About US

Laboratory of Agricultural and Natural Resource Anthropology (LANRA)

As the name implies, the Laboratory of Agricultural and Natural Resource Anthropology is a locus of research activity on the human dimensions of agriculture and food systems and their impacts on the Earth’s natural resource base, especially soil and water. Housed in Baldwin Hall, the lab is integrated with the Sustainable Human Ecosystem Laboratory (SHEL) and engages in global projects, such as the World Geography of the Potato, and SANREM field projects in Ecuador and the Philippines. In addition, the laboratory has ongoing projects in the American south such as the Southern Seed Legacy and the Rivers of Time Experimental farm. Opportunities exist for postdoctoral research, graduate research, and training in agricultural and natural resource anthropology.

The Sustainable Human Ecosystems Laboratory

The Sustainable Human Ecosystems Laboratory (SHEL or Ecolab) is dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of environmental decision making in the context of Global Change for the explicit purpose of understanding pathways toward the creation of sustainable humanecosystems.

The "Ecolab" is a research facility within the Department of Anthropology that provides opportunities for graduate and faculty research in ecological and environmental anthropology. Since its inception in 1994, faculty and student researchers directly associated with the laboratory have generated in excess of $10 million dollars in external funding. The anthropology faculty serving respectively as Director and Associate Director of the lab, R. Rhoades and T. Gragson, also serve as Principal Investigators on numerous research projects that collectively support many undergraduate and graduate students as well as colleagues in other departments. The two most significant projects are the Coweeta Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) project and the SANREM-Andes program, which are multi-year, multi-million dollar projects.

The Ecolab is designed for the use of geographic information systems and multimedia applications in ecological anthropology and related social science disciplines. The goal is to provide a dynamic research and teaching environment to potential researchers and students and to explore and integrate information technology in understanding and addressing traditional problems. Besides providing hardware, software, and technical support, the Ecolab holds seminars and workshops on topics involving information technologies and their applications in social sciences. The lab is dedicated to promoting cooperation between external agencies ( public and private) and the University of Georgia. It actively seeks and undertakes projects funded by private and non-private agencies on topics which can benefit from the department’s research expertise.

Facilities

The EcoLab has recently added a Dell PowerEdge 2500 Server with Intel 1.0 GHZ processor, 512MB SDRAM and 70 GB U160M SCSI disk storage to its capacity. This server runs independent of the existing Sun SPARC (UNIX) Server 10 with 60 GB Disk Space, which has been in the service for more than seven years. The EcoLab also maintains three Windows XP (Dell Optiplex GX400) workstations with 1.5 GHZ Pentium 4 processor, 256 MB RAM, 24X CD-RW, 2X DV-RW capacity. These are new additions to the existing 6 Dell 300 and 500 MHZ personal computers (PCs) running Windows 98/2000/XP. The EcoLab has One Calcomp 9500 and Two SummaSketch II digitizers. All the computers are networked through Fast Ethernet (100BaseT) wiring, 3COM 3300 switches and centralized network management with access to the Internet via a campus-wide broadband network and T1lines.

For analyzing data on film and hardcopy one light table, HP ScanJet 7400SC and HP ScanJet 6100C Scanners are being used. Hardcopy output is provided by HP 7576A (DraftPro EXL) plotter and HP Color LaserJet 4550N. HP LaserJet 6P, LaserJet 1200 and LaserJet 300SI are also being used for B/W print outs. Other equipments include Panasonic PV-DF200220" Diagonal Triple Pay TV/DVD/VCR, Samsung SV500W worldwide 4 head Hi-Fi VCR, drafting table, Canon ZR45MC digital camcorder, InFocus LP500 LP DLP projector, Garmin GPS V unit, Dell Latitude C4000 laptop, and Dell Inspiron 7500 laptop (2).

Major software packages employed by the research projects of the EcoLab include

GIS and remote sensing: ESRI ArcGIS 8.2, ArcIMS 4.0, MapObject 2.0, Idrisi 3.1, and CartaLinx, Surface, Multispec32, and ENVI 3.0
Anthropology related: Anthropac 4.0, N-vivo, UCINET, Stella, SPSS 10.0
E-learning and Multimedia Production: Macromedia Director 8.5, ToolBook Instructor 8.6, Pinnacle Studio 8.0, Dazzel Digital Video Creater, and Unlead Studio 5.0
Database management: Visual FoxPro 5.0, FileMaker Pro 6.0, Microsoft Access XP, Microsoft Excel
Web development and maintenance: ColdFusion server 5.0, ColdFusion Studio 5.0, Macromedia Flash 5.0, Homesite, Macromedia Dreamweaver 4.0, Firework 4.0, and UltraDev, Flash 5.0, VisualBasic 5.0, Microsoft Server 2000 with IIS 5.0.
Image enhancement and presentation: Adobe Photoshop 6.0, Adobe Illustrator 8.0, Microsoft Powerpoint XP, ToolBook Assistant 8.6.
Miscellaneous: MSOffice XP, EndNote 5.0, Procite, Adobe Acrobat 5.0, WorldPerfect Office 2000

In addition to its research facilities, the EcoLab also maintains a small instruction space equipped for use by graduate students working on studies sponsored by the EcoLab. Seven networked Dell PCs with Pentium II Processor running Windows 98se/2000 are available for the use of graduate students.

Contact

Mailing address
World Geography of the Peanut
The Sustainable Human Ecosystems Laboratory
Dept. of Anthropology,
250 Baldwin Hall
University of Georgia,
Athens, GA 30602

Tel. : 706-542-3141
Fax: 706-542-5617

For more information about the Project and SHEL
email: lanra at uga.edu

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