Willamette University

Environmental and Earth Sciences

Kimberlee Chambers

Kimberlee Chambers

Education

  • Ph.D. in Geography, University of California, Davis
  • M.Sc. in Geography/Environmental Studies, University of Victoria, BC
  • B.A. (Honours) in Geography, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario

Courses

Introduction to Environmental Science
World Geography
Latin American Cultures
Landscapes and Cultures of South and Middle America
Senior Seminar

Research Interests

Dr. Chambers is currently involved with two new interdisciplinary research program:

  • Management and ecological impacts of chiltepin harvesting in Sonora,Mexico
  • Sustainable Agricture of the Willamette Valley. The purpose of this research is to build connections for Willamette students to work on sustainable agriculture projects in the Willamette Valley and Portland area, and to develop valuable connections for the Willamette community as a whole.

2009 Science Collaborative Research Program (SCRP) Project

The local food movement is increasingly gaining attention as an alternative to industrial agriculture that is beneficial in terms of personal health, reducing personal carbon footprints and sustaining small scale farmers and rural communities. This research will use the interdisciplinary tools, methodologies, and theoretical approaches of Environmental Science to quantify how the term ‘local' is being defined and measured in the commercial food market, drawing on the greater Portland and Willamette Valley area as a case study. Our goal is to assess how local is being measured and to compare this to the local food movement's goals of sustainability. Specifically we will use quantitative and qualitative methods to address the following questions: What is local? How is it being defined? Who is using local to market their foods? What is the geographic area of local? Our ultimate goal is to map out common distances for the market of local foods and to critique these in terms of sustainablity (economic, ecological and social).

Publications

Chambers, Kimberlee J., Steve B. Brush, Mark Grote and Paul Gepts. 2007. Describing Maize (Zea mays L.) Landrace Persistence in the Bajío of Mexico: A Survey of 1940s and 1950s Collection Locations. Journal of Economic Botany 61(1): 60-72.

Chambers, Kimberlee J., and Janet H. Momsen. 2007. From the Kitchen and the Field: gender and maize diversity in Mexico. Special issue of the Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography on Gender and Agriculture 28:39-56.

Chambers, Kimberlee J., Pat Bowen, Nancy J. Turner, and Peter C. Keller. 2006. Ethylene improves germination of arrow-leaved balsamroot seeds. Native Plants Journal 7(2): 108-113.

Chambers, Kimberlee J., Bowen, Pat, Turner, Nancy J, Keller, Peter C. 2005. Propagation protocol for production of container Balsamorhiza sagittata (Pursh) Nutt. plants; In: Native Plant Network. http://www.nativeplantnetwork.org. Moscow (ID): University of Idaho, College of Natural Resources, Forest Research Nursery.

Chambers, Kimberlee J., Jonathan Corbett, C. Peter Keller and Colin J.B. Wood. 2004. Indigenous Knowledge, Mapping and GIS: A Diffusion of Innovation Perspective. Cartographica, 39(3): 19-31.

Vosti, Stephen A. with Kimberlee J. Chambers and B. Morejohn. 2004. Socioeconomic Analyses of Biodiversity-Rich Agricultural Production Systems: Practical Methods for Measuring Land Use System Performance. Final Report to IDRC (Summer, 2004).

Chambers, Kimberlee J., E. Small, P.M. Catling, N.J. Turner, P. Bowen, and C.P. Keller. 2002. Poorly Known Economic Plants of Canada - 35. Arrow-leaved balsamroot, Balsamorhiza sagittata (Pursh.) Nutt. Canadian Botanical Association Bulletin 35(4):40-45.