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Spring
quarter
always brings a different level of activity to E-IPER
,
as
students
continue with their
courses
and ongoing research, while planning scholarly activities for the summer and into next year
.
Graduating students are preparing for Commencement and life after E-IPER. And
there are numerous
year-end events,
hosted by
research groups, departments, centers, and schools.
It has been a race to summer, but we're just about there!
In this issue:
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News Features 
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E-IPER Social at the Farm!
The E-IPER student liaison committee, led by representatives from each PhD cohort and MS-JD and MS-MBA students, planned and hosted the first annual community social on May 9, 2018 at the
O'Donohue Family Stanford Educational Farm.
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The O'Donohue Family Stanford Educational Farm
-Photo by Jessica Gonzalez
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The event was held following a special meeting of the joint masters program core course, ENVRES 280: Topics in Environment and Resources.
Held in the Barn at the Farm, the class featured a lecture,
"Sustainable Food Systems and the Global Supply Chain," given by Jim Leape, Co-director of the Center for Ocean Solutions, and William and Eva Price Senior Fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.
Over 40 E-IPER Joint MS and PhD students, and several of Woods
- and
E-IPER
-
affiliated facult
y members
enjoyed the lively conversation, the repast from Oren's Hummus, and the beauty and ambiance of the Stanford Farm.
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New Collaboration Grant Awarded
Now in its fourth year, the Collaboration Grants program is designed to encourage and incentivize E-IPER's PhD and Joint MS students to work collaboratively to
address significant environmental issues in ways that cannot be as effectively addressed in isolation,
integrating
the action-oriented lens of the Joint Master's student
with
the research rigor of the doctoral student.
This year,
Autumn Bordner
(MS-JD 2
nd
) and Caroline Ferguson (PhD 1
st
) were awarded
a grant
for the project "
Migration and Memory in the Marshall Islands
." The project, advised by Professor Gregory
Ablavsky
(Law) and William Durham (Anthropology), explores adaptation strategies for
climate-change-induced sea-
level rise
in the Marshall Islands. Like many small island developing states (SIDS), the
Republic of the
Marshall Islands
(RMI)
is existentially threatened as a consequence of climate change. Unlike other SIDS, however, the Marshall Islands has a long history
and deep understanding
of depopulation and migration
,
due to
many years of
nuclear testing.
Caroline
and Autumn will investigate how prior experiences of forced migration in RMI shape resistance to climate migration today. By documenting and sharing the Marshallese stories with powerful international decision-making bodies, these researchers hope to amplify Marshallese voices and
demonstrate
the importance of directly engaging
with
affected communities to develop contextually appropriate adaptation strategies.
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Joint MS Capstone Symposium
The Winter 2018 Capstone Symposium featured nine projects spanning energy systems, food systems, climate risk, and environmental justice.
MS-MBA presentations included carbon capture for US coal plants, renewable energy financing strategies for India, economic impacts from climate-influenced nuisance flooding, the integration of climate risks into financial modeling, the development of a sustainable herbal beverage, and the development of a comprehensive and sustainable supply chain for a new yuca food product.
MS-JD presentations included strategies to incorporate low-income communities into the California clean transportation programs, and recommendations for incorporating indigenous subsistence practices into the management of US national parks.
The first Dual MS-PhD Education student, Indira Phukan, presented her work in environmental justice curriculum and higher education program development.
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Winter 2018 Capstone presenters (from left to right):
Rashmi
Nalla
(MS-MBA), Alejandra
Maguina
(MS-MBA),
Samanthe
Belanger (MS-MBA), Miles Muller (MS-JD), Savannah Fletcher (MS-JD), Indira
Phukan (MS-PhD Education), Sudarshan
Bhatija
(MS-MBA), Himanshu Gupta (MS-MBA), Naga
Kataru
(MS-MBA). Not pictured: Max Evans (MS-MBA)
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E-IPER welcomes the largest Joint MS cohort
37 new students started their MS in Environment and Resources this Spring Quarter, including 8 MS-JD students, 28 MS-MBA students, and 1 MS-MD student.
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Alumni Spotlight
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Alumni Spotlight:
Mehana Blaich Vaughan
Since leaving Stanford,
Mehana Blaich Vaughan (PhD 2013)
has been an Assistant Professor at the University of Hawai'i at
Mānoa
(UH) in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Management
(NREM)
and the UH Sea Grant College Program. Mehana's program prepares resource managers in Hawaiʻi; her students, most of whom are also employed full time, are hard at work protecting some of the world's rarest species, trying to bolster coral reef health, combatting Rapid
Ohiʻa
Death in the local forests, creating environmental education programs, and adapting policies and restoring watersheds. Mehana could not have found a more interdisciplinary position.
"I am appointed in multiple departments," she says "and work with interdisciplinary clusters of faculty across UH who specialize in subjects from economics to Native Hawaiian rights law, microbial oceanography to planning. My own department, NREM is interdisciplinary. E-IPER taught me the importance of learning to understand the different languages and processes people in different fields use to conduct research, and to produce knowledge."
Mehana's PhD research was
focused on collaborative and community-based resource management. She worked with a community that was attempting to restore local-level fisheries governance based on ancestral fishing practices. That
community,
Hāʻena
, is now the first community-managed fishery in Hawaiʻi. They created local fishing rules which are now state law.
Mehana
continues to work with
Hāʻena
and a network of 20 other communities engaged in similar efforts.
One result has been that students from fishing communities have been applying to her program so that they can learn to apply these governance concepts in their home villages.
Mehana
and the students investigate the social and ecological impacts of restoring community management in Hawaiʻi, while also learning from cases around the world.
Mehana
loves teaching at all levels. Before coming to E-IPER, she was a middle school teacher, working on
ʻāina
-based education programs with community groups on her home island of
Kauaʻi
. (These programs are centered around the concept of land, sea and air as the source of nourishment and sustenance.) Teaching at the university is an equally rewarding experience, and Mehana appreciates the lessons she learns from students, who are "amazing in their dedication, creativity, brilliance, and caring."
Mehana continues to work with community groups in Hawaiʻi, helping them build their own capacity to care for the lands and waters that sustain them, and to enhance knowledge of resource health across Hawaiʻi. And again, she
finds that she is always learning "from each of the communities my students and I work with."
Mehana lives in the rural community of Kilauea and Kalihiwai, where she grew up, on the island of Kauaʻi. While her weekly commute to Honolulu may seem burdensome, she is grateful that she can live in the place that is her home, close to her mother and her extended ʻohana. Mehana and her husband are raising three children, and she loves "being able to watch the changes around us through the seasons as surf rises, rain pounds, wind drops, birds return, and to teach them to care for this place where they are rooted. Ours is a community that comes together and takes care of one another, including through the recent floods, and I am grateful for that. I love to take my kids' classes on filed trips to hike and explore beaches with them, make lei, play cards or other games on the living room floor, dance, and be outdoors in evening light".
Gratitude is a central theme for Mehana, and she wants to use this opportunity to express her thanks for her father and grandmother, both of whom passed away while she was working on her PhD; for her mother, husband, and children; for her committee; and for her E-IPER cohort: Narasimha Rao, Andy Gerhart, Adam Millard-Ball, Kaitlin Shilling, and Caroline Scruggs.
~On resilience in
Hawaiʻi~
Our community was the center of the heaviest flooding. Over fifty inches of rain fell in twenty four hours and some rivers rose as much as 35 feet in ten minutes. Friends' homes flooded, and one had to wade in the middle of the night into rushing water up to her chest carrying her twin toddlers to escape. Communications were cut off for a day, highway access for a week.
A month and a half later we are still realigning. My husband is the deputy fire chief for our island so he was immediately called into 24 hour duty, while I have helped to facilitate community response.
People have been incredible. Volunteers went door to door surveying household needs, delivered supplies on boats and ATV trains, cleared the highway of seven landslides that piled dirt as high as electric lines in many places, pulled out cars swept into rivers and organized cleaning and rebuilding crews, all within the first two weeks. As a community we are now working on directing some of the funds for flood relief to long-term local jobs; some of our tasks include cleaning streams of debris so that future floods won't be so damaging, replanting landslides with lehua, checking in regularly on area elders, redesigning visitor accommodations out of the flood zones, and creating maps of the water's path to guide future planning.
These are jobs aimed at helping people to take care of one another and our home, to be more connected and prepared in the future-for the high-intensity rains, tsunamis and other events that are sure to come. Two weeks after
Kauaʻiʻs
floods, fissures from the volcano at
Kīlauea
, on Hawaiʻi island (the Big Island), started to erupt. Our island at the oldest end of the chain is sloughing into the ocean, rivers blasting beloved spits of beach out to sea, even as the volcano births new land on the youngest island. No lives have been lost so far, only homes. To me this is a time to wonder at the power of lava, of water, of the natural world, to learn from our inability to control them, and to adapt to live in balance.
~Mehana's recommendations to E-IPER students~
Study what you love, in an area you feel can make a difference for others, and do the research that only you can do. Also, take the time to gain useful skills that you don't have, as it will be harder to find time to learn these later. Choose advisors who can see your vision for your work and bring them together regularly to think about it together. Do not wait till you have polished and perfected on your own; use your time at E-IPER to share the messy parts you are unsure of and to learn. If you want to teach in your life, find ways to practice. And always hold the reality of how lucky you are to be at Stanford, surrounded by the resources, the people of that place. Learn as much as you can to share.
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Student News
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Caroline and Kirsten take a break between dives in the Rock Islands. |
Tannis Thorlakson (PhD 4th) accepted a position as an Environmental Lead for US and Canada at Driscoll's, based in Santa Barbara.
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Alumni News
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Tim Latimer
(MS-MBA 2018) and
Jack
Norbeck
(ERE PhD '16), co-
founders of
Fervo
Energy
,
have been accepted to the Cyclotron Road Entrepreneurial Research Fellow program at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.
Fervo
Energy is focused on a novel method to Enhanced Geothermal Systems "that could unlock the 100 GW clean energy from geothermal opportunity in the United States."
Kaitlin Shilling
(PhD 2012)
After five years working on social entrepreneurship and private sector development in Indonesia, Kaitlin is now leading Arup's International Development team in Australasia (based out of Sydney). The small team works with engineers, planners, architects, and designers from across the firm on projects focused on improving climate and disaster resilience in the built environment.
Brian Shillinglaw
(MS-JD 2008)
Brian continues to manage the US office for
New Forests
,
a global sustainable real assets fund manager. The US team has over 500,000 acres of US forests registered or under development as forest offset projects for the California emissions trading system through the
Forest Carbon Partners
fund, and recently acquired over 180,000 acres of forests in California for FSC-certified forest management and conservation. And they are launching a new climate impact investment fund focused on US forestry.
Rose Stanley
(MS-JD 2016) recently joined the Office of General Counsel, Northwest Section of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as an Attorney-Advisor based in Seattle, Washington. Rose works on legal issues related to fisheries, ESA-listed species, and natural resource management.
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Awards & Honors
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Noa Kekuewa Lincoln (PhD 2014) was given the early career award by the American Society of Horticultural Science.
Tannis Thorlakson
(PhD 4th)
has been named a 2018 GreenBiz "30 Under 30" leader, an award young leaders who demonstrate the world-changing promise of sustainability in their everyday work. This year, GreenBiz honored individuals from eight countries on four continents who represent the future of sustainability inside companies and institutions.
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Publications & Presentations
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Marilyn Cornelius
(PhD 2013) Published her
13
th
book, The Path to Romantic Success, which launched on May 5, 2018. It's about self-love, Marilyn says.
Marilyn also finished another book about how to discern and release patterns of abuse and trauma (an application of her behavioral sciences lens). This is the second book of a five-part series, which is in turn part of a framework she's developing called "Living and Leading Authentically and the Four Phases of Flourishing."
She is also
developing and teaching online courses as part of this framework.
Amanda Cravens
(PhD 2014) has published with Dunham, J.,
Angermeier
, P.,
Crausbay
, S.,
Gosnell, H., McEvoy, J., Moritz, M., Raheem, N., and T. Sanford the article, "
Rivers are social-ecological systems: time to integrate human dimensions into riverscape ecology and management,
"
WIRES Water.
David J.X. Gonzalez
(PhD 2nd) Presented his work on preterm birth and oil and gas development at the Conference of Ford Fellows in Washington, DC.
Lincoln, N. K.
,
Kagawa-Viviani, A., Marshall, K., and Vitousek, P. article "
Observations of Sugarcane in Traditional Hawaiian Cropping Systems.
" In
Sugarcane: Production Systems, Uses, and Economic Impact
. Rachel Murphy (
ed
).
Nova Science Publishers, Hauppauge, NY, USA.
Marshall, K.,
Koseff
, C., Roberts, A., Lindsey, A., Kagawa-Viviani, A.,
Lincoln, N. K.
,
and Vitousek, P.
,
"
Restoring People and Productivity to Puanui: Challenges and opportunities in the restoration of an intensive rain-fed Hawaiian field system,
"
Ecology and Society.
Justin Mankin
(PhD 2015) and colleagues have a the following publications:
Mankin, J.S., R. Seager, J. E. Smerdon, B. I. Cook, A. P. Williams, R. M. Horton, "Blue water tradeoffs with CO2-enriched ecosystems," Geophysical Research Letters
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Building on two decades of interviews with more than sixty Hawaiian elders, leaders, and fishermen and women, Kaiāulu shares their stories of enduring community efforts to perpetuate kuleana ("rights and responsibilities.")
An important contribution to scholarship, Kaiāulu is also a skillfully written and deeply personal tribute to a community based not on ownership, but reciprocity, responsibility, and caring for the places that shape and sustain us all.
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Upcoming Events
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Commencement Ceremonies
Stanford University 2018 Commencement Ceremony
Sunday, June 17, 2018
9:30 AM to 11:30 AM
Stanford Stadium
School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences
2018 Diploma Ceremony and Reception
Sunday, June 17, 2018
12:30 PM
Mitchell North Patio
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Thank you to our major contributors for this issue:
Susannah Barsom, Autumn Bordner, Gabriela Magana, Ann Marie Pettigrew, Anjana Richards, and Mehana Blaich Vaughn
Edited by:
The E-IPER staff
Thanks to all of you for continuing to
support E-IPER!
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