Phase I and II of The Boston College Multidisciplinary Faculty Research Seminar on Climate Change
FY22 SI-GECS Type 1 | FY 23 SI-GECS Type 1
Abstract
A very broad-based group of over 30 BC faculty and PhD students representing each professional school and many A&S departments will build out and institutionalize the successful 2021-2022 BC Faculty Climate Research Seminar, which highlights climate change, and cognate energy and environmental issues. Funding covers monthly research presentations by BC faculty and PhD students and four outside speakers, and a graduate student assistant. Working papers are distributed in advance of each presentation.
In extending the Seminar, we also emphasize new multidisciplinary collaborative research initiatives and presentations. In addition, the seminar is designed for exchanging ideas and insights from our ongoing research projects, including those by our PhD students, to develop proposals for external funding (first, to institutionalize the Seminar, but also spin off collaborative research projects). In this way, we will work with Schiller to institutionalize the Seminar for future years, for example as our faculty collaborated intensively with Jim West to prepare a first-class proposal to the US Department of State and to support BC’s delegation to the UN COP in Glasgow. Our core-term objective is to build the foundation for a permanent, multidisciplinary faulty climate research program at Boston College supported by Schiller and/or external grant funding.
A broad-based group of two dozen BC faculty representing each professional school and eight departments presents a multi-year faculty research seminar highlighting climate change, and cognate energy and environmental issues. The first, pilot year, includes monthly research presentations by eight to ten BC faculty. The presentations are followed by intensive discussion in a luncheon seminar format. Each presentation is proceeded by the distribution of the presenters’ working paper to be reviewed in advance by the faculty participants. Selected senior PhD students will be invited to participate in the seminar in year one. In subsequent years we will integrate research presentations by outside speakers and selected graduate students.
This project is multi-year--we have very specific plans to continue the project into future years, as long as funding can be generated, and it is multistage—we intend to build out to include outside speakers in year two, to include selected graduate student presenters in year two, to develop multiple sources of external support beginning as soon as possible, and to extend the project into a program that also engages very substantial collaborative research, curriculum exchange and development activities, and community outreach initiatives.
Members of the Working Group
- Mike Barnett, Teaching, Curriculum, & Society Department, Lynch School of Education and Human Development
- Ethan Baxter, Earth and Environmental Sciences Department, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences
- Sara Bernard-Hoverstad, Doctoral Candidate, Theological Ethics, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences
- Lisa Cahill, Theology Department, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences
- Julia DeVoy, Counseling, Developmental, and Educational Psychology Department, Lynch School of Education and Human Development
- Brian Gareau, Sociology Department, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences
- Tara Pisani Gareau, Earth and Environmental Sciences Department, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences
- David Goodman, Lynch School of Education and Human Development
- Mary Ann Hinsdale, Theology Department, Morrissey College of Arts and Science
- Mo Jones-Jang, Communications Department, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences
- Andrew Jorgenson, Sociology Department, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences
- Praveen Kumar, School of Social Work
- Phil Landrigan, Biology Department, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences
- Neil McCullagh, Carroll School of Management
- Hilary Palevsky, Earth and Environmental Sciences Department, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences
- Prasannan Parthasarathi, History Department, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences
- Zygmunt Plater, Law School
- Stephen Pope, Theology Department, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences
- Paul Sarkis, Doctoral Candidate, Economics, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences
- Juliet Schor, Sociology Department, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences
- Jeremy Shakun, Earth and Environmental Sciences Department, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences
- Brian Smith, Teaching, Curriculum, and Society Department, Lynch School of Education and Human Development
- Noah P. Snyder, Earth and Environmental Sciences Department, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences
- Richard Sweeny, Economics Department, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences
- Andrea Vicini, Theology Department, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences
- Sandra Waddock, Carroll School of Management
- Mary Walsh, Counseling, Developmental & Educational Psychology, Lynch School of Education and Human Development
- David Wirth, Law School
- Gautam Yadama, School of Social Work
- Juliet Schor, Sociology Department, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences
- Jeremy Shakun, Earth and Environmental Sciences Department, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences
- Praveen Kumar, School of Social Work
- Mike Barnett, Teaching, Curriculum, & Society Department, Lynch School of Education and Human Development
- Ethan Baxter, Earth and Environmental Sciences Department, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences
- Lisa Cahill, Theology Department, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences
- Julia DeVoy, Counseling, Developmental, and Educational Psychology Department, Lynch School of Education and Human Development
- Tara Pisani Gareau, Earth and Environmental Sciences Department, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences
- David Goodman, Lynch School of Education and Human Development
- Mary Ann Hinsdale, Theology Department, Morrissey College of Arts and Science
- Andrew Jorgenson, Sociology Department, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences
- Phil Landrigan, Biology Department, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences
- Neil McCullagh, Carroll School of Management
- Nichola Minott, International Studies Program, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences
- Prasannan Parthasarathi, History Department, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences
- Zygmunt Plater, Law School
- Stephen Pope, Theology Department, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences
- Brian Smith, Teaching, Curriculum, and Society Department, Lynch School of Education and Human Development
- Noah P. Snyder, Earth and Environmental Sciences Department, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences
- Richard Sweeny, Economics Department, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences
- Andrea Vicini, Theology Department, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences
- David Wirth, Law School
- Gautam Yadama, School of Social Work
Presentations
- Wednesday 9/22 Phil Landrigan– “Climate Change, Pollution, and Human Health”
- Friday 10/8 Jeremy Shakun – “Mountain Glaciers have Retreated to their Smallest Extent in Millenia”
- Friday 10/22 Praveen Kumar - "Household Air Pollution: A Silent Killer
- Wednesday 11/3 Rich Sweeney– “Winds of Change: Technical Progress & Learning in Wind Power”
- Friday 11/19 Report from BC Delegation to the UN COP 26in Glasgow, Scotland
- Friday 12/3 Andrew Jorgenson – “How Militarization Affects Development and Emissions
- Wednesday 2/2 - Glasgow 2021 COP 26 Faculty participant presentations: David Storey, Erik Owen, Dave Deese, and discussion
- Wednesday 2/23 – Report from COP26 Mary Jo Iozzio; Sue Reed (Guest speaker)
- Wednesday 3/2 – PhD students Sara Bernard Hoverstad and Laura Clerx
- Wednesday 3/16 - Mary Ann Hinsdale. “Religious Responses (internationally) to Climate Catastrophe”
- Wednesday 3/30 - Hillary Palevski “The Ocean as a Sink for Natural & Anthropogenic Carbon”
- Wednesday 4/13 - Dave Deese “Explaining the Failure of Leading States and International Organizations to Regulate: International Civil Aviation and Shipping Emissions out of Control?”
- Wednesday 4/27 - Juliet Schor “Measuring the Carbon and Well-being Impacts of a Four Day Work Week: Trials from Ireland and the US”
- Phil Landrigan "Pollution by Chemicals and Plastics: The Stealth Threat to Planetary Health"
- Hanquin Tian, "Nature Climate Solution (NCS): How can ecosystems be a part of the climate solution?"
- Jesse Jenkins, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University "How the USA Can Reach net Zero 2050"
- Noah Snyder & Ling Zhang, "Hydropower, and its Environmental, Socioeconomic, and Political Implications"
- Public Lecture for the university, Patrick Parenteau, Vermont Law School
- Tara Pisani Gareau, Earth and Environmental Sciences “ Impact of climate change on local cranberry industry & local efforts to increase climate resilience”
- Yi Ming, Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society and Earth and Environmental Sciences “Scaling climate and weather modeling”
- Sudhir Chella Rajan of Indian Institute of Technology Madras “Terminology for those displaced/at risk of climate change”
- Julia Devoy, “Combating the climate costs of fast fashion”
Students Trained
- 1 Graduate Student
Additional Accomplishments
- Created a seminar newsletter, and published interviews of several presenters in order to publish detailed, yet highly accessible information about their wider and deeper research agendas
- Multiple members of the group were selected as part of BC’s COP27 delegation