CHANGE retreat: September 6-7 2008. click photo for large image

Cohort 2008

Micah Hahn (Fellow). Micah Hahn is a joint degree Ph.D. candidate in Environment & Resources and Population Health Sciences and a National Science Foundation IGERT Fellow at the Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE) where she is advised by Jonathan Patz. Micah is broadly interested in global environmental change and the epidemiology and ecological distribution of infectious disease. She is drawn to the field of Conservation Medicine and the role of zoonotics in the disease transmission cycle as well as the impact of large-scale environmental and social disturbances such as deforestation and natural disasters on infectious disease. Regarding the integration of her research interests into the quickly growing climate change dialogue, Micah would like to focus on the incorporation of predictive models of infectious disease spread into policy decisions.

Micah completed her MPH in Global Environmental Health at the Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University where her research focused on designing a method for quantifying climate change vulnerability at the local level in Mozambique. Micah created a climate vulnerability index to rank surveyed communities to assist the international humanitarian organization, CARE, design programming that addresses the specific vulnerabilities within each community. Micah also worked on the Water Team at CARE helping shape the Water Team Climate Change Strategy and integrate adaptation, ecosystem protection, and risk management into new water projects in East Africa.

Micah received a B.A. in Biology from Brandeis University. As an undergraduate, Micah spent time working at an eye clinic in Orissa, India and studying abroad in Kenya. These experiences lead her down the path of international public health, and her love for the great outdoors and the challenge of trying to solve really hard problems soon drew her to global environmental health issues.

In her time outside of SAGE, Micah enjoys backpacking, biking, playing soccer, learning to windsurf and sail, scouring flea markets and thrift stores, photography, traveling to far off places, and enjoying all that Madison has to offer.

Sarah Manski. I am a graduate student in the department of Life Sciences Communication as well as a fellow in the CHANGE (Certificate on Humans and the Global Environment) program and an Advanced Opportunity Fellow. I am interested in environmental communication. I graduated from UW-Madison in 2002 with a B.A. in Sociology. I worked as a journalist for four years before returning to school in December 2005.    

Chelsea Schelly (Fellow). Chelsea Schelly is in her first year of the Ph.D. program in the Department of Sociology/Rural Sociology. Her research interests are in the field of environmental sociology, specifically in the sociology of energy and renewable energy. Her M.A. research focused on forms of participatory democracy and the best means of promoting renewable energy adoption within the Colorado utilities industry. For her dissertation, she hopes to trace the electrical current through space and time, across political and geographic boundaries, to demonstrate the power dynamics and economic institutions that shape human-environment relations with regard to energy use. Her interests are driven by a belief that how we power our lives indicates an essential element of our relationship to the natural world.

Andrew Stuhl. I tend to view socio-ecological systems through the intellectual lenses of environmental history and history of science, asking what human and natural histories can offer to solving today's environmental problems. My research interests include North American natural and cultural resource management in the 19th and 20th centuries, the use of history in decision-making, leadership studies, and environmental education.
My current dissertation project will investigate the environmental and cultural history of resource extraction in the Western Arctic to comprehend changing land-use patterns, knowledge production, and cultural conflict in the region. This research will focus on encounters among Inuvialuit natives in the Beaufort-Delta with non-native whalers, trappers, traders, and oil developers over the last two centuries. Ultimately, I hope gaining a richer historical context of the patterns of resource extraction will inform the path of development, conservation, and management of natural and cultural resources in the Arctic.

Melissa Whited (Fellow). As a graduate student in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, I am interested in approaches to water resource management.  For my Master’s thesis, I plan to focus on transnational aquifers along the Mexico-Texas border and the ways in which certain interests and people are marginalized through the current policy process.  My research draws from a combination of political science, the natural sciences, feminist theory, and economics to explore questions of equity and sustainability and the ways in which borders complexify these issues.

Cohort 2007

Caitlin Littlefield. My general research interests are human-environment interactions emphasizing risk perception, decision-making, and policy: What motivates people to respond to environmental change? How does environmental science influence individual's decisions and reactions? How effective is top-down control (e.g. governmental regulation) compared with individual risk and response? My current work is on an EPA funded project modeling atmospheric mercury in the Great Lakes region using the Community Muiti-Scale Air Quality Model (CMAQ). The results will be compared with field observations and at a later stage future climate scenarios will be put into the model to assess possible effects on mercury deposition. The ultimate aim is to inform mercury emissions policy and work towards a better understanding of atmospheric mercury chemistry.

Erin Madden (Fellow). My research addresses environmental issues in the U.S.-Mexico border region. I will focus specifically on the cities of Brownsville, TX and Matamoros in Mexico as well as their surrounding areas. For my Master's work, I will use perspectives from science and technology studies and theories of power to explore ways in which environmental conflicts on the border are created and proliferated. For my Dissertation work I plan to focus on the same geographical area and environmental issues while finding a way to incorporate quantitative analysis into my work. I am generally interested in how scientific knowledge is created and legitimized, the power dynamics among different actors in environmental disputes, and how the work of classic sociological theorists might provide insights into modern environmental issues.

Abigail Popp (Fellow). I am a graduate student in the department of Geography as well as a fellow in the CHANGE (Certificate on Humans and the Global Environment) program. I am interested in the dynamics of socio-ecological systems in the context of water management in arid regions. I'm curious about the ways in which socio-cultural processes mediate environmental management decisions and how western “scientific” ecological understanding can be blended with a political ecology approach to assess vulnerability and resilience of socio-ecological systems.

Anne Shudy Palmer. Anne is pursuing an M.S. in Conservation Biology and Sustainable Development and the Certificate on Humans and the Global Environment (CHANGE). Her research project is a partnership between SAGE, Madison Gas & Electric, and 1000 Friends of Wisconsin to create a locally focused, collaborative climate protection web site that will allow individuals to measure, track, and collaborate to reduce their carbon footprints.

Anne graduated from UW-Madison in 2002 with a B.S. in math and communication arts and a certificate in environmental studies. She worked as a technical writer for four years at Epic Systems Corporation, a local healthcare software company, before returning to school.

Outside of school, Anne loves soccer, reading, and trying to garden.

Megan Raby (Fellow). As a historian of science, I believe that appreciating the historical, socially embedded nature of science is necessary in order to understand changing relationships between humans and the environment. My research interests center on the role of place in shaping scientific knowledge as well as the intersection between the history of science and environmental history. Broadly speaking, I am concerned with the movement of scientific knowledge and practices across physical and disciplinary space. I am particularly interested in fieldwork in the life sciences during the nineteenth- and early twentieth-centuries by Americans working in the American West, colonial possessions of the US, and areas of American economic influence abroad.

Nina Trautmann Chaopricha. My research focuses on sustainable development and environmental science in Yunnan Province, China. I am doing a Ph.D. in Environment & Resources through the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. My research is funded by the UW-Madison NSF IGERT China Program.