Tamar Law
PhD Candidate, Development Studies · Cornell University
Tamar Law

Tamar Law

I am a trained human geographer and PhD candidate in the Ashley School of Global Development and the Environment at Cornell University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. My research focuses on the politics of environmental repair, with particular attention to nature-based climate solutions.

My dissertation research broadly examines mangrove restoration in Indonesia. I am interested in the political ecology of climate change, critical agrarian studies, and infrastructure studies.

Before coming to Cornell, I received an MPhil in Nature, Society and Environmental Governance from the University of Oxford, and graduated summa cum laude from Cornell University's College Scholar Program.

I am the recipient of the 2022 Ronny Adhikarya Niche Award (RANA) Prize for research addressing the climate justice dimensions of climate mitigation, as well as the Atkinson Sustainability Research Award for Climate Risk.

My dissertation research has been supported by the Fulbright Program, the 2024 Evelyn L. Pruitt Dissertation National Research Fellowship (Society for Women Geographers), a Cornell University SAGE Fellowship, as well as the Einaudi Dissertation Development Program.

Cornell University is located on the traditional homelands of the Gayogohó:nǫˀ (the Cayuga Nation). The Gayogohó:nǫˀ are members of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, an alliance of six sovereign Nations with a historic and contemporary presence on this land. The Confederacy precedes the establishment of Cornell University, New York state, and the United States of America. We acknowledge the painful history of Gayogohó:nǫˀ dispossession, and honor the ongoing connection of Gayogohó:nǫˀ people, past and present, to these lands and waters. Cornell’s founding was enabled in the course of a national genocide by the sale of almost one million acres of stolen Indian land under the Morrill Act of 1862. To date the university has neither officially acknowledged its complicity in this theft nor has it offered any form of restitution to the hundreds of Native communities impacted. For additional information, see the Cornell University and Indigenous Dispossession website.