SENR Speaker Series welcomes PhD Students

The School of Environment and Natural Resources Speaker Series welcomes PhD students, who will present their research.

Bishista Shree
Title: Energy Justice in Transition: A Case Study of the Newly Immigrated Population in Columbus, Ohio
Abstract: This dissertation, titled "Energy Justice in Transition: A Case Study of the Newly Immigrated Population in Columbus, Ohio," examines the barriers to an equitable adoption of renewable based equipment including electric vehicles, solar panels, and appliance such as electric cooking and home heating systems through an integrated framework of energy justice, social practice theory, socio-technical transition theory, and diffusion of innovation. The research draws qualitative data from forty interviews with members of the Bhutanese Nepali speaking community, four different focus group discussions, and eight expert interviews with Community leaders, policymakers, and service providers. The study explores how energy injustices emerge within the community. Findings highlight a significant gap between policy language and daily experiences, revealing three interconnected dimensions of energy justice. First, procedural mistrust arises from ineffective institutional outreach, which leaves information unclear and inaccessible. Second, distributive barriers, including rental housing status, high upfront costs for electric vehicles, solar panels, and home energy systems, unaffordable electric rates, and inadequate infrastructure, severely limit clean energy adoption. Third, misaligned cultural and linguistic outreach fails to resonate with the community’s existing practices and values, deepening exclusion. The study concludes that an equitable energy transition must be community-centered, requiring policy implementation that systematically addresses identified gaps through inclusive communication, targeted investment, and culturally responsive design. To ensure meaningful inclusion, these approaches must provide financial incentives to offset high initial costs and retrofits, implement price protection for electricity, and deliver culturally aligned outreach that connects with the community’s daily realities and supports inclusive technological adoption.

Allison Williams
Title: Historic and contemporary environmental change shape the demographic and genetic landscape across terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems
Abstract: Landscapes and land use history shape organismal distributions, population sizes, and genetic diversity. Rapid environmental changes in recent centuries have led to subsequent changes in global distributional, demographic, and genetic patterns of biodiversity. The impacts of such changes vary greatly across ecosystems due to life history variation among taxonomic groups, warranting thorough investigation of impacts on species of concern. Population genetics can be used to characterize the genetic diversity and population structure of species across temporal and spatial scales. Further, landscape genetics can be used to infer the environmental factors shaping demographic and genetic patterns. These methods are applied to two contrasting species of management concern in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems: the American barn owl (Tyto furcata) and flathead catfish (Pylodictus olivaris). The American barn owl has historically expanded and contracted in its distribution and population size across the United States in response to deforestation and agricultural development. Similarly, the flathead catfish is an abundant game species throughout the Ohio River that has been subjected to habitat fragmentation as a result of damming across major stretches. However, the full impact of anthropogenic change has not been evaluated for either species. These gaps are addressed across these broad-scale ecosystems by investigating the baseline genetic diversity and structure of both species. Then, the relationships between genetic connectivity and environmental and anthropogenic variables are explicitly investigated in analyses tailored to each species’ life history traits. These findings reveal how recent and historical changes shape contemporary demographic and genetic patterns and highlight how further change may shape future biodiversity. 

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