Join Dr. Christian Braneon, an urban climate expert and scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York for a discussion on how the current moment offers a unique opportunity to imagine alternative futures in which policies, infrastructure, governance, and value systems are recalibrated with equity and sustainability at the center. Dr. Braneon will highlight some of the ways that Earth observations are being utilized to map the distribution of urban heat in cities and to understand the impacts of racist policies such as redlining. He will also offer perspectives on how a community-driven and justice-oriented approach can be employed to tackle related challenges such as environmental racism and health disparities.
Christian Braneon's current work there is focused on integrating stakeholder engagement, satellite imagery, and climate projections into urban and regional planning. Dr. Braneon supports the Urban Climate Change Research Network’s (UCCRN) Urban Design Climate Workshop series focused on helping cities utilize NASA datasets to enhance climate resiliency. He also serves as Co-Chair of the the New York City Panel on Climate Change and as a Principal Investigator for the GISS Climate Change Research Initiative. Dr. Braneon earned his BS, MS, and PhD degrees in Civil Engineering from Georgia Tech. He also earned a BS in Applied Physics from Morehouse College.
This is a joint talk with the Social Science Colloquium Series and is cosponsored by the The Donald C. Samuel Fund for Economics and Politics and The Laura Kirchman Manuelidis '63 Science and Literary Arts Endowment Fund This event is a part of our series presented by “The Sarah Lawrence Interdisciplinary Collaborative on the Environment” and is open to the entire Sarah Lawrence community. A zoom link will be sent to registrants within 24 hours of the event or email virtualevents@sarahlawrence.edu.