2023 Awardees

Congratulations to the recipients of the 2023 Climate Change Initiative Awards!

See below for an overview of their projects.

Four awards fund activities–workshops, discussions, and other events–to promote new, cross-NYU partnerships to tackle important interdisciplinary issues related to climate change:

 Climate Art and Action Incubator

This Incubator will create a platform for climate change-focused art and will enrich NYU student and cultural life through themed events, artist talks, workshops, and a student art show. The project also aims to positively influence students' mental health.

Faculty Investigators

Engendering NYU Cross-Campus and Interdisciplinary Climate Mitigation Collaborations

Through a workshop following the "Climate Action and Health" conference at the NYU Abu Dhabi Institute this fall, the team will foster cross-campus collaborations for interdisciplinary, collaborative climate action research and policy initiatives.

Faculty Investigators

New York’s Transportation Future Amid Climate Change: Exploring Climate Technology

The Rudin Center at Wagner and C2SMART at Tandon will host a discussion on the intersection of transportation infrastructure and climate technology solutions and address challenges and opportunities for climate change impacts on transportation.

Faculty Investigators

Understanding Energy Transitions

This team will convene political science, sociology, economics, history, and cultural criticism experts to explore energy policies, historical energy shifts, political coalitions, and cultural contexts to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels.

Faculty Investigators

Six additional awards support novel research inquiries and facilitate the preparation of successful external grant applications:

Addressing "Specialized Nutritious Foods" Last Mile Bottlenecks in Chad and South Sudan

In response to a request from the United Nations World Food Programme, this project will analyze the distribution of, and challenges related to, Special Nutritious Foods (SNF) in Chad and South Sudan to identify bottlenecks and other supply chain issues, and propose cost-effective strategies to improve delivery of food in vulnerable regions. 

Faculty Investigators

Adult Reskilling and Climate Change: Leveraging Human-Centered Narratives to Advance Economic Equity and Climate Justice

This Initiative seeks to inform a just and equitable transition to a green economy by raising awareness of the direct experiences of workers and communities in Appalachia, including coal workers, their families, labor activists, workforce retraining experts, and clean energy visionaries. 

Faculty Investigators

Designing a Novel and Robust Microfluidics System for Crop Improvement

This project aims to design a novel microfluidics system to understand how plants sense and respond to environmental stressors that mimic climate change. This will increase our understanding of plant adaptation and resilience, and may lead to improved crop survival in the face of extreme, unpredictable weather. 

Faculty Investigators

Regional Equity in High-Impact Climate Research

This project will examine biases in peer-reviewed climate change research to assess how climate change impacts in developing and vulnerable regions are (or are not) portrayed. The goal is to increase the representation of research on regions that disproportionately experience the impacts of climate change.

Faculty Investigators

The Cassandra Project: Foregrounding Voices of Climate Resilience

This Project will create digital narratives of women on the frontlines of climate adaptation and response in Bangladesh, India, and the Philippines. The researchers aim to capture valuable knowledge from those whose voices are often excluded from climate policymaking. 

Faculty Investigators

 

Water Woes: Rainwater Harvest Technology Adoption in Pakistan

This project will study the adoption of a novel household rainwater harvesting and storage system that improves access to reliable and safe water, and can thereby improve health outcomes. The work will occur in Pakistan, where climate change is exacerbating flooding during monsoon seasons and water deficits the rest of the year. 

Faculty Investigators