Teachers College has appointed Keri Brondo as the inaugural Lambros Comitas Chair in Applied Anthropology, effective January 1, 2026. She joined the College as a visiting professor earlier this fall in the Department of International and Transcultural Studies, where the position is based.
As the inaugural Comitas Chair, Brondo will advance TC’s Anthropology & Education program and Applied Anthropology program through her research and scholarship, teaching and mentorship of students. The new Chair was established in the name of the late Lambros Comitas, the former Gardner Cowles Professor of Anthropology & Education, among the world's preeminent authorities on Hispanic and non-Hispanic cultures in the Caribbean, and a beloved member of TC’s faculty and community for more than half a century.
“Professor Brondo’s exceptional contributions to research and leadership in applied anthropology will not only carry forward the unparalleled legacy of Professor Comitas, but will continue to strengthen and expand our institution’s program offerings in the field,” KerryAnn O’Meara, Vice President for Academic Affairs, Provost and Dean of the College, wrote to the community in her announcement. “I could not be happier to have her join our stellar faculty.”
Brondo is an applied environmental anthropologist whose research focuses on the intersection of development policy, local livelihoods and environmental change, particularly in Honduras’ Caribbean coastal and island communities. Her past projects explored the gendered impacts of Garifuna territorial dispossession and land rights activism, the sociocultural impacts of marine protected area legislation, and the relationship between multispecies conservation voluntourism, and the affect economy.
“Teachers College and the International and Transcultural Studies Department embody the values I hold dear,” says Brondo, who has long admired Comitas’ “unwavering commitment to mentoring generations of anthropologists and his generosity in advancing the discipline...I am deeply honored to join the Programs in Anthropology at Teachers College, Columbia University, where I look forward to advancing Professor Comitas’ vision and furthering the college’s reputation in collaborative, justice-oriented scholarship that bridges theory and practice across diverse contexts of learning and knowledge exchange.”
Most recently, she has worked on environmental education in the Bay Islands, collaborating with islanders and conservation professionals to incorporate local voices, memories and knowledge to produce new K-12 environmental education learning modules. She is working on a new project around the politics of joy that considers the interconnections between environmental change, trauma, pain and systemic oppression, bridging applied environmental and medical anthropology. In this work, joy as a radical and restorative force will be approached as both a subject of study and a strategy for advancing social and ecological justice, cultivating resilience, and reimagining sustainable futures.
Brondo has published five books and more than 80 journal articles, book chapters, reviews and commentaries. Her publications include: Land Grab: Green Neoliberalism, Gender, and Garifuna Resistance (University of Arizona Press, 2013); Cultural Anthropology: Contemporary, Public, and Critical Readings (Oxford University Press, 2017; 2022); Anthropological Theory for the 21st Century: Thinking with the Canon (with A. Lynn Bolles, Ruth Gomberg, and Bernard Perley) (University of Toronto Press, 2022); and Voluntourism and Multispecies Collaboration; Life, Death, and Conservation in the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef (University of Arizona Press, 2021), awarded the 2022 Ed Bruner Book Prize from the Council on Heritage and the Anthropology of Tourism. Her most recent book, Culture, Nature, and Sustainability: An Anthropological Introduction (with Luis Vivanco) is forthcoming from Wiley Press.
Prior to joining Teachers College, Brondo served as Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Memphis and she has been widely recognized for her research and leadership in the field of anthropology. Brondo was a National Geographic Explorer (2019-2021) and the recipient of several distinguished awards including the Presidential Award from the American Anthropological Association (2016) and the College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Research Award (2024) at the University of Memphis. A former Fulbright scholar and Title VI FLAS recipient, Brondo received her Ph.D. in Sociocultural Anthropology from Michigan State University.