Email: Rccotter@mun.ca

 

Research groups:

Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research (CLEAR)

Previous education:

B.A. (Hons.) in Psychology, Memorial University
M.Sc. in Geography, Memorial University

Research projects:

 

My research examines whether and how community-based and place-based methods can be mobilized for environmental monitoring of marine plastics. My Master's research in Northern Labrador addressed community-identified questions by developing scientific methods for determining the sources of marine plastics and reporting findings at a place-based scale. Building on this work, my PhD research seeks to develop and harmonize place-based approaches to marine plastic pollution research, with the goal of supporting methods that are locally relevant while enabling broader scientific comparison and application.

 

Publications:

 

Cotter R., Liboiron, M., McCarney, P., Pilgrim, L., Lyall, D., Onalik, J., Vuleta, L., Angnatok, J., Wyatt, K., Andersen, G., Anthony, K., Winters, K., Pijogge, M., Saksagiak, M., Dicker, R., Barbour, R., Andersen, M. B., Lidd, J., Lidd, M., Keelan, S., Burke, N., Gilbert, M., Morgan, M. A. A., Melvin, J., Hawkins, K., Sarazen, R., Bloomfield., H., Flynn, A., Lombeida, D., Rodriguez Pereira, S., Senior, K., Malloy, M., Florian, C., Kozikowski, N., Schaefer, B., Rivers, M., Badley, M., & Razzell-Hollis, J. (2026). Place-by-place analysis as ideal representations of surface water plastics in Nunatsiavut, Labrador, Canada. Environmental Research Communications, 8(8), https://doi.org/10.1088/2515-7620/ae99b1

 

Crespo, C., Liboiron, M., Flynn, A., Rivers, M., Cotter, R., Liu, R., Lombeida, D., Hawkins, K., Duman, N., Arif, A., Allen, E., Healey, N., Power, N., Zahara, A., Atkinson, J., McCarney, P., Mather, C., Cafferty, R., & Vuleta, L. (2026). Struggling with citational politics as a pathway to unlearning and relearningfor collective action. KULA: Knowledge Creation, Dissemination, and Preservation Studies, 9(1), https://doi.org/10.18357/kula.314.

Liboiron, M. & Cotter, R. (2023). Review of participation of Indigenous peoples in plastics pollution governance. Cambridge Prisms: Plastics, E16, 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1017/plc.2023.16

Scholarships (selected):

2026-2029 Canada Graduate Research Scholarship (Doctoral), Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).
2024 Canada Graduate Scholarship (Master’s), Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)
2024 Dean's Excellence Award, Memorial University
2024 Affinity NL (Ottawa) Scholarship, Memorial University

Presentations (selected):

Cotter, R. (2026). “Community-oriented metrics and marine plastic monitoring.” Society for the Social Study of Science (4S) Conference, Toronto, CA: October 2026.
Cotter, R. (2026). “Quantitative methods for environmental plastic monitoring in community contexts.” International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences, Galway, IR: July 2026.
Cotter, R. (2024). “Community-centered microplastic monitoring in Nunatsiavut, Labrador.” Canadian Association of Geographers (CAG) Conference, St. John’s, CA: August 2024.
Cotter, R. (2024). “Citizen science and community-based methods: A rights-based approach to community-centered microplastic monitoring.” European Association for the Study of Science and Technology/Society for the Social Study of Science (EASST/4S) Conference, Amsterdam, NL: July 2024.