Research

Faculty across Vanderbilt are conducting important and timely research on climate and environmental issues and potential solutions. Our faculty are prolific researchers who are recognized scholars across a variety of disciplines. See some of their extensive and timely work below.

Jonathan Magnolia Gilligan

Jonathan Gilligan headshot

Jonathan Magnolia Gilligan is associate professor of Earth and environmental sciences, climate and environmental studies, and civil and environmental engineering. They work at the intersection of natural science, social science, and public policy with a focus on coupled human-natural systems and on the ways in which scientific knowledge and uncertainty affect policy decisions about the environment. They have a variety of current research projects that are described on their website.

Sample of publications:

Carrico, Amanda, Katharine M. Donato, Kelsea Best, & Jonathan Gilligan, Extreme weather and marriage among girls and women in Bangladesh, Global Environmental Change 65, 102160 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2020.102160
Ding, K.J., Gilligan, J.M., Yang, Y.E., Wolski, P. and Hornberger, G.M., 2021. Assessing food–energy–water resources management strategies at city scale: An agent-based modeling approach for Cape Town, South Africa. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 170, p.105573.
Elsawah, S., Filatova, T., Jakeman, A.J., Kettner, A.J., Zellner, M.L., Athanasiadis, I.N., Hamilton, S.H., Axtell, R.L., Brown, D.G., Gilligan, J.M. and Janssen, M.A., 2020. Eight grand challenges in socio-environmental systems modeling. Socio-Environmental Systems Modelling, 2.
Gilligan, J.M. and Vandenbergh, M.P., 2020. A framework for assessing the impact of private climate governance. Energy Research & Social Science, 60, p.101400. Schenuit, F., Gilligan, J. and Viswamohanan, A., 2021. A scenario of solar geoengineering governance: Vulnerable states demand, and act. Futures, 132, p.102809.

Teresa Goddu

Teresa Goddu headshot

Teresa Goddu is Professor of English and climate and environmental studies, and serves as Faculty Head of E. Bronson Ingram College. She is a specialist in nineteenth-century American literature and culture. Goddu is currently working on contemporary U.S climate fiction and curates a climate fiction collection at the Vanderbilt library. Her recent publications foreground the relationship between the nation’s long history of racial capitalism and the climate crisis. With Joe Bandy, she also co-directs the Cumberland Project, which assists faculty with the development of new courses in climate and environmental studies.

Sample of publications:

Goddu, Teresa A. Selling Antislavery: Abolition and Mass Media in Antebellum America. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020.
“Climate Activism as the New Abolitionism,” in the forum “Abolition’s Afterlives,” ed. Jeffrey Insko. American Literary History: Online Forum, 1 April 2021. https://doi.org/10.1093/alh/ajab006
“The (Neo) Slave Narrative and the Plantationocene.” Forthcoming in African American Review.
“Homelessness in Lauren Groff’s Florida Fiction,” in Cli-Fi and Class, ed. Debra J. Rosenthal and Jason Molesky. Forthcoming from the University of Virginia Press.

David Hess

David Hess headshot

David Hess is professor of sociology and climate and environmental studies. One of his central areas of research is the intersection of science and technology studies with social movement studies, with an emphasis on the environment and health. His current research projects include the role of scientific knowledge in public mobilizations to secure more just and sustainable industries and technologies and studies of the politics of sustainability transitions. More details are available at his website.

Sample of publications:

Hess, David J., and Benjamin K. Sovacool. "Sociotechnical matters: Reviewing and integrating science and technology studies with energy social science." Energy Research & Social Science 65 (2020): 101462.
Hess, D.J. and Lee, D., 2020. Energy decentralization in California and New York: Conflicts in the politics of shared solar and community choice. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 121, p.109716.
Hess, D.J., 2019. Coalitions, framing, and the politics of energy transitions: Local democracy and community choice in California. Energy Research & Social Science, 50, pp.38-50.
Hess, D.J., McKane, R.G. and Belletto, K., 2021. Advocating a just transition in Appalachia: Civil society and industrial change in a carbon-intensive region. Energy Research & Social Science, 75, p.102004.
Hess, D.J., McKane, R.G. and Pietzryk, C., 2021. End of the line: environmental justice, energy justice, and opposition to power lines. Environmental Politics, pp.1-21.

Zdravka Tzankova

Zdravk headshot

Zdravka ("Zee") Tzankova is associate professor of the practice of climate and environmental studies. Her research and teaching span a range of issue areas, from climate governance and renewable transitions to the public and private governance of environmental and labor practices in agriculture and food production. Zee’s current work, teaching, research, and practice is focused on the roles that business can play in advancing socially just sustainability transitions. She examines NGO and stakeholder strategies for mobilizing corporate action on climate and ecosystem protection. She studies the range of impacts from corporate climate and sustainability initiatives, both intended and unintended impacts, positive and negative ones. She strives for actionable research that helps maximize positive impacts from the environmental and climate initiatives of business. Through the Climate, Health, and Energy Equity Lab (CHEEL Lab) based at the Wond’ry, she is currently offering Immersion experiences focused on research and design work towards overcoming sustainability/equity tradeoffs in climate and environmental governance.

Related Programs and Initiatives

The Vanderbilt community is deeply dedicated to addressing issues related to climate, the environment, and sustainability.