Events
Upcoming Events
March 4. Artificial Benevolence: Labor, Environment, and the Costs of AI. Buttrick 101/Zoom, 4:10-5:30. Conversation with Jason Sadowski (Department of Human-Centered Computing, Monash University) and Tamara Kneese (Climate, Technology, and Justice Program, Data and Society), led by Profs. Laura Stark and Ken MacLeish. Cosponsored by Climate and Environmental Studies.
March 19 – State of the Environment Conference, Flynn Auditorium, Vanderbilt Law School, 12:00 – 6 p.m.
March 26. “An Indigenous Geopoetics for the Himalaya,” a work-in-progress by Dr. Mabel Gergan. Dr. Gergan is Assistant Professor of Asian Studies. A geographer by training, her research focuses on postcolonial environmentalism, Tribal/Indigenous theorization, anti-colonial politics, and race and ethnicity in South Asia. Wednesday, March 19, from 9:00–10:30 am at the RPW Center. Please RSVP to receive a copy of the paper. RSVP For Reading
March 28 (remote event – Environmental Law & Policy Annual Review (ELPAR) Conference in the Environmental Law Institute’s Washington, DC headquarters, livestream available for remote viewing, 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. More information will be available here closer to the conference date.
April 3, 2025. Thursday 9:30-10:30am, Sarratt 325/327. Part of HOD-H 3650-3: Planetary Health Approach to Resource Sustainability. All VU and VUMC community are invited. Guest Speakers: Dr. Swetha Peteru, Scientist with the Sustainable Value Chains & Investment Team Affiliation: The Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry. Topic/Title: International Perspectives on Resource Sustainability & Climate Change: Natural Resources. Title: Peatlands and livelihoods in Southeast Asia.
April 7 (Monday). Center Building, 12:15-1:45. Danielle Falzon, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Rutgers University. Title TBA. Brown-bag lunch.
April 10, 2025 (9:30 am – 11:00 am)* Thursday 9:30-10:30am, Sarratt 325/327. Part of HOD-H 3650-3: Planetary Health Approach to Resource Sustainability. All VU and VUMC community are invited. Panelists: Kendra Abkowitz, Senior Director, Sustainability and Resilience, Nashville’s Mayor’s Office. Todd Lawrence, Executive Director Urban Green Lab. Kendra Middlebrook, Covendis, Epidemiologist 1, Environmental Epidemiology Program, Tennessee Department of Health. John Vick, Director, Office of Primary Prevention, Tennessee Department of Health. Topic: Local Perspectives on Resource Sustainability & Climate Change: Built Environment. Title: Climate Change, Urban Heat Islands, & Public Health
April 17, 2025 (date to be confirmed). Thursday 9:30-10:30am, Sarratt 325/327. Part of HOD-H 3650-3: Planetary Health Approach to Resource Sustainability. All VU and VUMC community are invited. Guest Speakers: Ryan Gellert, CEO Affiliation: Patagonia Topic: Planetary Health Ethics Working Title: The Real World: Planetary Health Ethics and Business.
Previous 2024-2025 events
Past Events
2024-2025 Academic Year
Aug. 30, Friday, 4:30. Alumni Lawn. Majestad Negra (“Black Majesty”) Performs “Bomba” Music from Puerto Rico. Sponsored by the Program in Culture, Advocacy, and Leadership and other units. Corporación Piñones se Integra (COPI) is a community-based non-profit organization. Majestad Negra is COPI’s internationally recognized bomba group that includes dancers, singers, and drummers. In addition to combating anti-blackness through education, music, and arts, they co-manage and maintain the community’s ancestral mangrove forest. Piñoneros have averted catastrophic flooding of their community by organizing projects to clear brush from mangrove channels and reforest mangrove trees.
Sept. 9. Distinguished Lecture on Climate Governance by Dr. J. Marshall Shepherd, 12:10–1:10 pm, Flynn Auditorium, Vanderbilt Law School. Sponsored by the law school’s Energy, Environment & Land Use Program. Dr. Shepherd is an award-winning meteorologist, Professor at the University of Georgia, and a leading expert on climate change.
Sept. 9. Welcome back gathering at the Robert Penn Warren Center. Flash talks by new faculty on their research, Environmental Humanities Seminar, 3:30-4:30 pm, Robert Penn Warren Center Seminar Room. Party at 4:30-5:30 (cosponsored by Climate and Environmental Studies).
Sept. 16. Circular Economy Summit. 12:30-4:00pm, followed by happy hour. The Wond’ry. Join us to explore how circular innovation is reshaping industries and driving sustainability. Hear from industry leaders, innovators, and changemakers who are leading the way in creating systems where waste is minimized, and resources are continually reused, ensuring a healthier planet for all. Register here: https://airtable.com/appOJPl5K3YOFH51X/shrw0g5j31WSTZTRw.
Free & open to staff, faculty and community partners. Registration required.
Sept. 20. Climate Wayfinding Workshop, 11:30-5:30, the Wond’ry. Join us for our Climate Wayfinding workshop, adapted from the All We Can Save project, and designed for people seeking clarity, courage, and community on their climate journeys. Through diverse modes of exploration, workshop participants are guided to look inward, outward, and forward to discern and enliven their unique contributions and develop key capacities for climate engagement. Free & open to staff, faculty and community partners. Lunch provided. Registration required, sign up here.
Sept. 24, Tuesday, TBA. Decolonizing Coffee, Indigenous Voices from the Root. Panel discussion sponsored by the Program in Culture, Advocacy, and Leadership and other units.
Sept. 26-29 Theater on EcoGrief sponsored by the Curb Center. “Daphne and Florence” by Gena Femia and “Blue Blood Red Knot” by Kristin Idaszak. See the VU Theatre website for details.
Oct. 3-4. By-passing Climate Polarization. Vanderbilt Law School, Flynn Auditorium. Conference funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Vanderbilt Unity Project, and the Sally Shallenberger Brown EELU Fund. https://events.vanderbilt.edu/law/event/76733-bypassing-climate-polarization-conference.
October 15: RAND FARMER’S MARKET 11am-1pm at the Rand Terrace. Join us for a taste of the Panola, Mississippi, community as we celebrate the launch of Vanderbilt’s first solar farm with Clearloop. The market will feature educational information about the solar farm and booths featuring Nashville and Panola County produce and homemade goods.
Oct. 16. 12-1pm. Mayananthi Fernando, U.C. Santa Cruz. “Toward a Negative Zoology: Human Limitation and More-Than-Human Worlds.” 306 Buttrick. Sponsored by Religious Studies and Climate and Environmental Studies.
October 16: PANEL – From Campus to Community: How Vanderbilt’s carbon natural commitment shows up as an economic development tool in Panola Country, Mississippi . 3pm-4pm at the Wond’ry, 3rd floor lounge. Join us for a panel at the Wond’ry to: Explore how the project supports VU’s carbon neutral commitment. Panelists Joe Azar (Executive Director, Economic Development for Panola County), Brad Robison (CEO, Tallahatchie Valley Electric Power Association), Laura Zapata (CEO, Clearloop), Andrea George (VU EHSS Associate Vice Chancellor, adjunct faculty, CEE), and Zdravka Tzankova (Associate Professor of the Practice, Climate and Environmental Studies)Learn about the co-benefits of Clearloop’s equity-focused carbon solution and its positive impact on local communities. Meet members of Vanderbilt leadership and faculty, Clearloop leadership and Panola County leadership as they discuss this important collaboration.
RECEPTION (also Oct. 16). 4pm-5pm in the ESB lobby. Join us for a reception following the panel to bring the VU sustainability community together to celebrate the launch of Vanderbilt’s first solar farm with Clearloop.
Oct. 17. Theater on EcoGrief sponsored by the Curb Center. “Let Us Sit Upon the Ground” by Reynaldo Piniella and “Waiting for Environman” by Jaymes Sanchez. See the VU Theatre website for details. Sponsored by the Curb Center.
Oct. 18. Nicole Seymour, Professor of English, Cal State Fullerton, “Climate Crisis/Comedy Crisis,” 2-4 pm, Robert Penn Warren Center Seminar Room.
Oct. 18. Advising session for Climate and Environmental Studies students (majors and minors) and Environmental Sociology students. 11:30-1:30, Wilson 113. Free pizza.
Oct. 18. Lessons in Biomimicry. Warner Park Nature Center (7311 Highway 100, 10am-3pm. Sponsored by the Wondr’y. Register here: SI Fall 24 Biomimicry Workshop Application (airtable.com)
Oct. 21. David Spence, Rex G. Baker Centennial Chair in Natural Resources Law at the University of Texas and author of Climate of Contempt: How to Rescue the U.S. Energy Transition from Voter Partisanship. 12:10 – 1:10 p.m. Vanderbilt Law School Renaissance Room.
Oct. 22. 3-4pm, reception at 4pm. Featheringill auditorium (room 134). The Value of Interdisciplinary Expertise in Designing for Sustainability, with Plastic Focus.” Mary Ellen Ternes, a senior environmental attorney with focused interdisciplinary practice combining science and law and partner at Earth & Water Law, LLC. She utilized her chemical engineering degree in work for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and industry in environmental regulatory policy development, compliance and enforcement, pollutant mitigation and remediation and utilizes this prior experience within the scope of her environmental regulatory and litigation practice. This lecture: “With this lecture, Mary Ellen Ternes will discuss the value of interdisciplinary training and experience in pursuing more sustainable approaches for our society while meeting our energy, climate and chemical pollution challenges. Focusing on her experience with the horizon issue of plastic in all its forms and uses, Mary Ellen will review plastic as an environmental pollutant, comparing developing national and global plastic policy to policy histories of other ubiquitous materials presenting similar environmental and human health risks. In her review, Mary Ellen will discuss how she relies on her Vanderbilt chemical engineering degree, work experience in Superfund emergency response, hazardous waste treatment, permitting and site remediation for the US EPA and industry and her past 30 years as an environmental attorney for a wide range of clients.”
Oct. 24. 3-4:30pm, Commons 335. Oil, Geopolitics, and the Energy Transition. Join us for an insightful interview with Shaik Nawaf Saud Al-Sabah, the Chief Executive Officer of Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC). The conversation will explore KPC’s commitment to carbon neutrality, the future of oil within a transitioning global energy landscape, and the challenges and opportunities of recent international political trends. As energy markets face unprecedented shifts, this interview offers a rare glimpse into how one of the world’s largest oil companies is navigating the complex intersection of energy, sustainability, and global markets. The event will include a presentation, interview, and Q&A with the audience. The interview will be conducted by Andrew Coe (Associate Professor, Department of Political Science) and Peter Schram (Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science).
Bio: Shaikh Nawaf S. Al-Sabah is the deputy chairman and chief executive officer of Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC). A state-owned corporation, KPC optimizes the value of Kuwait’s hydrocarbons endowment by producing, refining, transporting, and marketing these resources globally through eight operating subsidiaries. In his first year as CEO in 2022, KPC introduced its first net-zero carbon emissions policy as part of its efforts to remain a responsible and reliable energy producer. Prior to this appointment, Al-Sabah was CEO of KPC’s international upstream and downstream businesses. Previously, Al-Sabah spent 14 years at KPC, the last eight as general counsel. He holds a J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School and an A.B., magna cum laude, from Princeton’s School for Public and International Affairs.
Oct. 25. Tipping Point Workshop: Writing Flash Fiction about Climate Change. 4-6pm. Curb Center Conference Room. The workshop is open to the public and will explore the impacts of climate change on Nashville and the world, as well as brainstorm ecofiction narratives and strategies for writing flash fiction. Potential submissions may emerge from workshop sessions, but attendance is not mandatory to submit. https://events.vanderbilt.edu/event/77123-tipping-point-workshop-writing-flash-fiction-about
Nov. 7. History of Art and Architecture Reunion Weekend Lecture. Thursday, November 7, 2024, 4:10-5:10, reception to follow. Cohen Memorial Hall, Room 203. Megan Mick, Professional Landscape Architect, Assistant Professor, Florida State University. Vanderbilt A&S, Class of 1998. “The Art and Science of Responsible Design.” The world around us is changing rapidly, and the conventional Western view of humans and the built environment as separate from nature is no longer relevant. The changing climate has led to more frequent natural calamities and social unrest and exposed the vulnerability of our infrastructure. Although sustainable design is generally accepted as an approach that considers people, planet, and profit equally, it is irresponsible to maintain our current development practices using this standard. Ecological principles provide the foundation for an inclusive and responsible design model at all scales, pushing beyond sustainability. Just as humans engage with and respond to their environment, living systems interact, adapt, and respond to one another. Responsible design acknowledges the active engagement of all living things in their environments and accepts responsibility for shaping the built world. It is an approach that is contextual and equitable, considering the well-being of people and the planet as a deeply connected and interwoven system. Organized by the Department of History of Art and Architecture. Cosponsored by the Climate and Environmental Studies Program.
November 11. Anna Hill, CHPP Fellow, “Cedar Point Park: Sketches and Impressions,” 3:30-5 pm, Robert Penn Warren Center Seminar Room.
Dec. 6. Nancy Y. Reynolds (History, Washington University). The Vibrant Necroscape of Aswan’s Desert Edges, 12:00, RPW Center. Co-sponsored by the Ottoman History Workshop and Climate and Environmental Studies. As always, please RSVP for the paper. Abstract: The 20th-century construction of large dams progressively altered the nature of Egypt’s southern border, as the Nile valley of northern Nubia became submerged by new reservoirs. By contrast, the Egyptian frontier city of Aswan, located between the desert mountains on either side of the Nile at the First Cataract where these new dams were built, became a site of rapid urban growth and industrial development. This paper explores two natural features of the arid landscape recruited into the work of marking and strengthening the city’s edges to embank it from the destructed south: the exceptional preservation of dead bodies enabled by its aridity and geology, which made it a desirable site for human burial; and the city’s location at the intersection of botanical regions, which fostered the diversity and movement of plant species into the changing landscape, including a high proportion of desert plants. The desert edge-making practices enabled by this natural infrastructure was work that was material, social, political, discursive, and environmental. Aswan by the turn of the twentieth century had long been an active, even vibrant, city of the dead, a necropolis with layers of cemeteries from all historical periods ringing the city. New elements introduced into this necroscape in the mid-twentieth century helped to clarify and consolidate Egyptian sovereignty over the south: new cemeteries and tombs that amplified older narratives of conquest over Nubia (especially by the medieval Fatimids and colonial British) and the spread of desert plants, including tamarisk trees, into marginal spaces of the disturbed landscape that increased the salinity of the soil around them, creating a botanical deathscape. These edging practices facilitated the city’s severing from its southern hinterland, which would be inundated as a “zone of sacrifice” (Kuletz) after the closure of the river behind a new dam in 1964. Bio: Nancy Y. Reynolds is Associate Professor of History and of Jewish, Islamic, and Middle Eastern Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. Her research investigates the history of twentieth-century Egypt.
January 23, 2025. Thursday 9:30-10:30am, Sarratt 325/327. Guest Speaker: Dr. David Padgett, Associate Professor of Geography and Director of the Geographic Information Sciences Laboratory, Tennessee State University. Title: Geospatial Technology Applications in Support of Community-Based Environmental Justice Research and Advocacy.
Monday, January 13 (12:00 – 1:30pm, Sarratt 189): “Milk, Honey, and Environmental Histories of the Modern Middle East,” a conversation with Tamar Novick (Humboldt University of Berlin, via Zoom) and Samuel Dolbee (Vanderbilt University)
February 5 (Wednesday). Andrew Alesbury, Managing Director of Telesto Strategy. Alesbury will lecture in Castro’s classes at 2:30 PM to 3:45 PM in Buttrick 302. “My classroom can accomodate 5 additional students if we would like to offer that opportunity to undergraduates in the climate studies program.” Telesto Strategy is a consulting firm, in their words: “We are a certified Women’s Business Enterprise (WBE) and ESG-focused strategy consulting firm founded with a bold vision to support businesses and governments in the regeneration of the planet’s health, resources, and wellbeing.” Andrew transitioned to the firm intentionally after a successful career at McKinsey.
Feb. 6 (Thursday). 4:10pm (Buttrick 101) “The Sustainable Sacred: Retelling the Religious History of the Lands That Became America.” Prof. Thomas Tweed, Department of American Studies, University of Notre Dame. Thomas Tweed’s forthcoming book,Religion in the Lands That Became America, is a sweeping retelling of religious history that spans 11,000 years and shows how religion has enhanced and hindered individual, communal, and environmental flourishing from the Ice Age to the Information Age. The story follows diverse devotees as they cross and transform the landscape, negotiate lifeway transitions (from foraging to farming and factories to fiber optics), and confront several “sustainability crises” (from the medieval Cornfield crisis to the ongoing Industrial crisis). In this first public talk about the project, Tweed offers an overview, assessing the standard narrative and indicating how this story differs. He ends by inviting discussion about its possible significance for retelling the religious history of the lands that became Tennessee and for addressing pressing national problems like polarization.
Monday, February 10 (12:00 – 1:30pm, Robert Penn Warren Center Seminar Room): Dr. Veronica Strang (University of Oxford) will present a Zoom talk entitled “Littoral Beings: Totemic Sea Country in Aboriginal Australia.” During the event, Dr. Strang also will discuss her book, Water Beings: From Nature Worship to the Environmental Crisis (2023).
Presentation abstract: “In Euro-American agricultural societies, draining ‘ambiguous’ wetlands and achieving defined boundaries between water bodies and dry land have long been a priority. Naval exploration and expansion, and coastal urban developments, have similarly encouraged visions of coastlines seeking secure divisions between land and sea. However, New Materialism in the Social Sciences and Humanities has encouraged more nuanced and relational analyses of littoral spaces. In this endeavour, it is helpful to engage with cultural perspectives that exemplify relational thinking about land and sea. This chapter therefore considers the ‘sea country’ of Aboriginal communities along Australia’s northern coastlines, in Arnhem Land and the Tiwi Islands. Here, Dreaming songlines and ancestral Rainbow Serpents flow between the ocean and freshwater bodies, creating a unified land-and-waterscape in which the multiple relationalities that connect salt and freshwater, people, and other living kinds, are central to customary lifeways and to indigenous communities’ contemporary efforts to protect their homelands.”
February 10 – Environmental Law in the Second Trump Administration, panel discussion with the VLS energy and environmental law faculty, Vanderbilt Law School (room TBA), 12:10 – 1:05 p.m.Wednesday, January 15. VSEC Mixer. 12pm. Black Cultural Studies Center.
February 6-April 17, Thursdays 4:30-6pm. Climate Innovation Accelerator at the Wond’ry: Client-facing, mentor-guided, project-based program with student teams. All learning, no grades. Paid team lead opportunities are available. Skills acquired: activating insights from interviews, navigating ambiguity, ideating, prototyping, project management, innovation, sustainability and strategic frameworks. Clients include names like Powertechs. Register here. Seats limited and competitive.
February 11 (Tuesday). 12 to 1 p.m. Light Hall 208. Campus Lecture: “Songs of Resilience.” Abigail Echo-Hawk, M.A. Executive Vice President of the Seattle Indian Health Board Director of the Urban Indian Health Institute. Ms. Echo-Hawk, M.A., an enrolled member of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma, is the Executive Vice President of the Seattle Indian Health Board, a Federally Qualified Health Center serving American Indians and Alaska Natives in King County, Washington. She also serves as the Director of the Urban Indian Health Institute (UIHI), a Tribal Epidemiology Center whose mission is to support the health and well-being of urban Indian communities through information, scientific inquiry, and technology. Click here to RSVP no later than Feb. 3
February 13, 2025. Thursday 9:30-10:30am, Sarratt 325/327. Part of HOD-H 3650-3: Planetary Health Approach to Resource Sustainability. All VU and VUMC community are invited. Guest Speakers: Dr. David Andrews, Deputy Director, Investigators and Senior Scientist, and Dr. Alexis Temkin, Senior Toxicologist. Affiliation: Environmental Working Group Topic: Food & Climate Change Title: Forever Pesticides and their Forever Pieces: Environmental Presence and Implications.
Feb. 19 (Weds.) Cohen 203, 4:10pm. Studio VU talk. “…no footprints, even.” Montréal artist Jessica Houston journeys from pole to pole through oral narratives, photography, collage, and painting to explore climate justice, particularly emphasizing the deep time of ice and collaboration with nature. Jessica Houston’s lecture is part of her campus visit in conjunctions with her first solo exhibition in the Southern U.S. at Vanderbilt University Museum of Art. Houston’s hybrid practice spans photography, oral histories, painting and video to explore climate change in the polar regions. She has collaborated with communities in Resolute Ba and Pong Inlet, Nunavut since 2008 when she was invited by UK organization Cape Farewell on an Arctic expedition. Her research-based practice invites reflection on the deep time of ice and the interconnection between human and natural systems. Celebrating both beauty and complexities of the polar regions, her work offers a meditative reminder of humanity’s place within the vast geological and ecological cycles of the Earth.
February 15.Vanderbilt’s Center for Social Ventures is hosting its 2025 Annual Summit, themed Driving Sustainability & Social Impact. This free event is open to ALL Vanderbilt students and faculty, and will provide an opportunity to connect, engage in meaningful discussions, and explore the intersection of sustainability and social change. We would be honored to have you join us! You can register for the event using this link. Please feel free share this invitation with your students and colleagues as well. Contact: Haniya Shariff
February 17 – Nashville Environmental Law & Policy Annual Review (ELPAR) Conference, Vanderbilt Law School (room TBA), 12:10 – 1:05 p.m.
February 19 (Wednesday). Virtual Guest Lecture. Susanna Pho, Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder of Forerunner. Susanna will guest lecture in Castro’s class from 2:30 to 3:45 PM virtually. From Forerunner, “Forunner is a passionate team of engineers, designers, strategists, and planners who are committed to mitigating the impacts of climate change. Our comprehensive and reliable tools empower communities to better prepare, respond, and plan for the future. Forerunner’s software consolidates property-level flood risk information to streamline floodplain management, support disaster recovery efforts, educate residents, and more. Our tailored support helps communities save time, decrease costs, assess risk, and take action.” Here is a meeting link for climate studies students to join: https://vanderbilt.zoom.us/j/98783290359
February 20, 2025 Thursday 9:30-10:30am, Sarratt 325/327. Part of HOD-H 3650-3: Planetary Health Approach to Resource Sustainability. All VU and VUMC community are invited. Guest Speakers: Mariah Caballero, Community and Action Research Ph.D. Candidate & Ferna Alvarez, Earth & Environmental Sciences PhD Student. Affiliation: Vanderbilt University. Topic: Energy & Climate Change. Title: Residential Decarbonization and Energy Justice in Washington and Tennessee Communities
Feb. 21 (Friday), 7pm, Dyer Observatory. Galaxies, Glaciers, and Deep Time: A conversation between artists, scientists, and humanists. 6pm Observatory open for Telescope Viewing. Panelists: Jessica Houston (Artist), William K. Teets (Director, Dyer Observatory), Jana Harper (Arts), Clara Wilch (Postdoctoral Fellow, Environmental Humanities), Dan Morgan (Earth Sciences), Lutz Koepnick (Cinema and Media Studies) moderates. Tickets: $7.12 available from Dyer Observatory on Eventbrite https://www.eventbrite.com/o/vanderbilt-university-dyer-observatory-2143130631. Livestream available from Dyer Observatory https://www.youtube.com/@dyerobservers