Prerna Gupta
Prerna Gupta
PhD Candidate,
UBC Public Scholar,
Institute for Asian Research Fellow,
Nehru Humanitarian Award Recipient,
UBC Global Reporting Programme Fellow,
James and Setsuko Thurlow Scholarship in Peace and Disarmament Studies Recipient,
Simons Graduate Award in Disarmament, Global and Human Security Recipient
Contact Details
prerna01@mail.ubc.ca
Google Scholar
LinkedIn
Research Interests
Energy transitions, Energy policy, Nuclear energy, Nuclear weapons and disarmament, Risk perception, Social movements
Bio
Prerna’s PhD research investigates what cultural, economic and political factors affect people’s acceptance or rejection of nuclear energy in India. She has been engaging with nuclear issues for more than six years both academically and through civil action. Prerna’s Master’s thesis “Normalising Nuclear: A cultural study of how India learnt to love the bomb” was completed at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. It explores how a nation once invested in the Gandhian ideals of non-violence came to embrace a weapon of mass destruction from a cultural studies perspective. Her experience with various social movements drives her passion for socially relevant research and creative projects. She is also a documentary filmmaker and is interested in exploring the relevance of the form of documentary for research in social sciences. Her previous documentary films include: “Kadak Bai”, the story of a daily wage female worker who struggles to feed her family during India’s demonetization and “Like Dust We Rise”, the struggles of contract sanitation workers at the Bombay Municipal Corporation.
Featured Publications
Gupta, Prerna. “Reason and Risk: Challenging the Expert and Public Divide in the Risk Debates on Uranium Mining in India.” In Jacob Darwin Hamblin and Linda M. Richards, Eds., Making the Unseen Visible: Science and the Contested Histories of Radiation Exposure. Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2023.
Gupta, Prerna and M. V. Ramana. “India Update.” Assuring Destruction Forever: Nuclear Weapon Modernization Around the World. Edited by Allison Pytlak and Ray Acheson. January, 2022. https://reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Publications/modernization/india-2022.pdf.
Gupta, Prerna, and M.V. Ramana. “India.” Assuring Destruction Forever: 2020 Edition. Reaching Critical Will, June 2020. https://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Publications/modernization/india-2020.pdf.
Gupta, Prerna and M. V. Ramana. “A Decade After the Nuclear Deal.” The India Forum, April 3, 2019. https://www.theindiaforum.in/article/decade-after-nuclear-deal.
Gupta, Prerna. “Why the TN Electricity Distributor Is in Conflict with Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant.” The News Minute, August 28, 2019. https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/why-tn-electricity-distributor-conflict-kudankulam-nuclear-power-plant-107983.
Gupta, Prerna, and Kumar Sundaram. “India’s Nuclear Dream Is Turning out to Be a Nightmare for Adivasis in Jharkhand.” Scroll.In. May 31, 2016.
http://scroll.in/article/809049/indias-nuclear-dream-is-turning-out-to-be-a-nightmare-for-adivasis-in-jharkhand.
Kieran Findlater
Kieran Findlater
Adjunct Professor
Contact Details
Research Interests
Adaptation, Climate change, decision making, mitigation, Resilience, risk communication, risk perception
Bio
I lead interdisciplinary research projects evaluating individual, institutional and societal responses to complex sustainability problems, like climate change, using integrated quantitative and qualitative methods, and continuous stakeholder and policy engagement. I currently work as a Senior Policy Advisor in the Impact and Innovation Unit of the Privy Council Office, Government of Canada, helping to develop a program of research on climate change to support departments across the Canadian federal government in their implementation of evidence-based and results-driven climate policies for both mitigation and adaptation.
I hold a Ph.D. from UBC, where I was recognized for my innovative work on climate-adaptive decision-making at the intersection of climate science, psychology, economics and sociology. I have more than 15 years of experience in policy-relevant research and analysis, having managed timelines, budgets and personnel, and leading extensive fieldwork in Canada, India and South Africa. My more recent work focuses on climate services, human judgment and decision-making, risk perceptions, and implications for gender, race and social justice. I have published peer-reviewed articles evaluating and recommending solutions to diverse climate change mitigation and adaptation problems in the energy, water, forestry and agricultural sectors. My work informs evidence-based and forward-looking policy on adaptation to ensure that Canada thrives in a changing climate, limiting the harmful effects of climate change while taking full advantage of new opportunities for innovation and clean growth.
Please do not hesitate to reach out by email or social media. My current place of residence is Ottawa, Canada, but my outlook is global.
Contact information:
Website: www.kieranfindlater.com
Twitter: @FindlaterKM
ResearchGate: Kieran_Findlater
Publications: Google Scholar
Projects
Courses
Featured Publications
Kelsey Robertson
Kelsey Robertson
Graduate Program Manager
Pronouns: she/her
Contact Details
AERL Room 430
2202 Main Mall, The University of British Columbia
Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4
Canada
Prospective students please contact admissions@ires.ubc.ca
If you wish to communicate information to our student body, please contact communications@ires.ubc.ca
Bio
Kelsey manages our graduate program, assisting current students and faculty with the following:
- Primary contact for current students in navigating program milestones. The liaison between IRES and G+PS. Works closely with the RES Graduate Advisor in monitoring and advising re: student progress and satisfaction.
- Oversees the work of the IRES Health & Wellbeing Resource Coordinator and champions other such initiatives on behalf of the RES Student Society.
- Manages the RES admissions cycle, working with the RES Admissions Committee to review applications, make supervisory matches, finalize admissions decisions, and assign recruitment scholarships.
- Alongside the RES Awards Committee, coordinates the review and adjudication of applications for UBC administered awards and forwards nominations to the Faculty of Science or G+PS as appropriate.
- Responsible for administrative processes for scheduling RES graduate courses.
Daniel Steel
Daniel Steel
Associate Professor, School of Population and Public Health
Associate Member, Department of Philosophy
Website
Bio
Dr. Steel is Associate Professor in the W. Maurice Young Centre for Applied Ethics in the School of Population and Public Health. Steel is not appointed at IRES and instead is a Faculty Associate of our unit.
His research focuses on the intersection of values and science in the context of environmental and/or public health issues. Current research includes a SSHRC funded project on different concepts of diversity, and how these are relevant to explanations of how diversity can generate better science or better science-informed policy.
Dr. Steel is also the author of Philosophy and the Precautionary Principle: Science, Evidence and Environmental Policy (2015 Cambridge University Press), and is currently interested in the fair distribution of costs of precautions taken to protect public health or the environment.
More recently, he has worked on ethical issues related to the ongoing opioid crisis, including voluntary consent in clinical trials that offer access to pharmaceutical grade heroin and bias in research on and regulation of prescription opioids.
Joanne Fitzgibbons
Joanne Fitzgibbons
PhD Student
Contact Details
https://jofitzgibbons.wordpress.com/
Research Interests
Adaptation, Climate change, Cultural ecosystem services, Ecosystem services, Environment, Environmental and cultural values, Infrastructure systems, Natural hazards, Policy and Decision-making, Public policy and analysis, Resilience, Resource governance and management, Social ecological systems, Sustainability, Urban Sustainbility, Vulnerability and risk
Bio
Jo Fitzgibbons is a PhD student in CHANS Lab at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES) at the University of British Columbia (UBC). With a background in urban planning, geography and international development, her work focuses on issues of inclusion and participation in co-creative processes surrounding sustainability and community resilience.
During her undergraduate studies, Jo gained experience facilitating community-based research both locally and abroad, on topics ranging from water quality to local economic development. These experiences sparked an interest in issues of representative politics and justice in participatory processes, which she explored further in her Honours and Masters theses. In 2019, Jo completed a Master of Environmental Studies degree in Planning at the University of Waterloo. She was awarded the Governor General’s Gold Medal for her research, which examined issues of justice and inclusion in the processes of planning for urban resilience.
Jo’s PhD research at UBC is funded by a SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarship in Honour of Nelson Mandela. Through her research, she seeks to understand the potential for urban rewilding efforts to contribute to transformative change and social-ecological resilience. This work will build on previous work on participation and inclusion in planning by attending to questions of collaboration, justice, and multi-stakeholder governance.
Follow Jo on ResearchGate and Google Scholar.
Featured Publications
Follow Jo on ResearchGate and Google Scholar.
Taylor, Z., Fitzgibbons, J. and C. Mitchell (2020). Finding the Future in Policy Discourse: An analysis of City Resilience Plans. Regional Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2020.1760235
Fitzgibbons, J. and C. Mitchell (2019). Just urban futures? A program evaluation of justice and equity in “100 Resilient Cities”. World Development. 122. p. 648-659. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2019.06.021
Doberstein, B., Fitzgibbons, J. & C. L. Mitchell (2018). Protect, accommodate, retreat or avoid (PARA): Canadian community options for disaster risk reduction and flood resilience. Natural Hazards. (Special Issue) https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-018-3529-z
Jumi Gogoi
Jumi Gogoi
PhD with Dr. Navin Ramankutty, 2024
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Waterloo
Contact Details
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jumi-gogoi
Bio
Dr. Jumi Gogoi is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Waterloo in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. Her interdisciplinary applied research focuses on the use of large-scale agricultural datasets, satellite imagery and machine learning methods for informing climate-smart agricultural strategies. She completed her PhD at the University of British Columbia in February 2024 under the supervision of Dr. Navin Ramankutty and Dr. Nathaniel K. Newlands (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Govt. of Canada). Her PhD research specifically focused on the application of satellite big-data and machine and deep learning methods for developing crop yield prediction models for the Canadian agricultural sector. Prior to her PhD, Jumi had an interdisciplinary academic background and has completed studies in Business Analytics (MS, University of Dallas), Economics (MSc, University of Bath) and Business (Lady Shri Ram College, University of Delhi).
Featured Publications
Gogoi, J., Newlands, N. K., Mehrabi, Z., Coops, N. C., & Ramankutty, N. (2023). Assessing the Performance of Satellite-Based Models for Crop Yield Estimation in the Canadian Prairies. Canadian Journal of Remote Sensing, 49(1), 2252926. https://doi.org/10.1080/07038992.2023.2252926
Last updated September 2024.
Kushank Bajaj
Bio
Kushank Bajaj was a PhD student and then a Postdoctoral Fellow at IRES. He was supervised by Prof. Navin Ramankutty. His research focused on Climate-Smart Agriculture in low-income countries, mainly in India. He is interested in questions at the intersection of food-water-energy nexus, especially ones with relevance to societal outcomes.
Kushank grew up in India where he received his B.Sc. (Hons) and M.Sc. in Earth Science. During and after his graduation, he worked with NGOs and institutes under numerous Indian government ministries. Some of the projects he undertook include-drought characterization and its drivers, resource (groundwater) vulnerability mapping of a micro-watershed using multi-criteria fuzzy logic decision making technique, water resource characterizations in different eco-systems using stable isotopes, and, enabling better decision making through past climate reconstruction and national paleoclimate database fabrication.
Sarah-Louise Ruder
Sarah-Louise Ruder
PhD with Terre Satterfield & Hannah Wittman, 2024
SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Ottawa
Researcher, Food and Agricultural Institute, University of the Fraser Valley
UBC Public Scholar, UBC Four Year Doctoral Fellow, SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarship Recipient
Contact Details
sruder@uottawa.ca
Google Scholar
ResearchGate
LinkedIn
Research Interests
Food security, Gender, Perceived risk and new technology, Political ecology, Political economy, Resource governance and management, Social ecological systems, Sustainability, Technology
Bio
Sarah-Louise Ruder is a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Ottawa in the School of Sociological and Anthropological Studies and a Researcher at the University of the Fraser Valley in the Food and Agriculture Institute. Her interdisciplinary research and public scholarship focus on the social, political-economic, and environmental dimensions of agriculture and novel technologies in the food system.
Sarah-Louise completed her Ph.D. at the University of British Columbia’s Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability in 2023. Her supervisors were Professor Terre Satterfield and Professor Hannah Wittman. Her dissertation research investigated the evidence of surveillance capitalism in agriculture, with a policy and document analysis of farm management platforms; challenges and opportunities for data governance and data justice vis-à-vis increasing digitalization of the food system; farmer experiences and imaginaries of technological change in Canada, focusing on digital technologies; and the enactment of responsible research and innovation in the food system, with a study of agricultural genomics experts. This research was funded a SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarship, the UBC Four Year Doctoral Fellowship, Genome BC, and the UBC Public Scholars Initiative.
While at UBC, Sarah-Louise coordinated a SSHRC Connection project with Hannah Wittman at IRES and Shauna MacKinnon at the British Columbia Agricultural Climate Adaptation Research Network (BC ACARN). Building on her community-engaged research and UBC Public Scholars project, she led the development of a an open-access “toolkit” for ethical data governance in agriculture available in multiple languages (see: https://www.bcacarn.ca/projects-2/ethical-data-governance/).
Featured Publications
Ruder, S. L., Bowness, E., McIntyre, A., Grant, A.M., & Newman, L. (2023). Tasting the ‘Future of Food’ on a Bay Area Cellular Agriculture Tour. Gastronomica, 23(2): 37–46. https://doi.org/10.1525/gfc.2023.23.2.37
Ruder, S. L. & Kandlikar, M. (2023). Governing Gene-Edited Crops: Risks, Regulations, and Responsibilities as Perceived by Agricultural Genomics Experts in Canada. Journal for Responsible Innovation, 1(10), 1–29. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23299460.2023.2167572
Reimer, C., Ruder, S. L., Koppes, M., & Sundberg, J. (2023). A Pedagogy of Unbecoming for Geosciences Otherwise. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Special Issue: Race, Nature, and the Environment, 113(7), 1711–1727. https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2022.2151406 || Equal authors
Ruder, S. L.,* James, D.,* Bowness, E.,* Robin, T., & Dale, B. (2022). Canada’s Corporate Food Regime and the Prospects for a Just Transition. In J. Antony, W. Antony, & L. Samuelson (Eds.), Power and Resistance: Critical Thinking about Canadian Social Issues. Fernwood. https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/power-and-resistance-7th-ed || *Co-Lead authors
Clapp, J. & Ruder, S. L. (2020). Precision Technologies for Agriculture: Digital Farming, Gene-Edited Crops, and the Politics of Sustainability. Global Environmental Politics, 20(3), 49–69. https://doi.org/10.1162/glep_a_00566 Ruder, S. L. & Sanniti, S.R. (2019). Transcending Learned Ignorance of Predatory Ontologies: research agenda for an ecofeminist-informed Ecological Economics. Sustainability, 11(5), 1–29. https://doi.org/10.1162/glep_a_00566 || Equal authors
Last updated: May 21, 2024
Kyoko Adachi
Bio
I was born and raised in Tokyo, Japan, and came to Canada for my undergraduate studies at the University of Toronto. I majored in Environmental Ethics and double minored in History and Anthropology there. Currently at IRES, I am working with Dr. Hadi Dowlatabadi and Dr. Jiaying Zhao on people’s sense of responsibility for intergenerational transfers including climate impacts. Outside school, I enjoy swimming, volleyball, piano, and exploring different brunch places.
Projects
Courses