Dr. Dinesh Paudel

Dr. Dinesh Paudel is a professor in the Goodnight Family Department of Sustainable Development at Appalachian State University. He teaches courses in community economies and sustainable development, development theory and practice, disaster and development, and environment and development in the Global South. Before coming to Appalachian, he was a postdoctoral fellow in Dartmouth College’s Department of Geography where he taught courses on environment and development, geographies of protest and revolution, and gender and development. He received his Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Minnesota in 2012 where he studied the historical connections between international development programs and the rise of Maoist uprisings in Nepal.

Broadly, Paudel is interested in understanding how development discourses originate and travel, and how they articulate with economic, ecological and political processes on multiple scales. One of his current research projects focuses in exploring the relationship between rising Asian economies and the environmental and social changes in the Himalayas.

Areas of expertise

• Political economies, particularly rural Appalachia and Nepal
• Natural disaster as a catalyst for economic and political change
• Economic repercussions of global climate change
• International development, political ecology