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Geography @ TAMIU

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Geography Research

Faculty: Prof. Andrew M. Hilburn

  • PhD, University of Kansas – Geography - 2014
  • MS, University of Southern Mississippi – Geography - 2006
  • BS, University of South Alabama, Geography Major/Spanish Minor – 2003

Andrew “Andy” Hilburn is an Associate Professor of Geography in the Department of Social Sciences at Texas A&M International University (TAMIU) in Laredo, Texas, USA. He is also a co-director of TAMIU’s Environmental Studies Initiative. He holds a PhD in Geography from the University of Kansas, a MS in Geography from the University of Southern Mississippi, and a BS in Geography from the University of South Alabama. He conducts research on a broad range of human-environmental issues in Mexico and the US-Mexico Borderlands using participatory methods, field survey, and geospatial techniques. His research has appeared in journals such as Applied Geography, The Extractive Industries and Society, Geographical Review, Geoforum, Journal of Urban Design, Journal of Latin Americanist Geography, among others.

Select Publications:

  • Hilburn, A. 2025. Bounded, Surveilled, Isolated, and Imperiled: Spatial Dimensions of Environmental Injustice in a City on the US-Mexico Border. Geographical Review. https://doi.org/10.1080/00167428.2025.2463665
  • Hadley, A., K. Houston, S. Olvera, and A. Hilburn. Accepted 2024. On the trail of missing migrants: a proposal from the Center for the Study of Undocumented Border Crossers. Violence: An International Journal
  • Hilburn, A. and A. Hadley. 2023. Más que Una Porción: Framing the Persistence of Land Inequality on the Urbanizing Texas-Tamaulipas Border through Shifting Resources and the Colonial Cadaster. Journal of Latin American Geography 22 (1): 52-81 (H-index 22).

  • Fry, M. and A. Hilburn. 2023. GIS and Environmental Justice Analytics in Latin America’s Oil and Gas Production Zones. In Interdisciplinary Remote Sensing and GIS approaches to Socio-Environmental Research in Latin America (Springer).
  • Murphy, T, M. Fry, A. Hilburn, and A. García-Chiang. 2022. Contracts and access to Mexico's natural gas resources: The text is not legible on the ground. Geoforum 134: 59-70.
  • Fry, M. and A. Hilburn. 2020. Are oil industry social development schemes just? Comparing the distribution of community investments to oil production activities in Mexico. Extractive Industries and Society 7: 647-659.
  • Hilburn, A. and M. Fry. 2019. Empirical environmental justice research in hydrocarbon extraction areas: examining current approaches outside the US using a Mexican case study. Applied Geography 107: 63-71.

  • Hilburn, A. 2016. Gauging the material magnitude, public perception, and governance of roadside litter in a rural Mexican municipio. Human Ecology 44: 479-491.
  • Smith, J. and A. Hilburn. 2016. World Regions and Places: A Reader. NY: Pearson.
  • Hilburn, A. 2015. At home or to the dump? Household garbage management and the trajectories of waste in a rural Mexican municipio. Journal of Latin American Geography 14 (2): 29-52.
  • Hilburn, A. 2015. Participatory Risk Mapping of Garbage-Related Issues in a Rural Mexican Municipality. Geographical Review 105 (1): 42-60.

  • Herlihy, P., J. Kelly, A. Hilburn, A. Ramos-Viera, D. Smith, M. Aguilar-Robledo, and J. Dobson. 2022. Losing Ground: Indigenous Territoriality and the Núcleo Agrário in Mexico. In Invisible Borders in a Bordered World: Power, Mobility, and Belonging. Editors J. Diener and J. Hagen. NY: Routledge.
  • Kelly, J., P. Herlihy, T. Tappan, A. Hilburn, M. Fahrenbruch. 2017. From Cognitive Maps to Transparent Static Maps: Tools for Territorial Control in La Muskitia, Honduras. Cartographica 52(1).
  • Smith, D., P. Herlihy, J. Kelly, A. Ramos, A. Hilburn, J. Dobson, and M. Aguilar-Robledo. 2012. Using Participatory Research Mapping and GIS to Explore Local Geographic Knowledge of Indigenous Landscapes in Mexico. FOCUS on Geography 55 (4): 119-124.
  • Kelly, J., P. Herlihy, A. Ramos Viera, A. Hilburn, D. Smith, and G. Hernández Cendejas. 2010. Indigenous Territoriality at the End of the Social Property Era in Mexico: The case of the Huasteca Potosina. Journal of Latin American Geography 9 (3): 161-181.

  • Byham, J., V. Martínez, J. Kilburn, and A. Hilburn. 2023. When Government is Not the Solution: The Role of Community Organizations in Outreach Journal of Public and Nonprofit Affairs (H-index 6).
  • Hilburn, A., T. Zawisza, J. Bazan, R. Cruz, and J. Rodriguez. 2021. Employing Participatory Risk Mapping (PRM) as a Land Use Planning Method: the Case of a Derelict Former Hospital in Laredo, Texas, USA. Journal of Urban Design
  • Smith, J. and A. Hilburn. 2016. World Regions and Places: A Reader. NY: Pearson.
  • Hilburn, A. 2015. Two Pictures Are Worth 1,068 Words: A Pedestrian Bridge as a Political Landscape in Small-Town Mexico. FOCUS on Geography 58 (2): 91-92.

Ongoing Research Projects:

  • Water utility development and imaginary geographies in South Texas
  • Risk perception and peri-urban “Ranchito” life in South Texas
  • Transborder Warehousing as a Resource
  • Mapping Indigent Graves in South Texas

Undergraduate Research Opportunities:

GEOG A

GEOG B

GEOG C

Contact

Dr. Andrew M. Hilburn
Associate Professor
Academic Innovation Center 340
Phone: 956.326.2662 | Email: ahilburn@tamiu.edu