Alexis E. Wood

Alexis is researching the growing intersections between climate change, digital geographies, and rural socio-political movements. She is particularly interested in secessionist state movements and how participants incorporate heightened levels of climate anxiety with existing feelings of rural marginalization in the physical and digital landscapes. She is proudly both a theorist and geospatial analyst and looks to integrate these often separated fields/specializations through experimental geospatial methods and cartography. You can normally find her in studio.geo-? (McCone 106) causing some sort of chaos. She is currently the co-chair of the New Media Working Group with the Berkeley Center of New Media and a graduate student affiliate with the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues (ISSI) and the Berkeley Center for Right Wing Studies (CRWS). 

Before starting her PhD program, Alexis worked as a Data Coordinator for the Redistricting Data Hub, collecting and processing this redistricting cycle’s Community of Interest (COI) maps. With this, she takes a special interest in mapping platforms and their roles in the American political process. Previously, she has trained as an archeologist at the University of Cambridge ICE and in Opera Performance at the University of Miami.

Alexis is a system-impacted, first-generation high school graduate and a product of the California Community College system, transferring into Berkeley as an undergraduate. She is passionate about helping non-traditional students make their way to university, research, and beyond - please reach out to her with questions about California Community Colleges, the University of California system, and/or these application processes.