Abel Traslaviña-Arias is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Geography and Sustainability at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Traslaviña-Arias is an interdisciplinary scholar and social scientist with nearly twenty years of field experience, trained in geography, anthropology, and archaeology. He investigates human-environment relationships, communal water governance, and environmental justice in Latin America, with a focus on the Andean region. His doctoral dissertation examines how rural agricultural organizations on the Peruvian Pacific coast navigate contemporary water scarcity and modern infrastructural pressures by drawing on long-standing landscape strategies and local institutions.

Traslaviña-Arias has been granted prestigious fellowships, including the W.K. McClure Scholarship for the Study of World Affairs and the Carolyn R. Hodges Graduate Fellowship, to support my research. HIs spatial and geoarchaeological workflows integrate qualitative methods, such as ethnography and archival analysis, with advanced geospatial humanities tools, including remote sensing and aerial photogrammetry. Most recently, Traslaviña-Arias employed these methodologies to assess a climate-induced paleomudslide at the Toro Muerto petroglyph complex in Arequipa, Peru. HIs peer-reviewed work has been published in venues such as the University Press of Florida, the Journal of Archaeological Science, and Estudios Atacameños. As an educator at the University of Tennesssee, Knoxville, he has served as Instructor of Record for Sustainability: Principles and Practices and have supported core curriculum spanning environmental change, human rights, and urban studies. Dedicated to public scholarship, Traslaviña-Arias’s expertise on landscape heritage has been featured internationally by National Public Radio (NPR) and Science Magazine.