Our Research
Advancing climate justice and transformative social change
Our work focuses on community-led climate justice action, youth and intergenerational activism, ecopolitical psychology, transformative education, and urban climate resilience.
Themes in our work:
COMMUNITY-LED ACTION
We partner with communities—especially those most impacted by climate change and environmental injustice—to define problems, co-create solutions, and advance locally grounded climate action. Our work emphasizes collective agency, resilience, and democratic participation in shaping equitable climate futures.
ECOPOLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY
We examine the psychosocial, political-economic, and cultural dimensions of ecological crisis and societal transformation. This includes studying climate emotions, collective identity, activism, imagination, meaning-making, and the ways people connect and act together to transform systems and institutions.
PARTICIPATORY & PREFIGURATIVE METHODOLOGIES
We use collaborative, creative, and action-oriented research methods that generate knowledge while simultaneously enacting the more just and inclusive futures we seek to build. Our methodological approaches include participatory action research, photovoice, community-based research, collaborative inquiry, and arts-based engagement.
Explore our current projects:
YOUTH FOR CLIMATE JUSTICE
Amplifying the Voices of Marginalized Youth for Sustained Climate Activism and Societal Transformation
This international participatory action research project works with marginalized youth across the Global South and Global North to better understand the conditions that support sustained climate activism. Through partnerships with youth activists, researchers, and community organizations in Brazil, Canada, Haiti, South Africa, Uganda, the United Kingdom, and the United States, the project explores how collective care, collaboration, and local action can strengthen long-term engagement while supporting youth well-being and climate action.
WHY THIS MATTERS: This project centers the voices and experiences of marginalized youth who are often excluded from formal climate decision-making despite being among those most impacted by climate change.
NOAA PLANET STEWARDS STUDY
Action-Focused Climate & Environmental Education
This national mixed-methods study examines how educators across formal and informal learning environments design and implement action-focused climate and environmental education. The project explores how U.S. educators overcome institutional barriers to provide action-focused education, as well as how collaborative environmental action can cultivate agency, imagination, stewardship, and civic participation among learners.
WHY THIS MATTERS: This research contributes urgently needed evidence and guidance for expanding educational approaches that move beyond environmental and climate literacy toward collective climate action.
YOUTH CLIMATE JUSTICE ACTIVISM
A Longitudinal Study
This longitudinal interview study follows young climate justice activists over multiple years to examine how their motivations, identities, well-being, and forms of engagement evolve over time. By revisiting youth activists first interviewed in 2021, the project provides rare insight into the long-term experiences of young people navigating activism, political participation, burnout, hope, and systemic crisis.
WHY THIS MATTERS: This study is among the first to examine youth climate activism longitudinally using in-depth qualitative methods, deepening our understanding of how young people’s climate activism pathways change over time and how movements can better support long-term engagement.
OLDER ADULT CLIMATE ACTIVISM
An Interview Study
This interview study explores the experiences of older adults engaged in climate activism, challenging common assumptions that climate justice is primarily a youth movement. Through in-depth interviews, the project examines older adults’ motivations, practices, and commitments to intergenerational responsibility and ecological justice.
WHY THIS MATTERS: This study highlights the importance of multigenerational movements and broadens public understanding of who participates in climate activism and why.
Collaborative Project Highlights
WORK WE'RE DOING WITH OTHER LABS
ENGAGING SCIENCE
Transforming Graduate Education Through Public Engagement With Science
This interdisciplinary project examines how higher education institutions can better prepare graduate students to engage public audiences around complex societal challenges. Through workshops, coursework, and community partnerships, the project develops and studies innovative approaches to public engagement with science that emphasize communication, collaboration, and inclusivity.
Funded by the National Science Foundation
SUPPORTING EQUITABLE BUILDING DECARBONIZATION
This interdisciplinary collaboration integrates community research methods with engineering and building energy modeling to support equitable residential decarbonization by attending to the specific needs of underserved communities. Working alongside residents and community partners, the project aims to develop knowledge and tools that facilitate residents’ engagement with home decarbonization in ways that simultaneously reduce carbon emissions and energy burden.
Funded by the National Science Foundation
EDUCATION FOR REGENERATIVE URBAN FUTURES
Drawing on two summer schools in Lisbon and Berlin developed through the COST Action SHiFT network, this collaborative international research project explores how creative, transdisciplinary summer schools can cultivate imagination, relationality, embodiment, and hope in the context of urban climate futures. Through a curated learning approach helping participants engage with the notion of regenerative urban futures, participants explored how cities can become spaces for ecological care, conviviality, regeneration, and systemic transformation.
Art-Science Integration for Climate Justice in Haiti
How can arts-science education cultivate critical awareness, collective agency, and climate resilience? Developed in partnership with a local community arts center in Jacmel, Haiti, this project integrates photography, civic science, water quality testing, community mapping, and youth-led storytelling to support Haitian youth in investigating local water security challenges and advocating for environmental justice.
Youth Climate Justice Activism Interviews
How do young climate justice activists understand, experience, and sustain their involvement in movements for climate justice? These in-depth interviews explore activism as a form of education, intergenerational tensions and solidarities, and the counterstories young people use to challenge dominant climate narratives.
Youth-led Collaborative Climate Action
What happens when children investigate local climate impacts and develop their own climate action projects? Through photography, dialogue, and collective inquiry, this youth-centered photovoice project cultivated critical awareness, civic engagement, and collective agency while positioning children not as symbols of the future, but as meaningful contributors to climate action today.
Community-Led Climate Resilience Planning
How can community engagement, local knowledge, and participatory planning strengthen neighborhood-level climate resilience? The project helped identify community priorities and barriers related to climate vulnerability while supporting more equitable and locally responsive climate adaptation efforts.