Geography Department Welcomes New Faculty

May 18, 2021
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Prof. Moses Kansanga (left) and Prof. Aman Luthra (right)

Dr. Moses Kansanga is an assistant professor of geography and international affairs at the George Washington University. Dr. Kansanga joined GW after receiving his PhD at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. He is a critical geographer whose research focuses on questions at the intersection of sustainable food systems and natural resource management from a political ecology perspective. Dr. Kansanga has worked extensively with smallholder farmers in different countries in sub-Saharan Africa. He has published in a wide array of peer-reviewed journals. Some of his recent publications appeared in Geoforum, World Development, Land Use Policy, Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, Social Science and Medicine and Climatic Change.

Dr. Kansanga teaches courses on agriculture and sustainable food systems, environment-society interaction and the Geography of Africa. He is also a gardening enthusiast.

Dr. Aman Luthra is an assistant professor in human geography, teaching Political Ecology, Geography of South Asia, Theories of Development and Introduction to Human Geography. Before joining GW, he was an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo, MI. Professor Luthra’s research interests include political ecology, Marxist political economy, urban planning and development studies. Much of his work has focused on the ecologies and economies of waste and recycling in urban India. He has published in peer-reviewed journals including Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space and E: Nature and Space, Society and Business Review and Economic and Political Weekly. He is currently in the process of starting a new project that examines the entanglements between the livelihoods of apple growers and native pollinators in the Indian Western Himalayas.

Professor Luthra received his PhD from the Johns Hopkins University in 2015 after working in public sector management consulting in the DC area for almost a decade. He was born and raised in Delhi, India and moved to the U.S. for his undergraduate studies. Professor Luthra has just moved to the DC area with his partner and his adorable dog Bibi who rules his entire life. When he is not showering Bibi with all the attention that she constantly demands, he likes to spend his time watching completely mindless TV. After a year of online teaching, Professor Luthra is really looking forward to meeting his colleagues and students in person this fall.