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Vol. 1, No. 7 – Fall 2019
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PRODUCTS
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PEOPLE CONNECTED
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CELEBRATING 100 UREX PUBLICATIONS!
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The UREx SRN has reached a huge milestone – over 100 scientific articles published! Network collaborations have fostered a variety of inter-and transdisciplinary work since the project started (July 2015), and our extensive publication list – which includes international, multi-institutional, and cross-sector work – is just one great example of this. Congrats to everyone who has contributed to this incredible achievement!
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2019 ANNUAL VIRTUAL ALL-HANDS MEETING
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On November 13, 2019, more than 60 UREx SRN researchers, practitioners, external advisory members, and other interdisciplinary scientists and scholars gathered virtually for our 4th annual Virtual All-Hands Meeting (VAHM). The focus of this meeting was to share ideas, highlight some of the work happening around the network, and to discuss network goals for the 5th year of the UREx SRN. This event consisted of multiple sessions including data and product sharing for UREx data, city reports and updates, an open discussion on task force updates, and UREx beyond year 5.
Overall, this VAHM has reminded us that we have so much to look forward to in the fifth year of UREx. A special thank you to everyone who contributed to the planning and execution of this event - we have you to thank for its success!
If you were unable to participate, we strongly suggest you view the 2019 VAHM recording and follow along with the meeting materials.
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PORTLAND SCENARIOS WORKSHOP
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Envisioning Governance for Urban Resilience in Portland, Oregon
On September 26, 2019, UREx SRN researchers gathered in Portland, Oregon for the Portland Scenarios Workshop. The outcomes of this workshop will form the basis of the second workshop, where detailed governance frameworks will be created, informed by transformative resilience futures and pathways developed in this workshop. A shift in mindset from "resilience-as-harm-reduction" to "resilience-as-thriving", before and after a disaster. Portland practitioners imagined radical futures where disaster events such as major floods, heat events, or earthquakes had a minimal impact or were even leveraged for benefit.
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2019 GRAD GRANT SPOTLIGHT
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Yuliya Dzyuban
PhD Candidate, Arizona State University
Exploring relationships between outdoor thermal comfort of pedestrians and public transit users, and design in hot climates
Yuliya was one of four graduate students awarded a 2019-2020 Grad Grant, an opportunity funded by the UREx SRN, to support her public transit and heat research case studies in Phoenix and Hermosillo. Funds were used to assist with data processing and analysis, and the research was ultimately used to complete a dissertation that was defended in November 2019. In addition, results will be used for manuscript submissions in peer-reviewed journals. One manuscript is currently under review, and the second is in preparation (anticipated summer 2020 submission). Preliminary results of the Hermosillo work were presented to the local stakeholders at Instituto Municipal de Planeación (IMPLAN) and organized in a report, and the Phoenix case study data will be published in the EDI Data Portal (and referenced in eRAMS), thanks to the support of Stevan Earl, CAP LTER Data Manager. Manuscripts for the Hermosillo data are also expected to begin fall 2020.
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INTERNATIONAL POSTDOC SPOTLIGHT
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Javier Navarro-Estupiñan, PhD
Postdoc Fellow, Sonoran State University
Dr. Javier Navarro-Estupiñan received his bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering and Master’s degree in Sciences-Geology from the University of Sonora. After several years working for the Agriculture Bureau (Federal Government) in the conservation and sustainable use of soil and water program, he returned to academia to pursue a PhD in Sciences at the Technological Institute of Sonora (ITSON). He was advised by Dr. Agustín Robles-Morua and Dr. Enrique Vivoni (Arizona State University).
Javier was involved as associated graduate student of the UREx SRN research project studying observed extreme heat trends and future projections in the state of Sonora. Besides, Javier generated heat risk maps including socioeconomic variables for the city of Hermosillo. Results of the studies were used by the Municipality during summer heat prevention campaigns. Additionally, outcomes were included in urban plans developed by the Planning Institute (IMPLAN). Javier is research fellow at the Sonora State University and continues to generate heat maps, identifying their relationship with diseases in the cities of Hermosillo and Obregón in collaboration with the Department of Health Sciences of the University of Sonora. Furthermore, Javier is working in the identification of potential sites of green infrastructure in collaboration with ITSON, IMPLAN, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) and the German Agency for Sustainable Development in México.
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Mathieu Feagan, PhD
Lecturer, School for the Future of Innovation in Society, Arizona State University
Dr. Matt Feagan joined the URExSRN as a postdoctoral research associate in October 2016, supporting the Transitions & Implementation Working Group leadership on research capacity building. From the planning and implementation of cross-network dialogues (Innovation Plazas), co-teaching the PhD student urban resilience reading group (URRG), leading a special issue of the journal Environmental Science & Policy on "Knowledge Systems for Urban Resilience," to playing key roles as co-principal investigator in the National Science Foundation's grant "Building resilient coastal cities through smart and connected communities" and as member of the Heat Action Planning Core Team for the Nature's Cooling Systems project in Phoenix -- Matt has been advancing the URExSRN's mission on multiple fronts. In August 2019 he joined the faculty in the School for the Future of Innovation in Society at Arizona State University, where he teaches courses at the undergraduate, masters, and PhD levels on innovation, sociotechnical systems, and professional development, while continuing to support the URExSRN as a co-investigator with the "Cultivating the Next Generation of SETS Leaders for Urban Resilience: equitable and multifunctional green infrastructure implementation for the new climate normal" project and through support for the Resilient Urban Latin America (RULA) International Research Experience for Students (IRES) program.
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Lauren McPhillips, PhD
Assistant Professor, Pennsylvania State University
Dr. Lauren McPhillips was a Postdoctoral Fellow with the UREx SRN from 2016 to 2018 based at Arizona State University. Lauren worked primarily with the City Comparisons Working Group where she loved the opportunity to get to know the network cities, particularly their green infrastructure and flooding-related issues. She also participated in and helped organize the Urban Resilience Reading Group during that time.
In August 2018, Lauren started as an Assistant Professor at Penn State University, co-appointed in the Departments of Civil & Environmental Engineering and Agricultural & Biological Engineering. She has enjoyed continuing to participate in UREx task forces and leverage all of the great connections that she's made from the network. Though she loved the opportunity to work on data synthesis efforts and new conceptual frameworks during her postdoc time, she's now having fun digging back into field and lab work related to green infrastructure and hydrology and water quality issues in the built environment.
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EMERITUS GRAD FELLOWS:
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
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Darin Wahl, PhD candidate at the Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies in Lund, Sweden, conducts research on sustainability innovations in natural resource systems through Urban Living Labs. Darin works through interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary processes aiming to learn with others to develop solutions to complex sustainability issues. He is currently working on developing solution-based approaches for implementing changes in urban resource systems by collaborating across several Urban Living Labs. During his time at Portland State University, Darin published an article in Nature of Cities with his mentor Vivek Shandas.
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Ben Fahy, Master of Science in Geography from Portland State University, conducts research on the effectiveness of storm green infrastructure on runoff in a small urbanizing neighborhood in suburban Portland. Additionally, he, along with a fellow graduate student Emma Brenneman, completed research investigating the relationship between sociodemographic variables and combined hazard potential (heat and flooding) in Portland. These two lines of research resulted in two publications in peer-reviewed journals (Fahy and Chang 2019; Fahy et al. 2019). He is currently working for the Bonneville Power Administration as a research analyst.
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Ryan Brenner, Master of Science in Public Policy from New York University's Wagner Graduate School of Public Policy, analyzes data for patterns and trends in connection with green infrastructure as well as for New York City focused SETS indicators. He co-authored a paper with Professor Zimmerman and another graduate researcher on the financing of green infrastructure projects. Ryan is currently employed as a Research Analyst at the NYC Furman Center continuing to expand his skills in conducting trend analysis for NYC housing and neighborhoods.
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URBAN RESILIENCE READING GROUP (URRG)
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Students began the semester by presenting their individual research interests to URRG postdoc facilitators via Ignite style presentations. Postdocs and students then identified overlapping cross-city and regional themes that included Urban Ecological Infrastructure (UEI): systems for flooding and heat extremes, Governance Dilemmas: resilience planning vs emergency planning, Urban Infrastructure Transformations: challenges and opportunities, Deep Uncertainty: climate modeling and infrastructure design, and Visualizing Extreme Events. Based on needs provided from city practitioners, students determined how their individual projects could fit together for one of the group themes in order to fulfill a future alternative. Final projects were the preparation of non-academic products that were prepared for each collaborative theme. The resulting products were podcasts and a brochure that were shared with Emeritus Fellows, Postdocs, Faculty, and City Practitioners.
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