Kyler Rybarczyk

Hometown

Richmond, Virginia

Education

A.A.S in Forest Technology from SUNY-ESF Ranger School, B.A. in Philosophy from Virginia Tech

Biography

After earning an A.A.S. in Forest Technology in order to become a New York State Forest Ranger, I returned to Virginia Tech to complete a B.A. in Philosophy before beginning a career teaching social studies, Spanish, and English in Spain, the United States, and Honduras. My experiences living and working in rural communities, combined with my background as a firefighter and EMT, led me to study the institutions that govern remote landscapes and the challenges of providing public safety, environmental protection, and basic state services in frontier regions.

I hope to examine the intersection of environmental governance, crime, and state capacity in rural Latin America, with a particular focus on the Caribbean coast of Honduras. I am interested in how environmental crime, illicit economies, natural resource extraction, and weak institutional presence shape relations among the state, Afro-Indigenous communities, and the environment. Through this work, I hope to better understand how governance and law enforcement influence both ecological conservation and community well-being in rural Latin America.