Javier Puente holds a PhD in Latin American history from Georgetown University and currently serves as assistant professor at the Instituto de Historia of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. During his time as a Carson fellow, Javier will be advancing a book-length project: a study of the convergence of the militarization of the Internal Armed Conflict in Peru (1983–1986) and the 1982–1983 El Niño phenomenon. The core question of this project focuses on how weather and climate disturbances, past and present, contribute to the creation of civil war conditions—and how human conflict deepens and perpetuates environmental devastation.
Javier’s previous research has been funded and supported by Georgetown University; the Center of Latin American Studies at Georgetown; Lehigh University; the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History (ICANH); the Program of Latin American Libraries and Archives at Harvard University; and the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. In addition to the generous support of the Rachel Carson Center, his new project has also received the prestigious Harry Frank Guggenheim Research Grant.