Julie Michelle Klinger
Julie Michelle Klinger (born 1983 in Rockford, Illinois) is an associate professor in the Geography and Spatial Sciences program at the University of Delaware. From 2015 to 2019 she was an assistant professor of International Relations at Boston University. Her work examines how geography, geology, and politics shape development and the use of natural resources, with a focus on rare earth elements. She has done fieldwork in China, Brazil, and other countries affected by mining these metals.
She is the author of Rare Earth Frontiers: From Terrestrial Subsoils to Lunar Landscapes (2017), which traces the history and use of rare earth elements from the 1880s to today and discusses how scarcity myths can drive environmental and social harm. The book won the 2017 Meridian Book Award for Outstanding Scholarly Work in Geography from the American Association of Geographers.
Education and career: Klinger earned a BA from Sarah Lawrence College (2006), a certificate from the Johns Hopkins University–Nanjing University Center (2007), and a PhD in Geography from UC Berkeley (2015) with a dissertation titled On the Rare Earth Frontier under advisor Michael J. Watts. After her PhD, she joined Boston University and later moved to the University of Delaware in January 2020 to join the Minerals, Materials and Society Program. She also studies the legal and political questions around mining rare earths on the Moon, which is protected by international treaty, and has served as associate director of the Land Use and Livelihoods Initiative at BU’s Global Development Policy Center.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 06:12 (CET).