Wrigley Storymakers Program

Excited to be part of the Wrigley Storymakers fellowship for 2024.

“Through the Wrigley Institute Storymakers program, scientists become storytellers, and academic research becomes a vision that changes the world. The Storymakers program is a weeklong intensive that trains full-time, mid-career researchers in the art of environmental storytelling. Held in residence at the Wrigley Marine Science Center (WMSC) on Catalina Island, the program includes lectures, workshops, studio time for creating original content, and networking opportunities. Instructors are chosen from the best in media, the arts, and publishing.”

Princeton conference: Global India Frontiers

April 12-13 - Heading to Princeton to moderate a session on India and sustainability. Looking forward to learning from all these speakers.

Global India Frontiers is the first pan-USA conference that brings together academics across multiple disciplines to discuss key themes relating to Global India - economy, sustainability, arts, innovation, inclusion and partnerships. The goal is to feature breakthrough advances, share diverse viewpoints and stimulate collaborations with potential to transform the world. The format of the conference is a series of plenary sessions around key themes, interspersed with breakout/networking sessions that facilitate collaboration and discussion.

Current service at IU

Here is a list of active service internal to IU (not including advising):

Promotion and Tenure Committee for O’Neill

“Environment at IU” Committee Chair

Cluster hire at O’Neill Committee member

Patten Lecture Committee  

Integrated Program on the Environment executive committee

Campus-level Tenure Advisory Committee

Awards Committee O’Neill

Environment Resilience Institute Steering Committee

Advisory Board for the Observatory on Social Media

Sustainability Psychology - Keynote for SPSPSP

Shahzeen will be giving a keynote at the SPSP Sustainability Psychology Preconference on Feb 7, 2024.

Welcome to the 13th annual Sustainability Psychology Preconference! This year’s theme is “Individual and Structural Approaches to Addressing Climate Change.” As sustainability psychology researchers, we often focus on individual actions but overlook the impact of larger structural changes necessary to create and maintain a sustainable planet. This year’s preconference showcases cutting-edge research that extends the predominant scope of sustainability psychology. We shine a spotlight on work that includes both top-down, research that focuses on structural change, policy and key decision makers, and bottom-up, research that emphasizes the need for changes in our day-to-day lives. Our preconference is open to participants at all career stages and professional backgrounds and will include two keynote addresses, an invited speaker session, single-presenter talks, blitzes, and a happy hour event. 

Paul H. O'Neill Professorship

Clockwise from top left: Joe Shaw, Shahzeen Attari, Allison Schable, Dena Carson

Received a Paul H. O’Neill Professorship to fund new lines of research!

The Professorship provides funding to help collect new data and supports new research ideas. Thanks to Paul H. O’Neill and the O’Neill School.

Congratulations to Professor Joe Shaw (Paul H. O’Neill Chair) and also Associate Professors Dena Carson and Allison Schnable who received a Professorship.

More here.

Recyling bias and reduction neglect

New paper out in Nature Sustainability:

Abstract: Waste generation and mismanagement are polluting the planet at accelerating and unsustainable rates. Reducing waste generation is far more sustainable than managing waste after it has been created, which is why ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ is ordered the way it is, with reduce first and recycling as a last resort. However, our research finds strong evidence for a recycling bias and reduction neglect. Across two surveys (NTotal = 1,321), most participants perceived recycling as the most sustainable action to manage waste. This error decreased when different waste destinations were emphasized and when choice options were reduced. When asked in study 2 (N = 473), 53.9% of participants recognized that the product design stage offered the greatest potential for mitigating waste and its impacts. However, participants only felt empowered to enact change via their consumption (72.9%) and disposal choices (23.3%). For consumers and producers alike, policies and interventions should motivate source reduction and reuse, which could help correct the misplaced preference for recycling.

Accompanying piece in The Conversation: Decades of public messages about recycling in the US have crowded out more sustainable ways to manage waste

David Harold Krantz of Nashville, Tennessee 1938 - 2023

My brilliant, creative, kind, loving mentor Dave Krantz passed away. Here is his obituary. He leaves behind a legacy of deep interdisciplinary thinkers and a community of world wide collaborators. I was lucky enough to study psychology and statistics from him as a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions (CRED) which he directed at Columbia University. We were dear friends until the end of his life. He introduced me to Octavia Butler (and countless other scifi), taught me how to make the most delicious dishes, to enjoy poetry and humor, to slow down, to value precise inference, to navigate love and life…and so much more. He is missed.

To Know the Dark

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

Wendell Berry

Integrating the Human Sciences to Scale Societal Responses to Environmental Change: A Workshop

Shahzeen will be speaking at the National Academies Workshop on societal responses to climate change, May 4-5 2023.

“Join the planning committee for Integrating the Human Sciences to Scale Societal Responses to Environmental Change: A Workshop as they explore the potential for synthesizing the human sciences (e.g., social, behavioral, psychological, political, organizational) to develop critical societal capacities for and responses to climate change. The 2-day, virtual (public) workshop will consider how to integrate, align, and converge the broad mix of social, behavioral, and cognitive sciences to produce new insights and inform efforts for enhanced human responses to environmental change. Earth System Science increasingly incorporates human systems in its analysis of climate change, but social, behavioral, and social sciences have yet to align internally in prioritizing and addressing the range of challenges faced by individuals and communities in responding to the various stresses and opportunities posed by climate change. The planning committee is formed under the auspices of the Board on Environmental Change and Society at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.”

Knoxfill by Michaela Barnett

Change maker Michaela Barnett created Knoxfill to offer better alternatives to wasteful products. She says: “We all need things like soap and toothpaste - but we don't need the single use packaging these products usually come in! I care about making our community a more sustainable, safer, and equitable place.”

At Knoxfill (located in Knoxville TN) you can bring in your containers and fill up all that you need for your home. Way to go, Change Maker Michaela! So proud of you.


Congrats to Ananya Rao and Sangeet Nepal on their new climate solution positions!

Ananya Rao accepted a position with the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), in New Delhi. CSE is a public interest research and advocacy organization based in New Delhi. CSE researches into, lobbies for and communicates the urgency of development that is both sustainable and equitable. Ananya has joined their Climate Change team as a Program Officer and will be working in the climate mitigation space.

Sangeet Nepal accepted a position as a specialist with the Carbon Capture Coalition. Carbon Capture Coalition is a nonpartisan collaboration of more than 100 companies, unions, conservation and environmental policy organizations, building federal policy support to enable economy wide, commercial scale deployment of carbon management technologies. Sangeet will oversee development of a dedicated program of work on direct air capture and carbon conversion to complement and build on the Coalition’s broader carbon management priorities and activities. 

Congratulations Ananya and Sangeet!!! ˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

Transforming EPA Science to Meet Today's and Tomorrow's Challenges

Shahzeen Attari was part of a committee to write the consensus report on Transforming EPA Science to Meet Today's and Tomorrow's Challenges.

This report calls for EPA ORD to pursue all of its scientific aims in a new framework—to apply systems thinking to a One Environment − One Health approach in all aspects of ORD work. To accomplish this, the report provides actionable recommendations on how ORD might consider incorporating emerging science and systems thinking into the agency research planning, so that ORD can become an increasingly impactful organization. The report concluded by stating that shifting to a systems-thinking approach will require renewed support from science leadership, enhanced strategic planning, investment in new and broader expertise and tools, and a reimagined and inclusive commitment to communication and collaboration.

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Transforming EPA Science to Meet Today's and Tomorrow's Challenges. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/26602.

Shaz on sabbatical!

Starting this May, I will be taking a year long sabbatical and will be back in August 2023. Faculty are eligible for these once every 7 years to use the time to think creatively and deeply about new ideas. I will be slow to respond over email and politely decline all service requests.

Wishing you all the best as we finish up another semester. Keep reading, making the world better, and finding the cracks. As Leonard Cohen said, “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in”.

New paper: Young adults face the future

There are a variety of current challenges that will shape our future, such as climate change impacts, socio-economic disparities, the role of technology in society, and changing population dynamics. As ideas about the future influence actions taken today, it is important to study what possible futures young adults anticipate and how they believe those futures could be realized. In 2019, using an in-person paper survey, we asked students (N = 193; ages 18-26) to describe their best, most-likely, and worst possible futures for the United States in either the year 2050 or 2100. Participants were also asked questions to explore what would need to happen to achieve these futures and the actors who have influence in shaping the future. Here we explore their description of these future scenarios and pathways. Our participants’ images of the future are heavily infused with concepts related to environmental sustainability, technology, and social dynamics. Further, participants frequently expressed the belief that governance, technological developments, and individuals were key factors that will determine the contours of the future. The images of the future collected by our work can help to engage productively with young adults in addressing today’s pressing challenges.

Campus catalyst award for excellence in teaching

In their nomination letter, my student stated: “Her teaching style blended academic research, PowerPoints, talks from change makers in the world (both local and far away), and guided experiences in determining and creating sustainable change in the world while still an undergrad. Sometimes to a fault, she always pushed us to do better, do more, and just get out there and make something of a difference.” <wow>