Biography

Nilver Tovar Ospina is a Ph.D. candidate in Environmental Anthropology in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Central Florida (UCF) and a graduate student affiliate of the UCF Coastal Cluster. His research examines the historical, political, and socio-environmental production of flood risk in Miami-Dade County, Florida, with particular attention to environmental inequality, climate adaptation disparities, and the lived experiences of marginalized communities affected by recurrent flooding and sea-level rise.

His dissertation, Architectures of Flooding: History, Power, and the Production of Flood Risk in Miami-Dade County, integrates environmental anthropology, political ecology, Participatory Geographic Information Systems (PGIS), Geographic Information Systems (GIS), qualitative ethnography, and community-based research methods to investigate how hydrological transformations, urban development, infrastructural inequality, and historical planning practices shape uneven flood vulnerability across South Florida. His work centers on the experiential and human dimensions of flooding that are frequently absent from conventional flood assessments and adaptation frameworks.

Nilver holds a Bachelor of Science in Physics, Chemistry, and Biology and a Master of Science in Environmental Engineering and Management from Surcolombiana University in Colombia. His interdisciplinary background bridges the environmental sciences, anthropology, and spatial analysis, allowing him to approach environmental problems through both technical and socio-cultural perspectives.

Beyond his current work on flooding and climate justice, his broader research interests include environmental governance, environmental racism, political ecology, Indigenous and local ecological knowledge, environmental health, biodiversity conservation, environmental impacts of urban development, and socio-environmental inequalities in vulnerable communities.

His research and interdisciplinary contributions have been recognized with multiple awards, including two consecutive Trevor Colbourn Anthropology Endowment Fund (TCAEF) awards at UCF and selection for the UCF Faculty Cluster Initiatives (FCI) Award. He has also presented his work at regional and national academic conferences focused on environmental anthropology, climate adaptation, and human-environment interactions.

• Research Interests / Specializations