While working on the Base Project, I researched the environmental and social impact of the U.S. military on Okinawa, Japan, from World War II to the present. My background as a history major, combined with my studies in environmental science, allowed me to make informed assumptions about potential environmental hazards, but there was still so…

The Department of Defence publishes Base Structure Reports (BSRs) annually. They are the best publicly available government source that reveals some elements of the shape, size and spread of the U.S. military. They also constitute a source of immense frustration for researchers. In my previous life as a researcher at a governmental think tank in…

Promoting the accounts mentioned could benefit diplomatic tensions, especially as anti-base sentiment is prevalent on countless U.S. military bases. Our research has revealed to me that each U.S. base established worldwide impacts the local population and natural environment.

Since beginning working with the Base Project team in February, I’ve been exposed to several new things. I’ve begun working with the Felt Mapping software to create map visualizations using the data I’ve been provided thus far. The existing data is fairly difficult to work with (limited, formatted inconveniently) so the maps I’ve created to…