Bryan L. McDonald
Postdoctoral Scholar
Department of Planning, Policy and Design
Assistant Director
Center for Unconventional Security Affairs
Office: 5548 Social & Behavioral Sciences Gateway
Phone: 949.824.8804
E-mail: bmcdonal@uci.edu
Bryan L. McDonald (BA/MA Virginia Tech; PhD University of California, Irvine) is a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Planning, Policy and Design and the Assistant Director of the Center for Unconventional Security Affairs at the University of California, Irvine. His research explores the interactions between complex, networked societies that amplify traditional security challenges and create new security threats and vulnerabilities that affect the national security of states and the human security of individuals and communities. A central theme of McDonald's research is the interdependence between the security of states and people and in particular, the ways livelihoods and well-being are impacted by transnational threats such as global environmental change, infectious disease, and global terrorism.
McDonald's dissertation explores how processes of globalization and global change have reshaped food systems in ways that have amplified traditional challenges like hunger and created new sorts of food security challenges like large-scale food safety episodes. He is currently completing a manuscript that provides an introduction to the major issues impacting global food security, offers a context for understanding current challenges as part of larger changes in the nature of security, and outlines solutions for improving food security. Other current research topics include: interactions between environmental change and human security; the environmental dimensions of peacebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction; and identifying solutions to help citizens, organizations and responders through enhancing preparedness, response and recovery in the face of global change and complex emergencies.
He is co-editor of Global Environmental Change and Human Security (The MIT Press, 2009) and Landmines and Human Security: International Politics and War's Hidden Legacy (SUNY Press, 2004, paperback 2006). His work has been published in Democracy & Society, The Journal of the American Planning Association, The Canadian Journal of Political Science, Global Environmental Politics, Organization & Environment, Natural Resources Journal, Environment, Politics and the Life Sciences, International Environmental Agreements, and the Environmental Change and Security Project Report. McDonald has presented papers at annual meetings of the American Political Science Association, the International Studies Association, the American Planning Association, and the American Collegiate Schools of Planning.
Selected Publications
Co-author with George E. Shambaugh, Richard A. Matthew, Roxane Cohen Silver, Michael Poulin and Scott Blum. "Public Perceptions of Traumatic Events and Policy Preferences during the George W. Bush Administration: A Portrait of America in Turbulent Times." Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 33, no. 1 (2010): 55-91.
Co-editor with Richard A. Matthew, Jon Barnett, and Karen L. O'Brien. Global Environmental Change and Human Security. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2009.
"Global Health and Human Security: Addressing Impacts from Globalization and Environmental Change." In Global Environmental Change and Human Security, edited by Richard Matthew, Jon Barnett, Bryan L. McDonald and Karen O'Brien. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2009.
Co-author with Richard A. Matthew. "Environmental Security: Academic and Policy Debates in North America." In Facing Global Environmental Change: Environmental, Human, Energy, Food, Health and Water Security Concepts, edited by Hans Gunter Brauch, et al., 791-802. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 2009.
Contributor to Matthew, Richard A., et. al. From Conflict to Peacebuilding: The Role of Natural Resources and the Environment. (Nairobi: United Nations Environment Programme, 2009).
Co-author with Richard A. Matthew and Heather D. Goldsworthy. "Environmental Ethics." In The Ethics of Global Governance, edited by Antonio Franceschet, 141-158. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2009.
Co-author with Richard A. Matthew and George E. Shambaugh, IV. "Post-9/11 America: Conventional Wisdom versus Popular Pragmatism." Democracy & Society 5, no. 2 (2008): 1, 20-24.
Co-author with Richard A. Matthew. "Cities Under Siege: Urban Planning and the Threat of Infectious Disease." Journal of the American Planning Association 72, no. 1 (2006): 109-117. Article reprinted in Eugenie Birch, ed. The Urban and Regional Planning Reader. New York: Routledge, 2008.
Co-editor with Richard A. Matthew and Kenneth R. Rutherford. Landmines and Human Security: International Politics and War's Hidden Legacy. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2004; paperback, 2006.
"The Global Landmine Crisis in the 1990s." In Landmines and Human Security: International Politics and War's Hidden Legacy, edited by Richard A. Matthew, Bryan McDonald and Kenneth R. Rutherford, 21-34. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2004.
Co-author with Richard A. Matthew. "Networks of Threat and Vulnerability: Lessons from Environmental Security Research." Environmental Change and Security Project Report 10 (2004): 36-42.
Co-author with Richard A. Matthew, Mike Brklacich, and Bishnu R. Upreti. "Advancing Conflict, Co-operation and Environmental Change: Human Security Research." IHDP Update 3 (2004): 11-12.
Co-author with Richard A. Matthew and Michael Brklacich. "Analyzing Environment, Conflict and Cooperation." In Understanding Environment, Conflict and Cooperation, a report by UNEP's Division of Early Warning and Assessment and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 5-15. Nairobi: United Nations Environment Program, 2004.
Co-author with Helen Ingram and Anne Schneider. "The Political Invasion of Science: How Policy Constructs Meanings and Boundaries." Rivista Italiana di Politiche Pubbliche 2 (2004): 5-28.
Co-author with Richard A. Matthew and Ted Gaulin. "The Elusive Quest: Linking Environmental Change and Conflict."Canadian Journal of Political Science 36, no. 4 (September 2003): 857-878.
Co-author with Helen Ingram. "The Precautionary Principle, Science Wars, and the Earth Summit." Politics and the Life Sciences 21, no. 2 (September 2002): 56-60.