1993    PhD., University of Arizona.

1985    M.A., California State University, Chico.

1979    B.A., University of California, Berkeley.

2012 – present  Professor, Geography, Colorado State University

2001 – 2011          Associate Professor, Geography, Colorado State University

1995 – 2000        Assistant Professor, Geography, Colorado State University

2015 – present   Principle Investigator, Secondary Cities Initative, US Department of State

2009 – present   Director, Geospatial Centroid at CSU, Colorado State University.

2006 – 2008         Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, Warner College of Natural Resources, CSU.

2005 – 2006         Program Officer, Geography and Regional Sciences, National Science Foundation.

2015 – 2016 Visiting Scholar, Center for Geographic Analysis, Harvard University

2014 – 2015 Jefferson Science Fellow; US Department of State Office of the Geographer and Global Issues, Humanitarian Information Unit, Washington, DC

2010 – 2011 Fulbright Scholar, Center for Scientific Research, Indigenous Knowledge and Innovation (CesrIKI), University of Botswana

2011, 2018  Rachel Carson Fellow, Munich, Germany

Selected Articles:

Boone, K., M. Laituri, R. Waskom. 2017. Accessing Flexibility: A Historical Institutional Analysis of Water Use for Oil and Gas Development in Colorado. Journal of Society and Natural Resources,  https://doi.org/10.1080/08941920.2017.1423434

Kebirungi Harriet, Luboobi S. Livingstone, Kabonesa Consolata, Kimwaga Richard Joseph,   Majaliwa Jackson-Gilbert Mwanjalolo,  Laituri Melinda. Gender Differences and Deficiencies of Water and Sanitation Facilities Provisioning and Management in East African Universities. International Journal of Gender and Women’s Studies. Dec 2017, Vol 5, No. 2, pp 1-6.

Hoover, J., S. Leisz, M. Laituri, Comparing and combining Landsat Satellite Imagery and Participatory Data to Access Land-Use and Land-Cover Changes in a Coastal Village in Papua New Guinea.  2017. Human Ecology, 45:251-264 , DOI 10.1007/s10745-016-9878-x.

Herman-Mercer, N. M., E. Matkin, M. J. Laituri, R. C. Toohey, M. Massey, K. Elder, P. F. Schuster, and E. A. Mutter. 2016. Changing times, changing stories: generational differences in climate change perspectives from four remote indigenous communities in Subarctic Alaska. Ecology and Society 21(3):28.http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ES-08463-210328.

Chignell, S. and Laituri M.  Chapter 13:  Telecoupling, urbanization and the unintended consequences of water development aid in Ethiopia.  In Wessel, GR and Greenberg, JK, eds., Geosciences for the Public Good and Global Development:  Toward a Sustainable Future. 2016.  Geological Society of America Special Paper 520. Pp 125 -135.

Tewodros Wakie, Paul Evangelista and Melinda Laituri (2016) Assessing the distribution and impacts of Prosopis juliflora through participatory approaches. Applied Geography, 66: 132-143, doi:10.1016/j.apgeog.2015.11.017.

Sternlieb, F. and M. Laituri. 2015.  Spatialising agricultural water governance regimes. Water Alternatives 8(2): 36-56.

Laituri, M. 2014. 43:  Water Deficits, In Global Environmental Change, Bill Freedman (ed). Springer Press. Pp 363-367.

Laituri, M. and Sternlieb, F., editors. 2014. Water data systems:  Science, practice, and policy. Journal of Contemporary Water Research and Education – University Council on Water Resources. Special Issue 153. http://www.ucowr.org/journal-of-contemporary-water-research-and-education.

Externally-Funded Projects as PI

–2018 American Association of Geographers, University Partnerships with Secondary Cities ($365,000)

–2016 – 2017 American Association of Geographers, University Partnerships with Secondary Cities ($200,000, $65,000)

–2017 Lower Poudre Watershed Assessment and Participatory Mapping ($12,000)

–2015 – 2016 American Association of Geographers, University Partnerships with Secondary Cities ($232,000)

–2012 SNOWY:  Strategic Needs of Water in the Yukon National Science Foundation EAGER award, M. Laituri – subcontract (Total award — $300,000)

–2012 USDA Planning Grant:  Strategic Water and Food Security Issues in the Colorado River Basin. R. Waskom, P. Taylor, M. Laituri ($150,000)

–2010-2013 Does Community-Based Rangeland Ecosystem Management Increase the Resilience of Coupled Systems to Climate Change in Mongolia? National Science Foundation, M. Fernandez-Gimenez, R. Reid, S. Fassnacht, J. Thompson ($1.5 million)

-In 2009 I established the Geospatial Centroid @ CSU (gis.colostate.edu).  The Centroid serves the entire CSU community to bring together GIS researchers across campus, identify research activities, streamline GIS curriculum and provide venues to discuss cutting edge issues in GIS.  Initially funded by the CAES, the Centroid oversees several projects and participates on various research activities to provide cartographic services, database design and organization, and geographic analysis.  Student interns work on numerous projects, provide a help desk and oversee the website.

-A key aspect of my teaching is exposing students to real-world, hands-on projects using geospatial technologies.  My course, NR 505:  Concepts in GIS, is the platform for creating demonstration GIS projects and applications.  Student projects are posted that provide the basis for additional research activity (the role of technology to meet society’s needs), workshops (development of hands-on projects for resource managers, K-12 teachers, and students), and applications for interdisciplinary study (environmental history and hydrology applications).