Josh Fisher
Growing up on a small farm in Utah, Josh Fisher moved on to earn a B.A. in international law and environmental policy, and an M.S. in international relations. Shortly after, he became a firefighter, river ranger, non-governmental organization founder and resource planner, all leading the way to the doctoral program at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (ICAR).
During graduate school at Utah State University, Josh started the organization Volunteers Involved in Development Abroad (VIDA). VIDA is a capacity building organization, focusing on sustainable agriculture, the health sector and environmental work around the globe. In Mozambique, Josh participated in building bio-diesel production equipment and worked to increase local markets for non-timber product forest resources. Josh has always been involved with the environment in one capacity or another, whether it be as a wild land fire-fighter with the forest service or as a river ranger working in habitat rehabilitation and whitewater rescue.
Until recently, Josh was a resource planner for three years for the U.S. Department of Interior, specifically the Bureau of Land Management, in Utah. In this capacity, he was practicing conflict resolution between competing user groups and working on resource planning for the energy industry.
As for his current research, Josh is looking for correlations among resource extraction patterns and spatial distributions of civil violence and economic development efforts. "The goal is to see if there are correlations in shifting each of those three and how a shift in the distribution of one affects the spatial distribution of others."
After finishing his doctoral program at ICAR, Josh's career plans involve work in international development with a focus on economic development and resource management.