Location: Michael Smith Labs Theatre (Room 102, 2185 East Mall)
Click here to register in advance to receive a Zoom link.
Zoom Rule: If we encounter technical difficulties during the first 5 to 10 mins of the seminar, Zoom will be terminated.
Note: This seminar will not be recorded.
No food or drinks allowed in the Theatre.
Talk summary:
This week’s IRES Professional Development Alumni Panel will focus on career pathways related to Public Service. We invite Dr. Tugce Conger, Dr. Ivana Zelenika and Erika Luna to talk about their professional journeys, from IRES graduate students to policy experts. Join us for this conversation with IRES alumni and find out more about their experience in this career option!
Dr. Tugce Conger, Senior One Water Planner at City of Vancouver’s Urban Watersheds, Sewers & Drainage division
Bio:
Tugce is a Senior One Water Planner with the City of Vancouver’s Urban Watersheds, Sewers & Drainage division working on the strategic short and long-term planning of and collaboration for the Green Rainwater Infrastructure and other Integrated Rain and Stormwater Management solutions across the city. Tugce completed her Ph.D. in Resources Management and Environmental Studies at UBC in 2018, and her dissertation work focused on the use of coastal green infrastructure as a climate change adaptation tool, particularly for sea level rise induced flood and erosion issues.
Dr. Ivana Zelenika, Recycling Coordinator for City of Vancouver’s Engineering Department
Bio:
Ivana completed a PhD at IRES in 2018 under supervision of Jiaying Zhao and John Robinson, finishing a postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Zhao in 2020. Majority of her thesis and research examined strategies to motivate sustainable behaviour. Ivana has been with City of Vancouver Solid Waste Programs since 2019 and is currently a Recycling Coordinator for the City’s Engineering Department. Main focus of her work is to develop and implement promotional and educational programs to increase public participation in zero waste goals, recycling and green bin programs.
Erika Luna, Junior Policy Analyst at the International Institute for Sustainable Development
Bio:
Erika Luna is a Junior Policy Analyst at the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) with the Economic Law and Policy Program, focusing specifically on the state of sustainability initiatives at the value chain level. Erika holds a BSc. in Earth and Environmental Sciences from the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico and an MSc. from the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability at the University of British Columbia (UBC). While her master’s program strongly focused on identifying agricultural production trends using data science methods, Erika also worked as a research assistant on a Gender Data & Development project and collaborated on a project looking to increase equity, diversity, and inclusion in the sciences. Erika is originally from Mexico City, and in her spare time, she likes to play Ultimate Frisbee and go for runs along Vancouver’s seaside.
For the 52nd session of the Human Rights Council, Dr. David Boyd (IRES/SPPGA Associate Professor, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment) is launching a report on the topic of Women, Girls and the Right to Healthy Environment. Read the report here.
North American urban landscapes are facing critical pressures such as climate change, human health concerns, and loss of biodiversity and habitat. Urban forests are a critical component of these landscapes and can help meet these pressures in several ways. The emerging discipline of urban forestry can inform policy and practice to design and plan for future forests in human landscapes. The field currently lacks tested approaches to holistically integrate the complex multiple factors involved with future planning. This study explores a new framework for a scenario-based approach incorporating a design process to examine potential solutions to these complex problems. A Canadian case study was used to develop and evaluate this framework approach combining multiple methods.
Dr. Sara Barron, Program Director for Bachelor of Urban Forestry and Master in Urban Forestry Leadership
Bio:
Sara Barron is the Program Director for the Urban Forestry programs (Bachelor of Urban Forestry and Master in Urban Forestry Leadership) at the University of British Columbia. Prior to this role, she was a lecturer at the University of Melbourne. Sara’s research interests bridge landscape architecture and urban forestry. Her dissertation explored the design and assessment of future urban forest scenarios in compact communities. She has expertise in large-scale sustainable community planning and climate change research projects and holds a Master of Landscape Architecture degree.
Dr. Jiaying Zhao of IRES will present a brief talk on happy climate action as a preview to her upcoming TED talk in NYC and conduct a workshop on creating a climate action plan that enhances personal and planetary well-being.
Are electric vehicles (EVs) more expensive than conventional cars in Canada? Do people who don’t live in single family homes pay more for EVs? How does Canada’s cold weather affect EV costs? How will the federal carbon tax impact Canadians who want to buy an EV in 2030? These questions are becoming more pressing, especially in the context of the federal government’s 2035 zero-emissions vehicle sales mandate. EV ownership will have to move beyond early adopters and towards typical households. A key barrier to the widespread adoption of EVs is the high purchase cost compared to internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEV). However, not all Canadian households face the same price disparity. In this talk, Bassam Javed will present a total cost of ownership (TCO) analysis to explore how much different households across Canada would pay to own an EV—and how much they would need to drive daily to make costs equal to ICEVs. Bassam’s findings have several implications for both consumers and policymakers in Canada.
Bassam Javed, IRES PhD Candidate
Bio:
Bassam is a PhD candidate at UBC’s Institute for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability. His research focuses on public policy to advance electric vehicle adoption in Canada, with Dr. Amanda Giang and Dr. Milind Kandlikar. He uses a combination of quantitative modelling and interviews/surveys to develop public policy recommendations. Bassam is also a Project Engineer at Environment and Climate Change Canada, where he works on policy development for decarbonisation of the rail and aviation sectors. His professional career began in the mining sector in northern Canada, and after completing his M. Eng in Clean Energy Engineering at UBC in 2015, he was an energy management professional, and then an energy and sustainability consultant for a Vancouver-based consulting firm. Bassam lives in Tsawwassen, British Columbia, and has two young children.
Talk summary:
Developers of digital agricultural technologies proclaim that their tools are essential to grow more food on less land with fewer environmental impacts – while also boosting profits for farmers. Thus far, public and academic discourses exhibit polarizing views on the role of these technologies for the future of food with utopian and dystopian interpretations. Yet, it is likely that the social, environmental, and economic implications will be paradoxical and unevenly distributed. This study explores the effectiveness of Jasanoff and Kim’s “sociotechnical imaginaries” in explaining the politics and perceptions of digital agricultural technologies, focusing on farmers in Canada. We administered a survey to Canadian farmers (n=1,000), connecting respondents’ imagined futures for Canadian agriculture with existing measures of affect and affective imagery. For the seminar, I will present the methods developed alongside findings to elucidate the imaginaries at work for farmers in Canada.
Sarah-Louise Ruder, IRES PhD Candidate
Bio:
Sarah-Louise Ruder is a PhD candidate at the University of British Columbia’s Institute for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability, a UBC Public Scholar, and a Researcher at the University of the Fraser Valley’s Food and Agriculture Institute. At UBC, she is co-supervised by Dr. Hannah Wittman and Dr. Terre Satterfield. Sarah-Louise is an environmental social scientist studying food and agriculture in Canada. Her mixed-methods dissertation critically examines the role of novel agri-food technologies in food systems transitions. Interdisciplinary by training, she holds a Master of Environmental Studies from the University of Waterloo and an Honours Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science, with a minor in Philosophy, from Queen’s University.
Coastal wetlands are among the most valuable and threatened ecosystems across the globe. Given their declining status, significant effort has been devoted to their conservation and restoration. However, most efforts fail to meet stated goals because of an emphasis on practices rooted in an incomplete ecological understanding of these ecosystems. Due to traditional restoration approaches, a knowledge gap exists in our current understanding of the factors that maintain the health and functioning of coastal wetlands. Further, conservation practices that aim to protect ecosystems often fail to consider local values, knowledge systems, and needs, an oversight which can cause conflict and impact conservation outcomes. In this talk, I will share research that aims to fill in our ecological knowledge gaps and promote the inclusion of cultural values and community-centered conservation interventions.
Dr. Alex Moore, Assistant Professor, UBC Faculty of Forestry
Bio:
My name is Alex Moore (they/them), and I am an Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia. I completed my PhD at the Yale School of the Environment where my research focused on how predator-prey interactions impact the health and functioning of wetland ecosystems. At UBC, I am expanding upon on this work by branching out into new wetland ecosystems while exploring the cultural implications of habitat restoration and conservation. Through this work, I hope to engage in the co-creation of knowledge and sustainable solutions with local communities most directly impacted by conservation practice and policies.
