I grew up in an agricultural area of upstate New York with my cultural anthropologist parents and twin sister, and was present during many of their interviews for their field research in Bolivia, Spain and Switzerland.　 This sparked my interest in poverty, livelihoods, migration, gender and development.　
I attended college in the Philadelphia area and university in Ithaca and later in Binghamton, New York.　 Through summer work experiences with migrant worker children, tutoring an inner-city Philadelphia girl, and conducting research on rural poverty, livelihoods, women and factory work in upstate New York, I gained an understanding of poverty and livelihood issues in the U.S. and an appreciation of qualitative, feminist research methodologies to study these issues. After earning a Master’s in Public Affairs I moved to Tegucigalpa, Honduras where I became the coordinator of income generation and development projects for low-income youth and single mothers for an NGO.　 After returning to the U.S., I started work on a PhD and went to Mexico with the International Water Management Institute to conduct research on gender, livelihoods and socially stratified access to water for agriculture; I also collaborated　 with Mexican colleagues on these issues for other parts of Mexico.　 After completing my PhD, I conducted action research in India, Nepal and Mexico on livelihoods and access to groundwater and urban wastewater for agriculture as part of a post doc and then associate research position with the International Water Management Institute office in Hyderabad, India. 　In each of the areas I have lived and worked I have also focused on the larger political, economic and social context in which the actors I interviewed are inserted; urbanization, population growth, migration, water competition and scarcity are some of the factors influencing livelihoods and water availability, accessibility, and quality.　 I have taught undergraduate courses as a graduate student and, after my time in India, a graduate course entitled ‘Food Security and Livelihoods in Comparative Perspective’ in Clark University’s International Development, Community and Environment Program.

I began my position with BARA as a Research Associate in August 2006. I am conducting research for a Fulbright border grant on the effects of water scarcity and climate change on gendered agricultural production and processing in Sonora, Mexico near the Mexico-U.S. border. I am also examining gender and labor in maquiladoras in these communities and the linkages between this labor and work in agriculture and formal and informal businesses. I am also writing proposals on water, climate change and policy issues in Arizona and Mexico.

　
Selected Publications

Stephanie Buechler. In preparation. The Missing Links: Gender and Labor in Agriculture, Maquiladoras and Urban-based Businesses in Sonora, Mexico near the Mexico-U.S. Border.

Stephanie Buechler. In Review. "Preserving Social Networks and Canning Creativity in the Context of Globalization, Water Scarcity and Climate Change: Gendered Fruit and Vegetable Processing Near the Mexico-U.S. Border". Submitted for special issue on Women and Agriculture in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society.

Stephanie Buechler and Gayathri Devi. In Advanced Review. "Gender Dynamics of the Effects of Growing Urban Areas on Irrigated Agriculture in Central Mexico and South India". For journal Gender, Place and Culture.

Stephanie Buechler. Forthcoming, March 2009. "Gender, Water and Climate Change in Sonora, Mexico: Policy and Program Implications". Special Issue on Climate Change for journal Gender and Development.

Stephanie Buechler and Gayathri Devi. Forthcoming 2008. "Highlighting the User in Wastewater Research: Gender, Caste and Class in the Study of Wastewater-dependent Livelihoods in Hyderabad, India" in Sara Ahmed, Suman Rimal Gautam and Margreet Zwarteveen (co-eds.) Engendering Integrated Water Management in South Asia: Policy, Practice and Institutions. New Delhi: Sage Press.

Stephanie Buechler and Christopher Scott.　 2006.　 Wastewater as a Controversial, Contaminated yet Coveted Resource in South Asia.　 Case Study for the Human Development Report.　 Human Development Report 2006.　 United Nations Development Program.

Stephanie Buechler and Gayathri Devi Mekala.　 2005.　 "Local Responses to Water Resource Degradation in India: Groundwater Farmer Innovations and the Reversal of Knowledge Flows". Special issue on water. Journal of Environment and Development.(14) 4.

Stephanie Buechler.　 2004. "Women at the Helm of Irrigated Agriculture in Mexico: the Other Side of Male Migration" in Vivienne Bennett, Sonia Dávila Poblete and Maria Nieves Rico (eds.). Opposing Currents: The Politics of Water and Gender in Latin America. University of Pittsburgh Press.

Stephanie Buechler.　 2003. "Irrigated Agriculture on Mexican Ejidos: Complementarities with Off-farm and Non-farm Economic Strategies" in Scott Whiteford and Roberto Melville (eds.).　 Managing a Sacred Gift: Changing Water Management Strategies in Mexico. La Jolla: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego.