Mia Bennett
Mia Bennett
Research Partner
UCLA
Social Sciences Division
Department of Geography
Mail: mbennett7@ucla.edu
Research Interests
Mia Bennett is a visiting researcher with the CoRE team funded through a program involving the National Science Foundation and the Austrian Science Fund. She recently completed her PhD dissertation in the Department of Geography at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where she examined post-Cold War development in the Arctic through the lens of transportation infrastructure projects in Canada and Russia. Her work employs mixed methods from political geography and remote sensing, specifically night light satellite imagery, to understand the scalar politics of road and highway projects in remote regions. In collaborating with CoRe, Mia’s contributions will focus on 1) finalizing a paper that draws together her fieldwork into the possible replacement of an ice road in Yakutsk, Russia by a bridge across the Lena River with results gathered by CoRe team members in eastern Siberia and 2) analyzing satellite imagery of selected points along the Northern Sea Route in a historical overview of uneven development along the Russian Arctic maritime corridor.
Mia Bennett conducted CoRe-related fieldwork in the republic of Sakha/Yakutia on construction of the bridge over Lena river in the city of Yakutsk in 2016
Conference presentations:
2017, August. [Invited] The next generation’s perspective: Does the thinking about the Arctic maritime industries incorporate the relevant factors? North Pacific Arctic Conference. Honolulu, USA.
2017, June. [Invited] Jumping Scale in the Arctic Council: Indigenous Permanent Participants and Asian Observer States. 'Observing' the Arctic: Asian States and the (Geo)Politics of Involvement in the Arctic Council Symposium, National University of Singapore, Singapore.
2017, April. [Invited] Development on Ice: Social and Economic Impacts of Arctic Infrastructure. Arctic Research Consortium of the United States. Washington, D.C., USA.
2017, April. A Road Home or a "Road to Resources"? Indigenous and State Visions of Canada's First Highway to the Arctic Ocean. Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers. Boston, USA.
Papers:
Bennett, M. M. & Smith, L. C. (2017). “Using multitemporal night-time lights data to compare regional development in Russia and China, 1992–2012.” International Journal of Remote Sensing 38(21), 5962-5991 (issue cover image).
Bennett, M. M. & Smith, L. C. (2017). “Advances in using multitemporal night-time lights satellite imagery to detect, estimate, and monitor socioeconomic dynamics.” Remote Sensing of Environment 192, 176-197.