The Columbia Climate School recently began hosting a transdisciplinary meet-up for PhD students from across the University. This meet-up came to fruition due to the call from students and faculty for more transdisciplinary spaces to discuss the climate crisis. Further, members of the meet-up see climate change as a global issue that needs to be addressed from the plethora of academic disciplines present at Columbia University.
These transdisciplinary academic spaces for climate change research are rare. There are several reasons why. Academic disciplines all too often become siloed and only speak to others in the same academic field about climate related research. This at times results in ideas being recycled rather than new solutions or research agendas sparking from cross-discipline collaborations. Additionally, more time needs to be made to explain commonly used terms, established knowledge and methods in one academic field to another so that a clear understanding is made before transdisciplinary work can transpire. Academic communities must agree on legitimate forms of knowledges which often pose to be complicated due to the increasing specialization of academic disciplines. Finding common grounds between academic disciplines must be built from the ground up. Despite these challenges, academic disciplines, research institutions and civil society largely advocate for transdisciplinary climate research.
Given the importance I see in transdisciplinary climate research and mitigation strategies, I attended this meet-up last week. The group aims to purposefully and intentionally facilitate connections between climate researchers from across the university. While there, I heard from Columbia faculty and PhD students who are studying a range of topics that address climate change. Some of the research that was shared included aerosol models, tourism and climate change, and environmental rights in national constitutions and their relation to climate activism.
This group is well positioned to support TC doctoral students to critically think beyond the disciplinary confines of their climate research and consider the interconnected implications of climate mitigation and adaptation strategies. If other TC doctoral students are interested, please reach out to Professor Paige West who will place you on the meet-ups listserve.
Below are the dates for future meet-ups:
October 24 - Prof. Roxanne Varzi (multi-modal scholar) will talk with us about her work and her process. She is a Columbia Ph.D. alumni, professor, playwright, novelist, poet, and filmmaker.
November 14 - topic TBA
November 28 - topic TBA
December 5 - topic TBA
December 12 - topic TBA