Anthropology at the University of Delaware in 1997.