Mason Mathews
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Mail code: 5302Campus: Tempe
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Mason Mathews is an assistant research professor at the Knowledge Exchange for Resilience (KER) in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning at Arizona State University. Mason is interested in social network and social capital theories and methods and how they can be combined with geographic information systems to understand how communities and individuals respond to social, economic, and environmental shocks. Mason’s current research focuses on how different types of collaboration shape societal outcomes and the resilience of individuals and communities. Mason is currently studying university-community partnerships, inter-organizational collaboration, and collaboration across nation-state boundaries. Mason’s research is designed not only to generate knowledge regarding these research topics, but also to produce tools that can be used by different segments of society to enhance their capacity to form partnerships and collaborate across organizational, disciplinary, and geographic boundaries. Mason is currently working on projects that incorporate text and social network analysis theories and methods to develop tools that help university experts and community organizations develop university-community partnerships in Maricopa County.
Mason is also interested in research that helps people and communities improve disaster management outcomes. From 2018 to 2020 Mason worked as a postdoctoral research associate at the Natural Hazard Center at the University of Colorado Boulder. During this two-year appointment, Mason helped develop the SSEER Census Survey, a global census designed to identify the disciplinary backgrounds of hazards and disaster researchers as well as their research methods, types of disasters studied, and levels of involvement in disaster research. Mason led the development of the Social Science Extreme Events Research (SSEER) Map, a web-based mapping tool that enables users to search for hazard and disaster researchers based on their areas of expertise, types of disasters studied, and other data from the SSEER Census Survey. Mason also led the development of the Global Hazards and Disaster Center Mapping Platform, a web-based mapping tool that enables users to search for hazard and disaster research centers around the world in order to increase connections, communication, collaboration, and access to emerging disaster research both within and across nations.
In addition to creating tools that facilitate research collaboration, Mason is also engaged in primary research designed to understand inter-organizational collaboration in different domains. During his postdoctoral research, Mason lead the development of a social network analysis survey designed to measure levels of collaboration among VOAD member organizations in Arkansas and Nebraska as part of a larger project partnership between the Natural Hazard Center and Save the Children – US.
Mason has worked extensively in Latin America on a number of projects. He did his dissertation research in the Brazilian Amazon where he studied social capital and social movements in remote riverine villages. Mason is a graduate of the University Florida’s Interdisciplinary Ecology doctoral program (Human Geography).
PhD, Interdisciplinary Ecology
Disciplinary Focus – Human Geography
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
M.A., International Affairs-Natural Resources and Sustainable Development
American University, Washington, D.C. and United Nations University for Peace, El Rodeo, Costa Rica
B.S., Natural Resource Recreation and Tourism
Spanish Minor and Certificate in Latin American Studies
Colorado State University, Ft. Collins, CO
Community Resilience
Social Networks
Social Capital
2022. Jack DeWaard, Lori M. Hunter, Mason C. Mathews, Esteban J. Quiñones, Fernando Riosmena, and Daniel H. Simon. Operationalizing and empirically identifying populations trapped in place by climate and environmental stressors in Mexico. Regional Environmental Change. (DOI: 10.1007/s10113-022-01882-7).
2022. Haorui Wu, Lori Peek, Mason Clay Mathews, and Nicole Mattson. Cultural Competence for Hazards and Disaster Researchers: Framework and Training Module. Natural Hazards Review. (DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)NH.1527-6996.0000536.)
2021. Mason Clay Mathews. How village leaders in rural Amazonia create bonding, bridging, and linking social capital configurations to achieve development goals, and why they are so difficult to maintain over time. World Development. (doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2021.105541).
2020. A. Christine Swanson, Stephanie Bohlman, Mason Mathews, Simone Athayde. Assessing inter- and trans-disciplinary collaboration among Amazon Dams International Research Network (ADN) participants: preliminary results from the Palmas Workshop. In Rios, terras e culturas: Aprendendo com o sistema socioecológico do Tocantins. Rivers, lands and cultures: Learning from the Tocantins social-ecological system. pp. 196-214. Porto Alegre: Editora Fi.
2020. Simone Athayde, Mason Mathews, Stephanie Bohlman, Walterlina Brasil, Carolina RC Doria, Jynessa Dutka-Gianelli, Philip M Fearnside, Bette Loiselle, Elineide E Marques, Theodore S Melis, Brent Millikan, Evandro M Moretto, Anthony Oliver-Smith, Amintas Rossete, Raffaele Vacca, and David Kaplan. Mapeando pesquisas sobre energia hidráulica e sustentabilidade na Amazônia brasileira: avanços, lacunas de conhecimento e rumos futuros. In Rios, terras e culturas: Aprendendo com o sistema socioecológico do Tocantins. Rivers, lands and cultures: Learning from the Tocantins social-ecological system. pp. 711-765. Porto Alegre: Editora Fi.
2020. Chuyuan Wang, Ziqi Li, Mason Clay Mathews, Sarbeswar Praharaj, Brajesh Karna, and Patricia Solís. The spatial association of social vulnerability with COVID-19 prevalence in the contiguous United States. International Journal of Environmental Health Research. doi: 10.1080/09603123.2020.1847258.
2020. Rachel M. Adams, Candace Evans, Mason Clay Mathews, Amy Wolkin, and Lori Peek. Mortality from Forces of Nature Among Older Adults by Race/Ethnicity and Gender. Journal of Applied Gerontology. doi:10.1177/0733464820954676.
2020. Lori Peek, Heather Champeau, Jessica Austin, Mason Mathews, and Haorui Wu. What Methods Do Social Scientists Use to Study Disasters? An Analysis of the Social Science Extreme Events Research Network. American Behavioral Scientist. 64 (8): 1066-1094. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764220938105.
2020. Lori Peek, Jennifer Tobin, Rachel Adams, Haorui Wu, and Mason Clay Mathews. A Framework for Convergence Research in the Hazards and Disaster Field: The Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure CONVERGE Facility. Frontiers in Built Environment, section Earthquake Engineering. July, 2020. 6-110. doi: 10.3389/fbuil.2020.00110.
2020. Emmanuelle Hines, Mason Mathews, and Lori Peek. Global List and Interactive Web Map of University-Based Hazards and Disaster Research Centers. Natural Hazards Review. 21(2): doi: 10.1061/(ASCE)NH.1527-6996.0000371
2019. Simone Athayde, Mason Mathews, Stephanie Bohlman, Walterlina Brasil, Carolina RC Doria, Jynessa Dutka-Gianelli, Philip M Fearnside, Bette Loiselle, Elineide E Marques, Theodore S Melis, Brent Millikan, Evandro M Moretto, Anthony Oliver-Smith, Amintas Rossete, Raffaele Vacca, and David Kaplan. Mapping Research on Hydropower and Sustainability in the Brazilian Amazon: Advances, Gaps in Knowledge and Future Directions. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability. 37:50–69.
2015. Mason Clay Mathews and Marianne Schmink. “Differentiated Citizenship” and the Persistence of Informal Rural Credit Systems in Amazonia. Geoforum. 65: 266-277.
2010. Mason Mathews. Socio-economic Change in the Transition from Patron-Client to Social Movement Networks in the Brazilian Amazon. Pp.249-273 in Almeida, Alfredo Wagner Berno de, et. al., Conflitos Sociais no “Complexo Madeira” Manaus: UEA.
2009. Mason Mathews, & T. Menezes, Comunidades extrativistas da Resex Ituxi: Lutando por uma vida melhor. Lábrea, AM: UEA Edições.