Heather Lené Benson, Ph.D., Geography

University of Nevada, Reno

Heather’s work focuses on the geographies of inclusion/exclusion for migrants and transnationals in the American West with a specific focus on Punjabi-Sikhs. She has authored and co-authored publications in the California Geographer, APCG’s Pacifica, and Integration and Receptivity in Immigrant Gateway Metro Regions in the United States, an edited volume published by Lexington Books.

Heather has served on search committees for the College of Earth Sciences & Engineering, was the faculty-graduate student representative for the Department of Geography, and was the public outreach coordinator and president of the Geography Graduate Club at UNR. Additionally, Heather has served as a peer-reviewer for academic journals and an evaluator, moderator, and judge for numerous conference presentations and poster sessions.

Prior to UNR, Heather attended California State University, Stanislaus, where she received an interdisciplinary Master of Science in geography, geospatial analysis, and anthropology, and a Bachelor of Arts in geography with a minor in global issues and development. Her areas of expertise are in human geography, transnationalism and diaspora studies, spaces of religious identity, and ethnic geography of the American West. Currently, she is a geography instructor at Lake Tahoe Community College and Sierra College.

Karnak temple complex. Luxor, Egypt (2015)