Climate at Vanderbilt

Brooke Ackerly is a Professor of Political Science with secondary appointments in the Law School and Peabody School. She studies political theory and is currently working on the intersection of global economic, environmental, and gender justice. She has been on the editorial boards of Politics and Gender and is the founder and principal investigator of the Global Feminisms Collaborative.

In this episode our guest is Dr. Calynn Dowler. She is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies whose research and expertise lies at the intersection of religious studies and environmental anthropology. She received her BA in Political Science and German from Gettysburg College, her Masters of Migration Studies from the University of Sussex, and her PhD in Cultural Anthropology from Boston University.

Kip Viscusi is a University Distinguished Professor with appointments in the Department of Economics, the Law School, and the Owen Graduate School of Management. He is also Co-Director of the Law & Economics program, in which students receive a J.D. and a Ph.D. in Law & Economics. His work focuses on risk analysis and benefit-cost analysis and has been influential in shaping government policies, including on the social cost of carbon, and the field of law and economics generally.

Dr. Patrick Greiner received his PhD in Sociology from University of Oregon in 2018, and is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Assistant Professor of Public Policy Studies here at Vanderbilt. He is also a Dean’s Faculty Fellow of Vanderbilt’s Grand Challenge in Climate and Society. Professor Greiner’s research centers on providing greater insight into the complex co-constitution of social inequalities, environmental changes, and their consequences.

Dr. Charles Doktycz is a Climate Risk and Resilience Analyst for Argonne National Laboratory. He received his BS in Chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and his PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Vanderbilt University, focusing on climate change and the cost of inaction due to the rising threats of extreme weather. He has a range of interests and experience in climate change issues, including climate modeling, community resilience development, risk analysis, and international environmental law.

Dr. Yolanda J. McDonald is an Assistant Professor in the  Department of Human and Organizational Development and a Faculty Affiliate on Vanderbilt's Program in Climate and Environmental Studies. Dr. McDonald is also the Lead Investigator of the Vanderbilt University Drinking Water Justice Lab. She  earned her M.A. in Sociology from the University of Texas at El Paso, and her Ph.D. in Geography from Texas A&M University, focusing on healthcare access inequities. Building on that theme, she is currently a National Institutes of Health, Health Disparities Research Institute Scholar.

Bruce Jennings, M.A., is Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Health Policy and the Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society, and he is Senior Fellow at the Center for Humans and Nature, a nonprofit research center based in Chicago that studies environmental ethics and policy. He came to Vanderbilt from the Yale University School of Public Health, where he taught ethics from 1996-2014. He also is Senior Advisor at The Hastings Center, where he served from 1991 through 1999 as Executive Director. In this episode we discuss his career and why his research has expanded from biomedical ethics to the ethical dimensions of climate change in recent years.

Mike Vandenbergh is a David Daniels Allen Distinguished Chair in Law, Director of Vanderbilt's Climate Change Research Network, and Co-Director of the Law School's Program on Energy, Environment, and Land Use Law. He teaches courses in environmental law, climate change justice, and property, and has been a visiting professor at the Wharton School’s Department of Legal Studies and Business Ethics and at the University of Chicago and Harvard Law Schools. His research focuses on working with interdisciplinary teams to explore environmental governance, environmental behavior, and climate change. His research has developed the concept of private environmental governance and explored how private governance initiatives can address polarization and other barriers to climate change mitigation. In this episode we discuss several of these initiatives, with more to follow in future episodes.

Caroline Cox joined Vanderbilt Law School as the program director for the Energy, Environment and Land Use Program and a member of the adjunct law faculty in 2022. Immediately before joining Vanderbilt's EELU faculty and staff, Caroline was a law clerk to Judge Jane Branstetter Stranch of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. After earning her law degree at Harvard, she was a law clerk for Chief Judge Lee H. Rosenthal of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. In addition to teaching a course on Sustainable Cities, Caroline advises students interested in careers in environmental law and oversees the EELU Program’s white-paper series. In this episode we discuss her background and her perspectives on climate change law and policy.

In Part 2 of our discussion with Dr. Craig Philip (listen to Part 1 for his background) we cover his work at Vanderbilt after having moved from his position with Ingram Barge. We'll learn about the difficulties of decarbonizing the maritime shipping industry, the work of the task force he led on the future of climate education and research at Vanderbilt, and his thoughts on some of the most impactful work taking place now and into the future here.

Dr. Craig Philip is a Research Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Director of the Vanderbilt Center for Transportation and Operational Resiliency.  Dr. Philip’s research focus includes infrastructure sustainability and the application of risk management tools to transportation systems, carrier safety management, and transport policy and regulation with a particular focus on Maritime Systems. Prior to joining Vanderbilt, Dr. Philip spent 35 years in the rail, intermodal and maritime industries, including Conrail and Southern Pacific Railroads. He joined Ingram Barge Company, the largest US marine transport carrier in 1982 and from 1999 until 2014 served as President/CEO. In this episode, part one of two, we discuss his work on sustainability in the maritime shipping industry prior to joining Vanderbilt. In Part II we learn about his subsequent move to and work at Vanderbilt.

Dr. Leah A. Dundon is the Director of the Vanderbilt Climate Change Initiative at Vanderbilt University. She is also a practicing environmental attorney with the law firm of Beveridge & Diamond, P.C., and holds a research appointment in environmental engineering at the Vanderbilt University School of Engineering. Leah completed her Ph.D. through the Center for Environmental Management Studies at Vanderbilt University and is part of a research group that focuses on climate change, risk management, and assessing the impacts of extreme weather on infrastructure adaptation. In this episode we discuss her background and her innovative course that concludes with a group of students attending the Council of Parties annual international meeting on climate change.

This episode continues our discussion with Jonathan Gilligan (listen to Part 1 first for background), focusing on his policy work and his perspectives on the challenges ahead from climate change.

Dr. Jonathan Gilligan is the Alexander Heard Distinguished Service Professor and an Associate Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences and of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Vanderbilt University. His work focuses on environmental policy, risk management, atmospheric science, and global climate change. As the Director of Vanderbilt's Climate and Society Grand Challenge Initiative, Jonathan is actively involved in a wide span of projects and research on climate change law and policy. He was also instrumental in forming the undergraduate major in Climate Studies. In this episode--the first of two parts--we discuss Jonathan's background and his work developing the Grand Challenge Initiative and the Climate Studies major.

Welcome to my podcast, Climate at Vanderbilt. I am J.B. Ruhl, a Professor at Vanderbilt University Law School focusing my work on climate change mitigation and adaptation and other pressing environmental challenges. In each episode I interview a Vanderbilt University faculty member, researcher, student, or administrator about their work on solutions to climate change. Listen to this Introduction episode to learn more about the podcast series.