Esteemed congratulations to our PhD candidate Krista English for having co-authored a chapter in the World Health Organization’s first-ever World Report on Health Policy and Systems Research (HPSR) which was launched in Stockholm.
The Report provides insight into how the multidisciplinary and systems approach used in HPSR can help countries advance the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) agenda. Historically, biomedical and clinical research dominated the health arena, while there was little focus on systems and policy research. Our research has found that from 1990 to 2015, there has been a five-fold increase in the number of HPSR publications produced annually and increasingly, these are being generated by authors in low-and-middle-income countries (LMICs).
IRES alumnus Stefan Storey was recently featured on the UBC newsletter on the development of Wi-Fi technology to help conserve energy consumption at UBC.
Stefan Storey, an RMES alumnus and former IRES Postdoctoral Fellow, was recently featured on the Monday, April 3, 2017 issue of the Metro Vancouver newspaper.
The online edition of the article titled “Students’ WiFi habits actually save UBC money” is found here:
New this year:With humanity’s creation of a new geological era marked by dominant human influences on planetary processes, the Anthropocene seems to offer little hope.
And yet, the same ingenuity that enables human domination over the Earth also allows a certain genius in addressing the many rising environmental and sustainability challenges.
Hope in the Anthropocenewill showcase such inspirations and solutions in tackling climate change, harnessing energy, feeding humanity, governing states, and meeting our collective water and sanitation needs all while respecting Indigenous peoples and protecting nature and its benefits for people.
A collaboration between Green College and the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability at the University of British
Click on this link to view the September 20 Hope in the Anthropocene event at Green College:
Dying to Drink: Protest and Access to Water in Mothutlung, South Africa
Abstract:
Over the past decade South Africa has been labelled as the protest capital of the world, and many of these protests relate to water and sanitation services. This talk shows how protests are not simply about ongoing problems with service delivery but also highlight a crisis of governance at the local level. Based on extensive qualitative research about one of the most violent water protests in the country, this talk explores what happened in Mothutlung. It then reflects on the meaning and reasons for protest, what can be achieved, and what sacrifice may be required.
Bio:
Professor Mary Galvin has worked in South Africa over the past two decades as a practitioner, consultant, activist and researcher. Following the country’s democratic transition in 1994 she coordinated an NGO working in rural KwaZulu Natal to organize communities to access development resources. After completing her PhD in political science at the University of California, Berkeley in 2005, she drew together senior stakeholders from national and local government, the private sector and civil society and facilitated a “dialogue” on what is happening (or not) in water services and exploring system reasons to explain this. Findings from a large scale research project that she coordinated in eight municipalities provided a basis to examine these issues. Over the past years she started an NGO that conducted action research on community-based climate change adaptation and water. She has also become passionate about what she calls her “shit work”: researching ways to provide sanitation to unserved areas in southern Africa. Her current book project at the University of Johannesburg focuses on water governance issues, taking her to the frontline of community struggles for water and sanitation. Through her analysis Mary aims to get scholars, activists and practitioners thinking about South Africa’s development challenges in a new way that drives social change.
Esteemed congratulations to RES PhD student Graham McDowell for having his article‘Community-level climate change vulnerability research: trends, progress, and future directions’ selected by to feature in the Highlights of 2016 collection onEnvironmental Research Letters (ERL). The featured articles in the collection were chosen on the basis of referee endorsement, scientific impact, advance made within the field, novelty and broad appeal, and collectively they showcase the quality and diversity of ERL’s broad coverage.
RES PhD Candidate Michael Lathuillière and IRES Faculty Mark Johnson authored a new paper that has recently been accepted for publication on the Journal of Cleaner Production.
We at IRES would like to congratulate them on yet another successful milestone!
IRES Faculty Associate Rashid Sumaila has won a prestigious Peter Benchley Ocean Award, in recognition for his work on sustainable fisheries around the world.
We at IRES would like to extend our warm congratulations to Dr. Sumaila for his achievement!
The UBC Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries’ press release can be found here:
RES PhD student, Helina Jolly, the 2016 recipient of the Nehru Humanitarian Graduate Scholarship in Indian Studies, was honoured for her work at the annual Goel Family Charitable Foundation’s Jawaharlal Nehru Award Night. The Goel family has been supporting generations of students at UBC through this and seven other student awards. Congratulations Helina!
Turning technical challenges into interdisciplinary success: Understanding interactions between climate, vegetation and land use change.
Abstract:
Recent advances in the data sciences have provided us with a number of new tools for dealing with the scientific “data deluge”, however, scientific data are often noisy, poorly collated, and often wrong. This results in solutions that require both technical knowledge and deep disciplinary knowledge. The PalEON project brought together paleoecologists, climate and ecosystem modelers, statisticians and historical ecologists to begin to help improve climate forecasts by constraining slow ecosystem processes using historical data. This talk will review some of the challenges, solutions, and results of this data intensive project, in particular, highlighting the significant impact of EuroAmerican settlement on species distributions and climate relationships in the American Midwest.
Engagement with the Neotoma Paleoecological Database (https://neotomadb.org), and the technical problems inherent in the PalEON project has also fostered deep involvement with the EarthCube program (http://earthcube.org), a joint program of the National Science Foundation’s Advanced Cyberinfrastructure and Geosciences divisions, focused on developing scientific cyberinfrastructure for the 21st century. I will discuss developments wihin EarthCube, their impacts on the Earth Sciences and successful outcomes from early projects including Flyover Country, GeoDeepDive and the EarthLife Consortium.
Bio:
Simon Goring has had a varied academic career: A city kid growing up in Toronto, a forest tech, with a diploma from Sir Sandford Fleming and a stint in the woods of northern Manitoba, a canoe guide on the Bow and North Saskatchewan Rivers, and a plant biologist with a B.Sc from UNBC. He finished his Ph.D with Rolf Mathewes in Biology at SFU, using fossil pollen to understand climate and vegetation change in British Columbia over the last 10000 years. His approach to paleoecology and data analysis brought him to a postdoc at the University of Wisconsin in the department of Geography, where he is now an Assistant Scientist, working as the Technical Lead of the Neotoma Paleoecological Database, and a member of the Leadership Council for the EarthCube program.
The IRES Seminar Series showcases the research of our graduate students, faculty and guests. There are also monthly professional development seminars.
The seminars run every Thursday during the Winter Session (September 2017 to April 2018) from 12:30pm to 1:30pm in AERL Theatre (room 120).
The AERL building (Aquatic Ecosystems Research Laboratory) is located on 2202 Main Mall at UBC Vancouver.
New this year:With humanity’s creation of a new geological era marked by dominant human influences on planetary processes, the Anthropocene seems to offer little hope.
And yet, the same ingenuity that enables human domination over the Earth also allows a certain genius in addressing the many rising environmental and sustainability challenges.
Hope in the Anthropocene will showcase such inspirations and solutions in tackling climate change, harnessing energy, feeding humanity, governing states, and meeting our collective water and sanitation needs all while respecting Indigenous peoples and protecting nature and its benefits for people.
A collaboration between Green College and the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability at the University of British Columbia, Hope in the Anthropocene will feature 6 accomplished speakers from around the world presenting in the IRES Seminar Series.
Thursday, September 7 speaker: Simon Goring from the University of Wisconsin. Click here for more information.
