Adrián Lerner Patrón is a scholar of Latin American, environmental, and urban history, and of the history of science and technology. At Princeton, he developed his book manuscript, Jungle Cities: The Urbanization of Amazonia, a comparative history of the largest cities of the Amazon rainforest: Manaus, Brazil, and Iquitos, Perú. Jungle Cities explores the long-term links between urban and environmental inequalities and political authoritarianism as the Amazon, a region often treated as a “wilderness,” became predominantly urban. He also worked on a series of articles based on his extensive research in local archives in the Brazilian and Perúvian Amazon, and on the global history of urban informal neighborhoods located in waterlogged areas.

Born and raised in Lima, Perú, Adrián completed his B.A. and Licenciatura at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, and his M.A. and Ph.D. at Yale University, where he was also part of the first cohort of the Mellon Interdisciplinary Concentration in the Humanities, focused on “The Technologies of Knowledge.” He has taught courses about Latin America, environmental history, urban planning, and global history. In Fall 2020, Adrian co-taught the Interdisciplinary Design Studio (ARC 205) with Princeton-Mellon PI and PEI associated faculty Mario Gandelsonas.

Adrián’s fellowship was made possible through the support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the High Meadows Environmental Institute (HMEI).