Dr. Elvin Delgado is Associate Professor and Director of the Integrated Energy Management Program in the Department of Geography at Central Washington University. Dr. Delgado is a Fulbright scholar and his regional specialization is Latin America with over 13 years of research experience in Venezuela. He is the former Chair of the Energy and Environment Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers. Most recently, Dr. Delgado received the 2016 Timm Ormsby Award for Faculty Citizenship Sponsored by the Washington Council of Faculty Representatives to recognize and honor exemplary civic engagement by faculty from public baccalaureates in the state of Washington. In 2013, Dr. Delgado was among 28 scholars globally selected to participate in the ‘energy-water’ nexus training funded by the National Science Foundation Pan-American Advanced Studies Institute (NSF-PASI).
Dr. Delgado’s research interests lie in the areas of energy (both fossil fuels and renewables), political ecology, political economy of natural resources, and critical resource geography. His research explores changing patterns of human-environment interactions in the context of fossil fuel production in Latin America. Empirically, his research analyzes processes of socio-political struggles over resource development, the multi-scalar interconnections of the material flows of energy resources, and the socio-ecological transformations associated with resource extraction industries. He has published in the areas of energy, health, and GIS in different outlets such as the International Journal of Geography in Higher Education, the Encyclopedia of Energy, Society and Natural Resources, the Journal of Latin American Geography as well as book chapters in the Routledge Research Companion to Energy Geographies, Geonatura in Puerto Rico, and the Routledge Handbook of Critical Resource Geography. Dr. Delgado’s new research projects include: (1) a study of the political economy and political ecology of hydraulic fracturing in northern Patagonia, Argentina and (2) an analysis of the social implications associated with the adoption of large-scale solar power in rural communities in Washington State. He holds a B.A. in Geography from the University of Puerto Rico, a M.Sc. in Geography and Planning from the University of Akron, Ohio and a Doctoral degree from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs of Syracuse University, New York.