Joseph Lanning

Dr. Joseph Lanning is an educator, practitioner, and researcher at the School for International Training (SIT) Graduate Institute, where he serves as Chair of the PhD in Sustainability and the Global MA in Sustainable Development Practice. With a regional focus on southern Africa, he has been actively engaged with SIT since 2016, though he is also an SIT alumnus having participated in a study abroad program in Kenya in the 1990s.

Dr. Lanning's academic background includes a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Georgia, an MA in Global History from the University of Rochester, and a BA in Anthropology from the University of Rochester. His research centers on sustainable development and food systems, with particular emphasis on the mixed livelihoods of rural Malawians navigating climatic, environmental, and economic risks.

His research interests span economic and agricultural anthropology, quantitative and qualitative ethnography, livelihoods analysis, social networks, poverty and inequality studies, and the intersection of land cover change, climate change, and zoonoses. Dr. Lanning has conducted extended ethnographic research with farmers in Malawi examining agricultural decision-making, with recent collaborative work focusing on food insecurity and mental health among post-partum women in Malawi.

Dr. Lanning's publications demonstrate a consistent focus on the complex relationships between food security, mental health, agricultural decision-making, and climate impacts in rural Malawi. His work bridges academic research with practical applications for sustainable development, reflecting SIT's experiential learning model which emphasizes immersion, reflection, and integration of knowledge across disciplinary boundaries.

As an educator, Dr. Lanning teaches courses including Foundations of Sustainable Development, Professional Development Seminar, and Practitioner Inquiry. He has been involved in teaching agroecology in Malawi with the Zisinthe Farm and Community Garden, where he serves as a planning partner.