Community-Engaged Research and Practice
Connecting Locally and Globally
We work with communities, practitioners, and policymakers responding to climate and global change. Our integrated research and expertise around economic, environmental, and societal issues help inform decision-making in government, business, industry, and non-profits here and abroad.
Mexico’s water crisis
Tim Downs, an expert in environmental science and engineering, works with a team of interdisciplinary faculty on a three-year NSF-funded study bringing a multi-pronged approach to climate impacts in Mexico.
Rainforest biodiversity
As part of a global research team working alongside Indigenous communities, geographer Florencia Sangermano brought her expertise in GIS and eco-acoustics from Massachusetts to the Amazon as part of the XPRIZE Rainforest competition.
Resilience in Ethiopia
Morgan Ruelle leads research to determine whether Ethiopian farmers’ traditional practice of planting and harvesting multi-species grain mixtures could offer climate-resilient solutions to global food insecurity.
Pacific islands’ future
Lead author of the Fifth National Climate Assessment’s Hawai‘i and Pacific Islands chapter, climatologist Abby Frazier explores the physical and socioeconomic impacts on communities hit by multiplying climate disasters.
Warming Arctic
Since 2011, polar scientist Karen Frey has led a chapter in NOAA’s annual Arctic Report Card. She is vice chair of the International Arctic Science Committee’s Marine Working Group and member of National Academies/National Research Council committees.
Climate science meets AI
Working with NASA and IBM, Hamed Alemohammad, director of Clark’s Center for Geospatial Analytics, and his team have produced the world’s first geospatial AI foundation model, a milestone that will allow scientists to access and study data more quickly and efficiently.
Where trees help
Geographer Christopher Williams and his team inform decision makers about where we get the greatest climate benefit from retaining and expanding tree cover throughout the world. He has co-chaired the North American Carbon Program’s science leadership group.
The value of water
Economists Robert Johnston and Dana Bauer are involved with two parallel, federally funded grants, one involving water quality in a polluted watershed and the other studying water quantity in a farming area facing severe drought.
A world of migrants
Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Anita Fábos works with migrants and refugees both locally and globally and examines the impacts of climate change on migration to urban areas.