Nomination: Professor Léo Heller – Department of Engineering and Environmental Health, School of Engineering – UFMG.
Period: August 17th to September 9th, 2013.
José Esteban Castro is a professor of sociology at the Faculty of Geography, Politics and Sociology, and a researcher at the Institute for Sustainability Research (NIRES) at the University of Newcastle, in the United Kingdom. He has a Degree and Professor in Sociology from the University of Buenos Aires (1983-1988), where he also studied Psychology (1984-1990), Master in Social Sciences from the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO) Mexico (1990-1992), and PhD in Political Science from the University of Oxford (1993-1998). He was a Research Associate at the School of Geography and the Environment, at the Center for Brazilian Studies, and at the Department of International Development, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford (1998-2000 and 2001-2005), Lecturer in Development Studies at the School of Economics and Political Science at the University of London (2000-2001), and Professor in Political Ecology at University College, University of London (2002, 2004). Castro teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in environmental sociology, political ecology, social theory, Latin American sociology and political science, and development studies. Over the past twenty years, he has focused his research on topics of social inequality and social change, the political ecology of water, the relationship between water and citizenship, the public-private interface in the provision of public services (sanitation), and the impact of injustice and inequality environmental issues in democratization processes in Latin America and Europe. He currently coordinates the GOBACIT (www.gobacit.org) and WATERLAT (www.waterlat.org) research networks and the DESAFIO project (www.desafioglobal.org), all of which focus, in broad terms, on water policy. Castro has numerous publications in English, Spanish and Portuguese, and some of his works have also been translated into other languages. Most of his publications can be accessed free of charge in virtual format on the Newcastle University Library website http://eprint.ncl.ac.uk/author_pubs.aspx?author_id=78329.