2026 New Horizons in Conservation Convening

8:00 – 8:55 am            Breakfast. Kroon Hall. Third Floor.  

9:00 – 10:15 am          

Plenary 3.      Environment, Energy, and Inequalities. 

Burke Auditorium. Kroon Hall. 

Dr. Diana Hernandez. Associate Professor. Columbia University.

Dr. Tony Reames. Professor. University of Michigan.

                 

10:15 – 10:25 am        Break.

10:25 – 12:00 am        

Plenary 4:      Climate, Hazards, and Vulnerable Communities.

                                    Burke Auditorium. Kroon Hall. 

Dr. Christopher Boone. Dean. University of Southern California.

Dr. Steven Brechin. Professor. Rutgers University.

Dr. Patrick Greiner. Assistant Professor. University of Washington.

Dr. Carolina Prado. Assistant Professor. San Francisco State Univ.

12:00 – 12:55 pm       Lunch. Bowers Auditorium. Sage Hall.

1:00 – 2:15 pm           

Plenary 5:     Pollution, Toxic Exposure, and Vulnerable Populations.

Burke Auditorium. Kroon Hall. 

Dr. Kerry Ard. Associate Professor. The Ohio State University.

Dr. Yolanda McDonald. Assistant Professor. Vanderbilt University.

Dr. Jalonne White-Newsome. Associate Professor. University of Michigan.

Dr. Megan Mullin. Professor. Univ. of California at Los Angeles.

2:15 – 2:20 pm           Break.

2:20 - 3:35 pm            

Planning Session 1:           Mentor and Interns Summer Planning. 

Kroon Hall. Third Floor. 

Panel 9.          Environmental Resources, Inequalities, and Vulnerabilities.

                                    Burke Auditorium. Kroon Hall. 

                                    

Minoli Fernando. Post-Baccalaureate Fellow. Vanderbilt Univ.

A Geospatial Approach to Assessing the Burden of Amplified Risk Among Sensitive Subpopulations to Unsafe Drinking Water in the United States (2019-2023).

Brandon Lewis. Ph.D. Student. Yale University.

Indoor Air Pollution in the Accra Metropolis: PM_2.5 and NO₂ Exposure and Household Characteristics.

Jason Marte. Undergraduate. Stonybrook University.

                                    Pollution, Air Quality Monitoring, and Public Health.

                                    Lupe Franco. Ph.D. Student. University of California – Davis.

Engaging the Unhoused in Climate Adaptation Planning Through Spatial Empathy.

Alycia Ellington. Ph.D. Student. Univ. of California – Santa Cruz.

Refusing Enclosure: Archival Insights into Youth, Schooling & Belonging in Oakland.

Panel 10.        Rights, Nature, Conservation, and Vulnerabilities.  

Room GO1.  Kroon Hall.

Muhammed Ceesay. Master’s Student. University of Michigan.

Green Grabbing: Climate Finance, Conservation, and the New Frontiers of Commodifying Nature.

Raffaele Sindoni. Ph.D. Student. Yale University.

Decolonizing Stewardship: Rights of Nature, Hāpu Authority, and Environmental Justice in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Chun-Ching Tu. Ph.D. Student. Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick.

Living with the Carbon in the Forest: Conservation, Indigenous Environmental Justice, and Carbon Sink Governance in Taiwan.

                                    Joseph Rodriguez. Ph.D. Student. Duke University.

The Movement to Recognize Nature’s Rights.

Frederick Traylor. Ph.D. Student. Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick.

Religion and the Socialization of Attitudes Toward Environmental Conservation.

Panel 11.        Resources, Emergencies, Governance, and Rising Inequalities.

                                    Room 321. Kroon Hall. 

                                    

Heupel, Josh. Ph.D. Student. Stanford University.

From Fisheries to Groundwater Basins: Applying Complex Adaptive Systems Theory and Social-Ecological Matching to Groundwater Governance in California. 

Bibi Macias. Master’s Student. University of Michigan.      

                                    The National Roadmap to Ending Utility Shutoffs.

                                    Nanji, Ariza. Master’s Student. University of Michigan. 

‘Good Energy’ Stories: Co-Conspiring for Environmental Justice Across Two Cities and Multilevel Stakeholders.

  

                                    Dangi, Sabal. Undergraduate. Colorado School of Mines. 

Trash at the Top of the World: Tourism, Infrastructure, and Environmental Justice in the Himalayas. 

Amy Podraza. Master’s Student. Vanderbilt University.

The Need for Standardized Emergency Management Definitions to Improve Communication and Community Outcomes.

3:35 – 3:45 pm           Break.

            

3:45 – 5:15 pm           

Plenary 7.     Community-based Research, Organizing, and Action.

Dr. Jovan Lewis. Professor. University of California – Berkeley.

Dolores Perales. Co-Director. Cadillac Urban Gardens.

Yesica Chavez. Environmental Justice Community Liaison.  Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission.

5:15 - 6:15 pm            Dinner. Bowers Auditorium. Sage Hall.       

                                                                

6:15 pm                      Shuttle departs from Sage Hall for the Omni Hotel.

8:00 am                       Shuttle departs from the Omni Hotel for Kroon Hall. 

8:15 - 9:00 am            Breakfast. Kroon Hall. Third Floor.

9:00 - 10:20 am          

Plenary 8:      Navigating the Foundation Funding Landscape.

                                    Burke Auditorium. Kroon Hall.

Pamela Kohlberg. Board Member. Kohlberg Foundation.

Andrea Bogomonli. Program Officer. Island Foundation.

Rachel Leon. Executive Director. Park Foundation.

10:20 - 10:30 am        Break.

10:30 – 11:50 pm       

Plenary 9.      Youth and New People Entering the Environmental Grantmaking Space: Opportunities and Challenges.

Burke Auditorium, Kroon Hall. 

Kiara Ott. Program Manager. 11^th Hour Project – Schmidt Family Foundation.

Calla Sneller. Senior Program Officer. Re:wild Foundation.

Demi Espinosa. Program Officer. Resources Legacy Fund.

Dr. Marisol Becerra. Program Officer. Joyce Foundation.

11:50 – 12:00 pm       Break

12:00 – 1:00 pm         

Plenary 10.    Closing Plenary.

                                    

Dr. Sparkle Malone. Associate Professor. Yale University.

                                    Dr. Dorceta Taylor. Wangari Maathai Professor. Yale University.

1:00 – 2:00 pm           Lunch. Kroon Hall. Third Floor. 

2:00 pm                      Depart for Airport or Train Station.

Anda, Diana. Staff. Diverse Studio & Rise and Rescue.

Rise + Rescue: Micro-Home Campuses as Conservation and Care Infrastructure. 

Rise and Rescue is a nonprofit-led initiative addressing the needs of youth aging out of the foster care system in the Houston metropolitan area through sustainable, care-centered housing. The project explores how architecture and urban design can operate as tools of conservation, social infrastructure, and empowerment. Diverse Studio was engaged as the architects and urban designers to translate the organization’s mission into a built framework that integrates environmental responsibility, community connection, and long-term resilience. 

The research focuses on the development of a campus of sustainably constructed micro homes that pair each youth resident with a rescued foster animal, reinforcing emotional support, responsibility, and stewardship while creating pathways toward careers in animal welfare. The framework is organized around three areas of inquiry: participatory user research with youth and nonprofit partners, urban site evaluation within the Houston metroplex to align with existing ecological and civic systems, and the design of housing and campus-scale strategies. This effort will aim to emphasize material sustainability, construction methods, and improved quality of life. Beginning with pilot homes and scaling toward a full campus, the project aims to establish a replicable model demonstrating how small, conservation-minded design interventions can produce meaningful social and environmental impact. 

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Blondell, Molly. Ph.D. Student. Yale University.

              Food Insecurity in ICE (Immigrant and Customs Enforcement) Detention Facilities.

Since the 1970s, fiscal austerity measures implemented through the privatization of prisons have exacerbated mass incarceration and drastically altered the social and health conditions of incarcerated communities. The privatization of facets of the U.S. carceral landscape has led to the development of the “prison food industrial complex” (PFIC), in which local and state governments contract with a small number of food service companies (correctional food vendors) to support prison facility cafeterias and commissaries. While prison officials are encouraged to follow the recommended calorie intake values set by the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Academies’ Institute of Medicine, there is no policy requirement or enforcement mechanism to ensure incarcerated individuals are provided with nutritious food. At face value, the prison commissary is intended to supplement cafeteria offerings. However, as prison meals served in cafeterias are largely disdained, sustenance is more often purchased through the commissary, creating a financially exploitative reliance on it.

This project has two primary objectives: 1. To identify how offerings within prison commissaries serve as a nutritional and cultural supplement to facility-provided meals. 2. To analyze commissary prices in the context of prison labor wages to evaluate the financial implications of reliance on the prison commissary. Through these objectives, this research aims to better understand how the prison commissary may embolden inequities within carceral food systems.

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Caiola, Marie, et al. Master’s Student. Columbia University.

Community-Based Participatory Geographic Information Systems: Informing a Long-Term Drinking Water Research Collaboration.

This study introduces the concept of community-based participatory geographic information systems (CBPGIS), a novel integration of community-based participatory research (CBPR) and participatory geographic information systems (PGIS) research methodologies. The CBPGIS approach is unique from CBPR and PGIS applications because it integrates human and organizational theory to build trust and sustain team dynamics. It also leverages local spatial knowledge from community stakeholders at every stage of the research process, emphasizing the need for coproduction of geospatial knowledge to inform products and deliverables that support long-term research collaboration. CBPGIS can foster equitable town–gown research collaborations by intentionally involving academic and community stakeholders to coproduce community-informed research priorities and solutions that could inform interventions and policy changes. To facilitate immersive student town–gown research experience, learning outcomes, and a sense of community belonging, we adapted the geospatial technology model by integrating community engagement and academic research competencies to develop the CBPGIS research competency model. Furthermore, using a statewide case study, we identified the critical need to coproduce a geospatial community water systems (CWS) service area boundary geodatabase to support drinking-water-related infrastructure and public health needs. We demonstrate how the CBPGIS approach was used to obtain spatial data, which are often scant or missing in a study area (e.g., rural areas). The CBPGIS approach ensured trust was established with local spatial knowledge stakeholders to obtain the necessary information to coproduce 97 percent of the CWS service area boundary data for populations of 3,300 or less; only nine U.S. states have comparable data at this level.

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Castro, Natalie. Ph.D. Student. Northeastern University.

Climate Change and Labor: Taking the Pulse of Bluesky Users’ Perceptions.

This presentation presents a published research paper, “Taking the Pulse: Exploring Bluesky Users’ Perceptions of Workers’ Rights and Climate Change on International Workers Day,” in First Monday. Using topic modeling and sentiment analysis, we identified the themes discussed by Bluesky Users. We find that on International Workers Day, a larger proportion of users talk about climate change, and a minimal amount talk about both worker-related topics and climate change. The majority of climate-related topics are discussed in either a neutral or negative light; comparatively, the majority of labor posts were discussed in a positive connotation. We conclude by noting that the potential to discuss both climate change and workers’ rights, fueled by emotion, may motivate meaningful engagement on both topics. 

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Ceesay, Muhammed. Master of Science Student.  University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. 

Green Grabbing: Climate Finance, Conservation, and the New Frontiers of Commodifying Nature.

Across the Global South, conservation is increasingly mobilized to commodify and financialize nature, transforming community-based ecological practices into marketable assets. In this presentation, I examine how contemporary conservation initiatives—carbon sequestration schemes, biodiversity offsets, ecosystem-service valuation, and “nature-based solutions”—translate relational, place-based ecologies into standardized units legible to global finance. Through a political-ecology lens, I argue that these interventions reconfigure power and authority over land, water, and nonhuman life by privileging investors, consultants, and conservation NGOs while marginalizing the communities whose stewardship has long sustained these landscapes. The financial architectures that underpin conservation—predictive models, baselines, risk metrics, and contractual instruments—produce new forms of epistemic and material enclosure, displacing customary tenure systems, fragmenting commons governance, and erasing Indigenous Knowledge (IK). 

Rather than protecting ecosystems, market-driven conservation often repackages dispossession as “restoration” and reframes ecological care as a financial opportunity. By synthesizing interdisciplinary scholarship across political ecology, climate-finance studies, and critical conservation research, this presentation exposes how financialized conservation deepens environmental injustice by devaluing local labor, knowledge, and sovereignty. I argue for methodological pluralism—participatory mapping, legal pluralism, and community-rooted ecological analysis—to challenge these technocratic regimes and re-center rights, reciprocal obligations, and collective stewardship. Only by confronting the capitalist infrastructures embedded within conservation can we envision ecological futures grounded in justice rather than extraction. 

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Crable, Frances S. Ph.D. Student. University of Illinois Chicago. (with Samira Umar, Andrew Luke King, and Miquel Gonzalez-Meler). 

How Freshwater is Reshaping Arctic Food Webs and Livelihoods. 

The conversation about climate change in the Canadian Arctic typically focuses on ice loss and rising freshwater inputs. However, much less attention has been given to what these changes mean for marine food webs and the Inuit communities of Nunavut, Canada. Observations from this study indicate that enhanced freshwater influence modifies the quality and composition of organic matter entering Arctic food webs and reshapes patterns of marine productivity, with cascading effects on energy transfer throughout marine ecosystems. These biogeochemical and ecological changes influence Arctic fisheries and the communities that depend on marine ecosystems for subsistence, livelihoods, and culture. By situating freshwater-driven ecosystem change within a broader Arctic context, this presentation underscores how climate-driven hydrological shifts are restructuring Arctic marine systems and illustrates how understanding these processes can inform efforts to protect Arctic ecosystems and the livelihoods they support. Improved understanding of these bottom-up processes is essential for interpreting future changes in Arctic marine productivity and ecosystem resilience. 

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Dace, Fransha. Ph.D. Student. Yale University.

Climate Risk, Neighborhood Vulnerabilities, and Resilience in Chicago.

Adaptive systems are defined by their ability to perform any number of the following functions: reduce harm, provide shelter, or connect to circumstance-altering resources. Systems that help communities adapt to climate change are referred to as adaptive social systems. Access or connection to adaptive systems, particularly adaptive social systems, can be the difference between life and death for vulnerable populations, especially during extreme climate impacts like heat waves, freezes, and floods. This study employs an ethnographic approach to explore support mechanisms of faith-based organizations. In the context of the United States, churches have historically acted as hubs for social justice and civil rights, especially within the Black Community. This study seeks to uncover potential opportunities for community-centric climate adaptation within communities of faith.

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Dangi, Sabal. Undergraduate. Colorado School of Mines. 

Trash at the Top of the World: Tourism, Infrastructure, and Environmental Justice in the Himalayas. 

My research examines how tourism-driven solid waste systems in the Himalayan mountain communities reveal deeper divides between conservation, governance, and environmental justice. This is an extension of my earlier peer-reviewed publication, focusing on the picturesque village of Ghandruk, nestled at the foot of the famous Annapurna and Dhaulagiri peaks. In that study, household and commercial waste characterization revealed 261.3 g per capita per day of solid waste generation, which was dominated by organic waste (≈60%) but with a rapidly rising share of recyclables, especially glass and plastics. 

Despite community composting and Tourism Management Committee collection efforts in Ghandruk, non-recyclables are still frequently open-burned, and recyclables are often rejected due to high transport costs to urban markets. This demonstrates that even “successful” rural systems remain structurally fragile when tourism scales faster than infrastructure and governance. I extend this framework through a comparative, in-progress study of the Khumbu Valley and Mount Everest Base Camp, integrating Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee (SPCC) waste records (2016–2024), stakeholder interviews, focus group discussions, and expedition field observations. 

The region generated more than 401,000 kg of solid waste during this period, including 146,000 kg of human waste, with a post-pandemic surge exceeding 77,000 kg in 2024 alone. While SPCC manages roughly 65 tons of solid waste annually and operates programs like Carry Me Back, enforcement gaps, seasonal monitoring lapses, and infrastructure limits persist. Across both sites, I argue that tourism waste is not simply a logistical problem but a governance crisis in which environmental burdens are displaced onto remote communities. I propose community-scaled infrastructure, mechanisms for tourist accountability, and policy integration as pathways toward more just and resilient conservation systems. 

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de la Fuente, Simón ‘Fime’, et al. Master’s Student. University of Michigan.

Oro Negro, Agüita de Colonia: Overlaying Stories in Borikén Coffee.

The coffee industry in Borikén, or Puerto Rico, is clouded by complementary, contradicting, and divergent narratives tied up in a history of colonization, globalization, and local identitarian movements. In the past three decades, transnational corporations have bought out heritage Puerto Rican coffee brands while local bean production has fallen over 90% due to a legacy of industrialization, climate change, and a debt-crippled economy. As a result, large-scale roasters are increasingly more reliant on cheap, imported beans, which they blend with local coffee and market as “developed in Puerto Rico.” Smallholders struggle to pay U.S. prices for labor and inputs, and either sell their beans green or produce less competitive, expensive “specialty” batches. Meanwhile, NGOs offering fiscal and technical support have emerged from both the local agroecology movement and foreign corporations. This study examines the intersections of global coffee trade politics, local agrarian geographies, and social organizations involved in coffee production. Through archival research, ethno-photography, and participatory interviews, we worked with small, medium, and large-scale farmers; local and transnational roasters; NGOs; agronomists; and local government employees. The preliminary analysis reveals a complex matrix of influences: (1) Oligopolies dominate the industry with intensive agriculture, mass imports, and commercial processing; (2) NGOs supporting smallholders are funded by the same companies driving intensive production; (3) Despite receiving NGO assistance, small producers absorb externalities of transitioning away from an agro-industrial system; and (4) Through NGOs, large companies co-opt agroecology as a “business solution to poverty” that serves public-private partnerships but leaves smallholders out.

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Diyadawagamage, Dunya. Master’s Student. University of Michigan.

Global Biodiversity Metrics.

This study explores the scenarios in which prominent biodiversity metrics predict (or fail to predict) different biodiversity patterns. The literature review examined over 50 papers exploring the intersections of life cycle analysis and biodiversity in common supply chains and farming systems. Four significant publicly available global biodiversity datasets and one dataset observing human-modified areas were analyzed in R to visualize their relationships using linear regression and bivariate maps. The results are expected to display mean species abundance as less precise in relaying biodiversity information compared to species richness and the LIFE metric. The impacts of land use intensity on ecosystems, and important but non-public datasets like PREDICTS, were considered out of scope for this study, and present avenues for further research. The results are expected to illustrate which entities benefit from using biodiversity data for operations and provide recommendations on improving the accuracy of the data. 

With the rise in well-rounded, environmentally positive initiatives, governments, researchers, major corporations, and more use biodiversity datasets and metrics to navigate their research, decision-making processes, and sustainability reporting. The gap addressed in this research is between widely used global datasets and the field representation of biodiversity metrics and the people who use them. This study evaluates major public biodiversity metrics and proxies to understand their significance and accuracy. The data utilized in this study are the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, Global Biodiversity Model (GloBio), Land-cover change Impacts on Future Extinctions (LIFE), and Global Human Modification (GHM). These datasets are trusted by prominent organisations spanning various sectors, from policymakers to major manufacturers.1, 2 The IUCN dataset was used for Species Richness (SR), GloBio for Mean Species Abundance (MSA) and Land Use (LU), LIFE for Land Cover Exchange due to Extinction (LCEE), and GHM for Human Modification (HM). The first four datasets are related to biodiversity, while HM was used due to its similarity to land use change. SR, MSA, and LIFE used individual datasets for All Terrestrial Species, Birds, Mammals, Anurans, and Squamates. Scatterplots and bivariate maps were created to compare all data sets, including their individual classes. It was assumed that SR and LU were the drivers for each comparison. Present results imply that most datasets have limited relations to each other, except for MSA and HM, which had a high R-squared value of 0.75. This highlights the importance of reevaluating how existing indicators are constructed and used to represent biodiversity.

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Ellington, Alycia. Ph.D. Student. University of California, Santa Cruz.

Refusing Enclosure: Archival Insights into Youth, Schooling & Belonging in Oakland.

 

Conservation, education, and urban governance are often treated as separate, yet all are shaped by racial capitalism’s logics of enclosure, control, and dispossession. I approach the environment not just as land or ecology, but as the everyday spaces (e.g., schools, neighborhoods, and community institutions) that shape who is safe, who belongs, and who is exposed to harm. Drawing from Black Geographies and abolitionist frameworks, this presentation introduces a formal archival research component of my dissertation, examining public schooling in Oakland, California, as an environmental and spatial institution. The archival work traces how Oakland’s geographies have evolved over time, shaping the spaces young people and communities navigate today. While the research is ongoing, engagement with existing academic and community sources highlights how schools organize land, bodies, and futures through histories of displacement and racialized control and how youth and communities respond with practices of care, refusal, and collective survival. By centering youth perspectives as insurgent spatial knowledge, this project invites scholars and practitioners to consider how schooling, place, and belonging intersect to shape more just and livable futures. 

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Fernando, Minoli. Student. Loyola University of Chicago & Vanderbilt University. (with Nevitt, Kyle & McDonald, Yolanda J.)

A Geospatial Approach to Assessing the Burden of Amplified Risk Among Sensitive Subpopulations to Unsafe Drinking Water in the United States (2019-2023).

A 2000 United States Environmental Protection Agency national-level assessment of drinking water quality reported that 20% of the United States population is more susceptible to lower levels of exposure to regulated drinking water contaminants. This population is commonly referred to as sensitive sub-populations (SSPs), despite the lack of a standardized definition and the measure’s granularity beyond the national level. Given the deteriorating condition of drinking water infrastructure, the insufficient technical, managerial, and financial capacity of many public water system suppliers, ongoing drinking water violations, and climate change events that can disrupt the public water supply, the risk of adverse health effects faced by SSPs is a highly relevant topic. This study aimed to (1) develop a comprehensive, multidisciplinary definition of drinking water SSPs, (2) identify where SSPs reside, and (3) geospatially analyze where SSPs are at greatest risk for exposure to unsafe drinking water in the United States.

A multidisciplinary literature review informed the identification of ten drinking water SSPs, categorized by life stage (i.e., children under five, adults over 65, pregnant women) and health status (i.e., diabetes, cancer, coronary heart disease, chronic kidney disease, HIV, organ transplantation, and disability). RStudio and ArcGIS were used to compile, analyze, and map county-level SSP obtained from publicly available national datasets in relation to health-based drinking water violation data. We found that, on average, 64% of the population across the United States was classified as an SSP, substantially exceeding previous national estimates. SSPs and drinking water violations have an uneven geographic distribution, with the largest concentration of high-risk counties located in EPA regions 1, 3, 6, 9, and 10. Health status SSPs accounted for the majority of the SSP burden, particularly disability, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Integrating SSP definitions with geospatial drinking water violation data provides a first step toward identifying communities facing heightened health risks. These findings highlight the need for SSP-informed drinking water policy, infrastructure investment, and targeted public health interventions.

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Franco, Lupe. Ph. D. Student. University of California, Davis. 

              Engaging the Unhoused in Climate Adaptation Planning Through Spatial Empathy. 

Climate change is reshaping every community, but its impacts are not felt equally. Unhoused populations face heightened risks from extreme heat, wildfire smoke, and flooding. Their vulnerability is threatened by intersecting systems of oppression related to race, class, gender, and exclusion in climate dialogues. This exclusion reflects a lack of spatial empathy: an understanding of how place, power, and lived experience intersect to shape vulnerability and resilience. 

Drawing on interviews with over 50 unhoused individuals in Yolo County, CA, I explore how unhoused communities experience and navigate extreme weather events and how they define and make meaning of “home” in the context of climate uncertainty. By reframing climate adaptation through spatial empathy and spatial justice, I argue for teaching and policy practices that listen to unhoused communities as experts of place. Integrating their perspectives and knowledge into education and local planning can cultivate compassion, deepen understanding of spatial inequities, and move us toward more just and resilient futures. 

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Hale, Kiera. Undergraduate. Howard University.

Campus Ecology: Comparative Analysis of Tree Ecosystem Services on College Campuses in Washington, D.C. 

Studies have shown that college and university campuses can be essential for providing the benefits of urban green spaces, with some campuses functioning as the primary parks for their surrounding communities. There are a growing number of studies on urban forest ecology on college campuses, but none have compared the data of multiple universities in a city. D.C. is a suitable city for this research, as it contains a diverse array of institutions (HBCUs, MSIs, public, private, research, and land-grant), allowing for unique observations related to both ecological and social factors. This study will focus on 4 to 8 colleges and universities that 1. Have their main campuses located in the District of Columbia (D.C.), and 2. Offer undergraduate degree programs. This study aims to answer 2 research questions: 1. What are the compositions of tree populations on D.C. college and university campuses? And 2. What ecosystem services do D.C. campus trees provide to surrounding communities? 

The objectives of this study are to 1. Analyze the physical structure (height, canopy, age) and biodiversity of trees on D.C. university campuses, 2. Quantify the ecological and monetary impacts of the ecosystem services provided by these trees, and 3. Conduct a comparative analysis of the physical structure, biodiversity, and ecosystem services of the trees of the researched D.C. campuses. To achieve Objective 1, data will be collected on tree species diversity, tree canopy cover, and age structure through field surveys, available university tree databases, and the online tools OurTrees and i-Tree Canopy. To achieve Objective 2, the tree ecosystem services will be calculated using MyTree, i-Tree Design, and i-Tree Eco. These tools will be used to estimate carbon dioxide uptake, stormwater mitigation, and air pollution removal. To achieve objective 3, the previously calculated data on species diversity, canopy structure, ecosystem services, and monetary value will be compared across the sites to identify any trends and/or disparities between campuses. Understanding trends in the ecosystem services of trees on D.C. college campuses will benefit future urban forest planning efforts and further contextualize campuses as opportunities for conservation within urban forestry.

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Heupel, Josh. Ph.D. Student. Stanford University.

From Fisheries to Groundwater Basins: Applying Complex Adaptive Systems Theory and Social-Ecological Matching to Groundwater Governance in California. 

Groundwater basins throughout California exhibit the defining traits of complex adaptive systems (CAS). Basins, which are large underground areas filled with permeable materials such as sand, gravel, and fractured rock that store significant amounts of groundwater, exhibit nonlinear hydrologic feedbacks, have heterogeneous users with diverse incentives, have cross-scale interactions between social and ecological systems, and potential outcomes that cannot be predicted from their components alone. However, groundwater governance frameworks across the United States have rarely been designed in accordance with complex adaptive systems principles. Drawing on James Wilson’s theory of matching social and ecological systems in complex ocean fisheries, this article argues that effective groundwater management in California requires adaptive, local, and knowledge-rich institutions that are capable of responding to groundwater basin-specific dynamics. California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) not only represents the most ambitious attempt to govern groundwater in the western United States, but also attempts to implement a governance approach as described by Wilson. 

Using SGMA as a case of institutional design for complex resource systems, this article develops a conceptual framework for understanding groundwater governance in California as a process of social-ecological matching. This article’s analysis evaluates 1) the extent to which groundwater basins in California match complex adaptive systems principles; 2) whether Wilson’s theory of social-ecological matching extends to groundwater governance and broader common-pool resource problems; 3) the extent to which the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act matches complex adaptive systems governance frameworks; 4) limitations of local groundwater governance in California thus far. 

The suite of research projects I am currently working on is focused on commoning, complex coordination problems, and how different stakeholder inclusion may change the outcomes of formal government institutions. My empirical focus is on groundwater across the American West, with a particular interest in California’s groundwater predicament and a whole host of observable outcomes stemming from the implementation of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act in 2014. 

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Ibrahim-Balogun, Genesis. Undergraduate. North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (with Porché L. Spence).

Comparing Two Decades of Water Quality Index Values Between Muddy Creek and South Buffalo Creek Watersheds in Greensboro, North Carolina. 

Changes in land use threaten the water quality and ecological health of urban watersheds. Water Quality Index (WQI) values are useful for evaluating stream health. The city of Greensboro Stormwater Management Program publishes monthly WQI values, ranging from 0 (poor) to 100 (good), that include a combination of nine measures: temperature, dissolved oxygen, fecal coliform, biochemical oxygen demand, total phosphorus, turbidity, total suspended solids, total dissolved solids, and nitrate-nitrogen. Secondary data provided by the City of Greensboro, NC, were used to compare the WQI values over a 24-year period at one monitoring location within two watersheds, Muddy Creek at White Street (drains the NC A&T campus) and South Buffalo Creek at McConnell Road (NC A&T farm). A t-test was performed to compare the differences between decade one (2000-2012) and decade two (2013-2024). The t-test results indicated a statistically significant decline in the mean WQI values within the Muddy Creek watershed between decade one = 77.04 and decade two = 74.20, and the South Buffalo Creek watershed between decade one = 77.71 and decade two = 73.44. This work stresses the importance of long-term water quality monitoring for comparing decadal WQI values in streams, which is useful in assessing the impact of urbanization and stream health. 

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Jordan, Sofia, et al. Master’s Student. University of Michigan.

Farmers’ Efforts to Build Autonomy and Subvert Extractive Systems.

Effective agroecological research must center on the needs and perspectives of peasant farmers to support their efforts to build autonomy and transform extractive systems. In this study, we investigate the intersection of biodiversity, ecosystem services, and just transitions by partnering with the Institute for Agroecology, Research, and Action of Puerto Rico (IALA-PR). This organization recently acquired a coffee farm in Utuado, Puerto Rico, with a goal of transforming it into an agroecological hub, educational model, training center, and social convening space for the region, deepening environmental justice and just land use frameworks. Our study used a mixed-methods approach, generating a baseline ecosystem service review of the farm and interviewing stakeholders in the farmer network to better understand sentiments around sustainable transitions. This study also incorporated literature reviews, biocontrol agent ecological surveys, and participatory workshops with academics, farmers, NGOs, and activists. The key results from our work to cultivate the coffee farm as an agroecological hub include a species distribution, pest damage density, and an educational farm tour route with the locations of key ecological resources and cultural symbols on the farm. We discuss how this information can be used to improve the use of biocontrol agents and further strengthen the peasant farmer network in the formation of an agroecological landscape. These findings suggest that exploring factors that influence the infection proportions can reveal the potential ecosystem services that can assist in the transition away from synthetic input reliance and toward peasant farmer autonomy. 

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Lee, Seungyun. Ph.D. Student. Rutgers University-New Brunswick

Imagining Just Futures: Climate Fiction, Book Clubs, and the Politics of Climate Imagination.

              Despite growing scientific consensus on climate change, collective inaction persists. This is a problem rooted not only in policy gaps but in constrained cultural imaginaries. Liberal political frameworks have narrowed the range of possible climate futures, limiting visions to business-as-usual, techno-fix, or apocalyptic scenarios that fail to center justice or transformation. This mixed-methods research examines how climate fiction, particularly works centering Afro/African futurism and Indigenous Futurisms, can expand collective climate imaginaries and emotional engagement through educational settings like book clubs.

By comparing individual readers with book club participants engaging the same climate fiction text, this study reveals how collective interpretation processes reshape climate emotions and imaginaries in ways that transcend solitary reading. Through ethnographic observation, interviews, and surveys, the research demonstrates that group discussion amplifies certain interpretations while challenging others, creating space for alternative climate futures grounded in justice and solidarity. The presentation will highlight how educational spaces built around climate storytelling can cultivate the imaginative and affective resources necessary for climate action, with particular attention to how Afro/African futurist and Indigenous futurist narratives counter dominant climate scripts and model communities of resilience and collective care.

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Lewis, Brandon. Ph.D. Student. Yale University.

Indoor Air Pollution in the Accra Metropolis: PM2.5 and NO2 Exposure and Household Characteristics.

Understanding indoor air pollution and its contributing factors in urban households of fast-growing sub-Saharan African cities is vital to implementing effective air quality management to mitigate pollution and protect the most vulnerable populations. To contribute to this body of research, we measured household fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in the kitchen and living areas of households and investigated factors driving increased exposure to indoor PM2.5 and NO2 among pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers in Accra, Ghana. We recruited 55 households through women participating in the ongoing Accra Birth Cohort study (ABC). We administered questionnaires to collect information on household-level factors and activities. Lastly, we conducted multivariable linear regression to evaluate the main household factors associated with increased indoor PM2.5 and NO2 concentrations.

Summarizing our findings, the mean (max) PM2.5 and NO2 concentrations for all household areas are 15.70 μg/m3 (161.81 μg/m3) and 2.30 ppb (11.20 ppb), respectively. Homes using wood on average had the highest PM2.5 and NO2 concentrations, followed by gas (for PM2.5) and charcoal (for NO2). Results show that both PM2.5 and NO2 concentrations tend to increase with the number of reported cooking events and decrease with more open kitchen layouts. We found a statistically significant association between biomass fuel usage and increased indoor PM2.5 exposure, while curtain/drape availability is associated with decreased exposure. Insect coil repellent usage and distance to nearest roadway are positively associated with indoor NO2 concentrations, although the results are not significant. This research provides insights and knowledge to guide effective management, reduce indoor air pollution, increase awareness, and empower local people and communities to further progress towards a cleaner environment.

Highlights

• High indoor levels of PM2.5. NO2 levels are lower than expected.
• Kitchen levels were higher than in living areas on average for PM_2.5 and NO₂.
• Biomass usage was associated with significant increases in indoor PM_2.5 levels, while drape/curtain availability was associated with significant decreases.
• Coil use and distance to streets had the strongest association with increased indoor NO2 levels, although results are not significant.
• This project is the first study addressing multiple indoor air pollutants in Accra.

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Litzenberg, Mia. Undergraduate. Michigan State University. (with Gailey, Riley, & Ahmed, Saleh).

Social-Ecological Traps for Indigenous People in the Philippines: Conceptualizing Mangrove Forest Health as a Source of Livelihood. 

As environmental, economic, political, and social stressors place an increasing amount of pressure on the societal fabric of marginalized groups worldwide, these groups are facing intensified social-ecological trap conditions. Indigenous people in particular face a cultural and spiritual uprooting of their ability to preserve their ways of life, including the Cuyunon and Tagbanua Indigenous tribes of Busuanga Island in the Philippines. These groups heavily rely on mangrove ecosystem goods and services to sustain their livelihoods in ways that align with their ancestral practices. As mangrove forests become increasingly impacted by rising sea levels, intensified typhoons, and flooding events due to climate change, the relationship that Indigenous people have with these ecosystems, combined with illegal resource extraction, drives them into a social-ecological trap. Through a literature review of secondary sources, including journal articles, news articles, and government reports, and using a case study of the Cuyunon and Tagbanua Indigenous tribes, this paper analyzes five pillars contributing to this trap: climate change, illegal deforestation, subsistence economy, population growth, and gendered violence. This paper seeks to create a more robust understanding of social-ecological traps, especially as they relate to Indigenous groups in Southeast Asia. 

While Indigenous and island nation leaders have limited representation in global decision-making regarding greenhouse gas emissions, they are among the groups impacted the most by rising sea levels. The rate at which sea levels are rising outpaces the ability of mangrove roots, which must grow above and below water, to adapt. As a result, the ecosystem goods and services, as well as land sovereignty of these groups, are directly threatened, causing increased competition and conflict with out-groups. With the Cuyunon and Tagbanua people in the village of Quezon being part of the lowest socio-economic bracket in all of the Philippines, their interdependent relationship with mangrove ecosystems drives them deeper into a social-ecological trap. These traps can be defined as situations where social and ecological feedback loops reinforce each other to maintain precarious, vulnerable, and unsustainable living conditions, entrapping communities in a vicious cycle that becomes increasingly harder to escape. 

As Cuyunon and Tagbanua women lead an effective reforestation initiative here, they are further subjected to an ongoing state of harm as they become targets of gendered violence while defending their spiritual, economic, and cultural connections with the land. Combined with the economic competition from a growing population and mass illegal deforestation of mangrove ecosystems, the social-ecological trap the Cuyunon and Tagbanua face is acute and immediate. This paper will combine local insight as the lead author travels to Palawan from late January to early February. 

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Mancilla, Cristina. Master’s Student. Bren School of Environment.

Beyond Outreach: Community-Defined Engagement at Long-Term Ecological Research Sites.

Public engagement with science (PES) encompasses practices such as science communication, community engagement, public outreach, and informal STEM learning. While prior research has largely focused on scientists’ motivations and goals for PES, there is limited empirical evidence on how communities themselves wish to engage with scientific institutions. This gap is particularly consequential for biological field stations, which are embedded in the environments and communities they study and are uniquely positioned to foster sustained, place-based relationships. When such relationships are absent, research risks reproducing the extractive dynamics of “parachute science,” wherein scientific activity yields limited reciprocal benefit to local communities.

This presentation draws on findings from a National Science Foundation–funded project (NSF award #s: 2215187 and 2215188) examining public engagement with science within STEM research organizations. Using a comparative case study approach across three Long-Term Ecological Research sites, we ask: What kinds of relationships and forms of engagement do local communities want from their local LTER sites? Drawing on interviews, focus groups, and surveys, we foreground community members’ interests, assets, and aspirations. Our findings highlight how both the results and the research process itself can support place-based research institutions in critically reflecting on their roles and responsibilities and in designing engagement practices grounded in reciprocity and community-defined value.

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Macias, Bibi. Master’s Student. University of Michigan (with Bishop, Zoë, Lewis, Melissa, Blake, John, & Reames, Tony G.) 

The National Roadmap to Ending Utility Shutoffs. 

Millions of households across the United States experience utility shutoffs each year due to nonpayment, disproportionately impacting BIPOC and frontline environmental justice communities. Despite the fundamental need for electricity for survival, investor-owned utilities prioritize profit over people. Between January and October 2022, utility companies shut off power to households in the U.S. an estimated 4.2 million times, with few companies responsible for the vast majority of these disconnections (Bell et al., 2023). 

Energy insecurity is a multi-dimensional crisis with economic, physical, and behavioral components (Hernández, 2016). It exacerbates health disparities, with shutoffs linked to respiratory conditions such as asthma and premature deaths (Hernández, 2016). Utilities use strategic, extractive tactics such as media manipulation, regulatory capture, and rate hikes to suppress consumer protections (Rivera et al., 2022). The consequences of utility shutoffs are severe: households without power struggle to maintain employment, access healthcare, and keep children in school. Moreover, the lack of transparent data on disconnections masks the full extent of the crisis, hindering regulatory and legislative solutions. 

The National Roadmap to Ending Utility Shutoffs identifies the harms, evaluates best practices for reducing and providing strategic recommendations for energy justice advocates, policymakers, and regulators. This project delivers a set of targeted resources–including a white paper detailing the arguments for the elimination of utility shutoffs, a strategy memo outlining policies, administrative actions that advocates can take to achieve shutoff moratoria, and a literature review analyzing the harm of utility shutoffs and disparities across demographics–to inform and mobilize stakeholders toward eliminating utility shutoffs. 

The topic we would like to present on is the complexities within the utility sector, synthesizing the qualitative interviews with academic researchers, community organizers, policymakers, and industry experts surrounding disconnections. Using these interviews, we outline a guide on how to best approach ending or severely limiting energy shutoffs for those working across either of the four sectors interviewed, positioning these interviews in a new policy framework. 

Additionally, we would like to speak to the incredible disparities experienced by those facing energy shutoffs and the importance of advocating for an end to disconnections, especially on the student researcher side, to encourage new academic interest in these topics.

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Marte, Jason. Undergraduate. Stonybrook University. 

Air Quality Emissions.

Understanding atmospheric NO₂ emission patterns over croplands is essential for maintaining air quality and environmental health. Current monitoring systems lack critical information regarding fine-scale temporal and spatial emission patterns. Although satellite instruments provide extensive fine-resolution data, distinguishing emission signals from background signals remains challenging, particularly in agricultural regions. Existing NO₂ datasets often do not capture short-term pulsing events or agricultural drivers in detail. In contrast to traditional ground-based methods, satellite remote sensing combined with machine learning tools can effectively differentiate between morphologically and temporally similar emission signals. Analysis of TEMPO and Sentinel-5P satellite data for croplands in New York, Wisconsin, and Minnesota offers new insights into seasonal, diurnal, and spatial NO₂ patterns. While most trends correspond with established agricultural practices, novel short-term spikes likely associated with weather events were also identified. This research informs questions regarding agricultural emissions and their climatic impacts, and supports the development of environmentally sustainable cropland management strategies. 

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Marvin, Maysi. Undergraduate. Whitman College.

Artificial Intelligence, Energy Demand, and Environmental Inequalities.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming modern society, but its expansion is driving significant growth in electricity and water demand, particularly from energy-intensive data centers that already account for an estimated 2–4% of global electricity use. As AI deployment accelerates, reliance on fossil-fuel-based power risks undermining climate goals and increasing environmental stress. This research examines the emerging relationship between AI infrastructure and nuclear energy. Nuclear power can provide reliable baseload electricity with approximately 90% lower lifecycle carbon emissions than fossil fuels. While nuclear energy offers a pathway to decarbonize AI-driven growth, challenges related to waste management, water use, permitting, and public trust underscore the need for coordinated energy, environmental, and technology policy frameworks.

The discussion further explores the uneven environmental impacts of AI and energy infrastructure on marginalized and low-income communities, where data center water consumption, thermal pollution, and siting decisions may exacerbate existing vulnerabilities. AI itself can support conservation, grid optimization, and emissions monitoring when governed responsibly. By integrating AI with low-carbon nuclear energy and inclusive policymaking, this research highlights pathways for maintaining environmental integrity, advancing climate justice, and fostering hope amid uncertainty in an increasingly technology-dependent world.

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McDonald, Ambria. Ph.D. Student. Yale University.

Understanding the Jackson, Mississippi, Water Crisis: Vulnerabilities and Governance.

Community water systems in the United States provide drinking water to more than 300 million people annually, making their reliability fundamental to public health. In regions with long histories of racial segregation and unequal infrastructure maintenance, water system failures can deepen existing environmental injustices. This study examines water quality conditions in the Jackson, Mississippi, metropolitan area following the 2022 distribution system collapse and a decade of repeated noncompliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act’s Lead and Copper Rule (LCR). Using the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s 2024 updated LCR tap sampling protocol, water samples from 29 sites were collected. Samples were analyzed for lead, copper, iron, zinc, chlorine, sulfate, pH, and total dissolved solids concentrations. Chlorine-to-sulfate mass ratios (CSMR) were also calculated to evaluate corrosion potential. Demographic surveys, statistical analyses, and geospatial visualizations were used to interpret neighborhood-level patterns. Our findings show that all sites met primary drinking water standards and complied with LCR action levels but exceeded secondary drinking water standards at 100% of study sites. Seven sites exhibited CSMR values above the threshold, indicating increased susceptibility to corrosion. These results highlight the need for targeted corrosion control, treatment optimization, and ongoing monitoring, particularly in historically marginalized communities.

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Moore, Alliyah. Ph.D. Student. Howard University. 

Black Women Off-Grid Homesteading.

This research explores how Black women’s off-the-grid homesteading practices challenge dominant spatial and environmental narratives in the United States. Using a mixed-method approach, ethnography, and content analysis, this project will examine how Black women who cultivate land, build self-sustaining homes, and create alternative ecological communities enact Black feminist spatial practices. These practices can redefine relationships to land, labor, and community by centering care, autonomy, and collective survival rather than extraction or possession.

Within dominant environmental discourse, sustainability and “returning to the land” can often evoke settler-colonial, white, and patriarchal logics that detach people from histories of displacement and racialized dispossession. Black women homesteaders, by contrast, could cultivate spaces of refusal and reimagination, or what I conceptualize as everyday utopias. Through their digital and material worlds, they assemble networks of knowledge-sharing, mutual aid, and healing that link ecological restoration to ancestral memory and futurity.

By situating their practices within Black feminist thought and Black geography, this research bridges questions of resistance, place-making, and belonging. Ultimately, this study contributes to sociological understandings of space, environment, and liberation by showing how Black women’s homesteads, real, virtual, or imaginary, serve as critical sites of theory-making, resistance, and world-building

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Nahar, Sarah. Lecturer. University of Michigan.

Anticolonial Arrivants?! Rooting environmental justice in solidarity with Indigenous Peoples as People of the Global Majority living on Turtle Island/Abya Yala.

Pushing back on minoritization, the term “People of the Global Majority” (PGM) is one way to describe the racialized populations living in the so-called United States (US) whose ancestors are from Africa, Asia/Pacific Islands, and Latin America/Caribbean. Having arrived to the US in a variety of ways, PGMs are not settlers in the sense of ability to impose their lifeways as dominant over indigenous forms, nor do they hold systemic power in the US. Nonetheless, PGMs are imbricated in settler-colonialism and its environmental destruction. What are the options, then, for self-understanding and political formation(s) for PGM who want to center indigenous-led solutions to environmental injustices, resist being subsumed into the settler-colonial project, and address the deadly racism that their home communities face? Firstly, this paper examines the absence of a word to describe non-Indigenous PGMs living in the US, and offers the term arrivant, coined by Barbadian poet Kamau Braithwaite, as a viable possibility. Secondly, it features a case study of a political formation created in 2022, called Anticolonial Arrivants, as a space and method for PGM to recreate alliances with Indigenous communities and lands/waters, resist extractive economics, to work toward environmental justice, and reSource one another. These times call for new vocabulary and ways of being, come learn how anticolonial arrivancy answers this call.

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Nanji, Ariza. Master’s Student. University of Michigan. 

‘Good Energy’ Stories: Co-Conspiring for Environmental Justice Across Two Cities and Multilevel Stakeholders. 

In the face of accelerating climate impacts and deepening social inequities, conservation and sustainability institutions are increasingly called upon to rethink how they engage communities most affected by environmental harm. The goal is to examine how multistakeholder relationships among universities, funders, conservation institutions, and frontline communities can move beyond extractive models of partnership toward community-first, justice-centered approaches to energy and climate action. Drawing on the creation of the Good Energy Collaborative (GEC), a campus–community partnership between Swarthmore College and environmental justice organizations in Chester and Philadelphia, the proposal is to reflect on a model for how institutional actors can support community resilience without reproducing extractive or paternalistic modes of engagement. 

Members of the collective define ‘good energy’ broadly as the need for locally relevant climate resilience and community healing strategies aimed at a just transition to a care-based economy: clean energy, regenerative agriculture, and intergenerational capacity-building in the bi-city region. ‘Good energy’ also embodies a broader vision aimed at generating the collective ‘social energy’ necessary to transform an extractive culture based on exploitation into a society grounded in interdependence and collective care. At its core, GEC’s work is about healing the historical violence experienced by individuals, communities, and ecologies. This includes designing interdisciplinary initiatives such as grief circles, restorative justice workshops, community storytelling events, environmental justice tours, and land justice education. GEC partners strive to interrogate the historical power dynamics involved in campus-community engagement and to practice more reciprocal, anti-colonial action research praxis. By connecting grassroots knowledge with academic expertise, collective members have aimed to co-design innovative solutions to environmental justice problems grounded in the lived experiences of those most affected. This proposal wants to reflect on the knowledge created by GEC collective members from Chester and Philadelphia on the diverse meanings of ‘good energy’ that are being generated, and how they draw on the public-facing environmental humanities and humanistic social sciences (critical environmental justice theory, storytelling practices, social/ecological reparation theory, critical/emergent strategy, abolition ecologies, ecofeminism, healing/placemaking praxis) in co-designing their organizing work. 

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Podraza, Amy N. Master’s Student. Vanderbilt University. (with McDonald, Yolanda J.)

The Need for Standardized Emergency Management Definitions to Improve Communication and Community Outcomes.

Emergency management language is critical as natural hazards continue to intensify. This pilot study identified the lack of standardization in emergency management language and how this can lead to misunderstandings of word meanings, impacting collaboration and hazard communications. We used an underutilized approach, frame semantics, to assist with word clarity and understanding. Our study addressed the research question: To what extent are key terms defined in emergency management during crises, and what are the impacts of word standardization? The study employed a novel multi-perspective approach to review emergency management language through examining academic and gray literature and interviewing subject matter experts from government agencies representing varied administrative levels, as well as academic experts. The study highlights the urgent need to standardize emergency management language, given its real-world impacts on communities in crisis (e.g., increased insurance costs, misunderstandings, and heightened individual risks).

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Rodriguez, Joseph. Ph.D. Student. Duke University.  

The Movement to Recognize Nature’s Rights.

The global rights of nature movement has blossomed in recent years. The movement is comprised of a diverse array of actors—policymakers, lawyers, judges, activists, artists,  professors, Indigenous communities, and nonprofit organizations—who share the view that humans are part of a living community of beings. In this presentation, I propose to examine several core questions and debates within the movement: what it means for nature to have rights,

how those rights relate to legal personhood, and how the rights of nature intersect with broader struggles for environmental justice. These questions are central to my dissertation, and I hope this presentation will allow me to receive feedback and share my research with both academics and those working in the field.

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Sindoni, Raffaele. PhD Student. Yale School of the Environment

Decolonizing Stewardship: Rights of Nature, Hāpu Authority, and Environmental Justice in Aotearoa New Zealand.

              This presentation draws on ongoing field research with Māori communities in Aotearoa (New Zealand) to examine how Rights of Nature (RoN) frameworks can function as a decolonial form of environmental justice by redistributing authority away from the settler state and back to local Indigenous collectives. Focusing on the Whanganui River settlement and related guardianship models that give “rights” to “nature”, I show how legal recognition of nature as a rights-bearing entity does not simply protect ecosystems, but reconfigures who has the authority to define, manage, and care for them. Rather than reinforcing centralized state environmental management, these arrangements create space for Tribal community (hāpu) led governance, where ecological relations, obligations, and responsibilities are grounded in Indigenous cosmologies and social structures.

              I illustrate that this represents a distinct environmental justice intervention: one that moves beyond distributive or procedural inclusion within existing settler-colonial legal institutions and instead challenges the state’s monopoly over environmental legibility and control. By taking “nature” out of purely technocratic and bureaucratic management regimes, RoN opens possibilities for communities to articulate their own ecological values, governance practices, and modes of care. This talk situates RoN as not only about nature, but about power, sovereignty, and the remaking of environmental governance through decolonial, place-based authority.

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St. John, Isabella S. (et al.) Master’s Student. University of the Virgin Islands.

Mangroves in the Classroom: Hands-on STEM Education Inspiring Environmental Stewardship in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Mangrove ecosystems are vital to coastal resilience in the U.S. Virgin Islands, yet their ecological importance is often underrepresented in public school curricula. To address this gap, the University of the Virgin Islands’ (UVI) GRROE (Growing, Research, Restoration, Outreach, and Education) USVI Mangroves Program, in partnership with the Virgin Islands Department of Education, started the Mangroves in the Classroom (MIC) program in 2022. This program is an interactive, STEM-based education program designed to immerse U.S Virgin Islands middle and high school students in local mangrove science and conservation. Currently reaching 640 students in four classrooms in St. Thomas and St. John, the semester-long program includes 6-8 hands-on lessons, a mangrove growth experiment, and two field trips that include out planting mangroves at local restoration sites, kayaking and snorkeling through a protected mangrove forest, and visiting UVI’s land-based mangrove and coral nurseries.

In 2024 and 2025, program evaluations were conducted to determine the program’s efficacy and to assess how the paid, near-peer mentor (UVI undergraduate and graduate students) approach and lessons impact students’ interest and understanding of conservation. Pre- and post-program surveys (n = 63), and interviews of selected students (n=14) and educators (n=6), showed that students gained a deeper understanding of mangrove ecosystems and their ecological importance, developed a stronger sense of environmental stewardship, and that field trips were the most impactful activity for students within the program. By bridging scientific education and community engagement, the Mangroves in the Classroom (MIC) program inspires and educates the next generation to become environmental leaders in the community. The MIC program continues to expand by adding new lessons, recruiting new educators, and including new schools on St. Croix. The innovative STEM teaching model provides a framework that educators and school districts can adopt for future environmental education lessons, coastal or otherwise.

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Taylor, Faith C. Ph.D. Student. Yale University.

Extreme Heat and Flooding in Localities with Carceral Facilities: Vulnerabilities of Institutionalized Populations.

The U.S. has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, and incarceration status often creates a hyper-vulnerability to the cumulative impacts of natural disasters and natural technological events (NaTech). This study developed two methods of cumulative risk scoring that accounted for the natural disaster risk (hurricane, coastal flooding, riverine flooding, and extreme heat) of the census tract where the correctional facilities are located, the density of superfund and Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) sites within a 1-mile radius, and the NaTech risk of the surrounding environmental hazards. The results from a one-way analysis of variance highlighted that the variations in average score risk when facilities are grouped based on region (Gulf Coast and Mid-Atlantic) or facility operator (ICE, State, or Federal) were statistically significant. A Kruskal-Wallis test confirmed that the difference in risk score based on state was statistically significant. The results from this research highlight that correctional facilities need to be considered as vulnerable populations when states and federal agencies are developing cumulative risk mapping tools and legislation.

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Traylor, Frederic. Ph.D. Student. Rutgers University. 

Religion and the Socialization of Attitudes Toward Environmental Conservation.

Are attitudes toward environmental conservation long-lasting beliefs originating in childhood, or are they subject to short-term changes? I tackle this question by investigating the potential effects of religious socialization on environmental attitudes. To do so, I compare those who were raised Christian in the United States but later disaffiliated (the “Leavers”) to those who did not change affiliations (the “Stayers”). Minimal gaps between these two groups would show “religious residue,” with continued effects of socialization even without accompanying beliefs.

Using data from the 2023-2024 Pew Research Center’s Religious Landscape Study, I find contrasting patterns by whether environmental conservation is framed as political or theological and by Christian tradition. Among those raised Evangelical, stronger childhood socialization was associated with “residue” when conservation was framed theologically, but not politically. The opposite pattern was found for those raised Catholic or Mainline Protestant, socialization only maintaining agreement with political framings of conservatism, but not theological ones. These results show that attitudes toward environmental conservation are largely subject to socialization effects from childhood, even when unintentional.

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Tu, Chun-Ching. Ph.D. Student. Rutgers University.

Living with the Carbon in the Forest: Conservation, Indigenous Environmental Justice, and Carbon Sink Governance in Taiwan.

Forest conservation is a key dimension for protecting biodiversity and mitigating climate change. However, for indigenous communities whose livelihoods and knowledge systems are deeply intertwined with forest landscapes, conservation initiatives can also generate new forms of environmental injustice. This paper examines the interaction between forest conservation and indigenous environmental justice in Taiwan.

Under a settler-colonial land regime, indigenous peoples in Taiwan have historically been spatially and economically confined to mountainous forest regions, while their traditional territories have been reclassified through state-defined indigenous reserve lands and forest governance frameworks. In recent years, national net-zero goals have further expanded logging bans and conservation zones, accompanied by financial compensation mechanisms. While framed as climate action, these measures have disrupted indigenous livelihoods, constrained everyday land-use practices, and undermined the intergenerational transmission of indigenous ecological knowledge. In some cases, conservation compensation has also intensified internal community tensions, prompting criticism of new forms of climate colonialism.

More recently, forest carbon sink initiatives have emerged as an alternative governance approach. These programs are framed as being “co-developed and co-managed with indigenous communities,” seeking to integrate indigenous livelihoods into climate governance through carbon sequestration and ecosystem services. While such initiatives open new possibilities for coexistence, they also risk financializing indigenous livelihoods by reframing land primarily in terms of tradable carbon credits, rather than as a site of cultural, social, and collective value.

Drawing on environmental justice perspectives, this paper argues that indigenous carbon sink initiatives in Taiwan hold significant potential for climate mitigation and biodiversity conservation only if they are grounded in substantive indigenous participation and indigenous ecological knowledge. Rather than imposing universalized carbon accounting frameworks onto forest landscapes, climate governance must be connected to just transition and transitional justice, addressing the legacies of settler colonialism and strengthening indigenous sovereignty in climate action.