James Paules

James Paules is a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in history. His dissertation research focuses on the environmental history of forests in Arizona, New Mexico, and southern Colorado, and explores how upland landscapes and ecosystems were central to imperial, commercial, and scientific projects by which the Mexican north was transformed into the American Southwest in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He received his B.A. from the University of California, Santa Barbara and his M.A. from the University of Chicago, and enjoys studying the subjects of his research through camping and backpacking.