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Kelsea Best

Kelsea is an Assistant Professor with a joint appointment in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geodetic Engineering and the City and Regional Planning section of the Knowlton School at The Ohio State University. Her research broadly aims to understand how climate change interacts with human societies and wellbeing, how people may adapt to climate change, and how climate adaptation measures can be designed and implemented in a just and equitable way. Some of her current research projects include studying interactions between future sea level rise and transportation infrastructure, equity in disaster aid and disaster recovery processes in the U.S., effects of natural hazards and climate effects on housing security, and climate migration in coastal Bangladesh. 

Holly Caggiano

Holly (she/her) is currently an Assistant Professor in Planning (Climate Justice and Environmental Planning) at the University of British Columbia. Previously, she was a Postdoctoral Researcher at Princeton University’s Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment. She received her Ph.D. in Planning and Public Policy from Rutgers in 2021 and holds a BS in Environmental Policy, Institutions, and Behavior. As a broadly trained environmental social scientist, Holly’s current research focuses on equitable energy transitions, including identifying pathways to broad public support for utility-scale renewable energy projects that benefit communities. Her work examines the formation of local and regional stakeholder coalitions and the narratives they form around energy transition politics in relation to economic revitalization, labor organization, and notions of procedural and distributional justice. Learn more about Holly’s work here. 

Shaylynn Trego

Shaylynn Trego is a doctoral student in Geography at Arizona State University and a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. She is committed to conducting socially relevant research on human-environment interactions, particularly how people can cope with increasingly extreme heat, and helping to translate that research into action. She aims to enhance her knowledge about how social and spatial inequalities in human-environment relationships differentially affect people’s well-being, and how knowledge of human-environmental relationships can clarify avenues for potentially enhancing overall well-being for people in urban areas. 

Yuhao Wang

Yuhao Wang is a PhD candidate in the department of geographical science at the UMD. His research focuses on agricultural land conversion, crop yield prediction, and the impact of human food consumption on land use changes under climate change scenarios, with a special interest in soybean production in Latin America and correlated human environment interaction issues. He also utilized various methodologies including Machine Learning, Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs), and Input-Output Models (IO models).