EcoGovLab‘s Kim Fortun is lead social scientist in a new $7.5 million for environmental justice initiative funded by the National Science Foundation to support diversification and community engagement in Earth system science. The initiative is designed to support collaboration among researchers and students in different fields, including the social sciences.
The project is led by Kathleen Johnson, a prominent Native American Earth system scientist. Johnson says that the CLIMATE Justice will help transform the culture of geoscience by building a “learning ecosystem” that goes beyond traditional disciplinary and hierarchical boundaries.
CLIMATE Justice was established to help train and empower postbaccalaureate and doctoral students from historically marginalized communities to pursue advanced degrees and careers related to climate change. Another goal is to increase participation in environmental justice and community-engaged research by experts from established science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines.