Climate Resilience: Personal space to outer space Stephanie Carey, Juliet Carlisle, Lucy Dunne and Zoe Pearson
Event details
From smart clothing and climate resilience to lunar living, join us to hear about some of the ground-breaking research being carried out in the UK by US scholars thanks to sponsorship from the US-UK Fulbright Commission.
Learn about next-generation clothing with scholar Lucy Dunne of the University of Minnesota, US, who has been conducting research at Loughborough University, UK. Discover how clothing technologies have evolved for different functional purposes and what new functions clothing can perform when we introduce electronics and computing into garment structures. Can we reduce the amount of energy we spend heating buildings by heating bodies instead? Can we support our bodies and our minds by wearing a ‘second skin’ that heals, communicates, and empowers?
Fellow scholar Juliet Carlisle of the University of Utah, US, will discuss the relationship between climate change, collective action, and hope and resiliency. While climate change is often discussed as a global crisis, Juliet will explain how it’s experienced through specific places and shared social spaces - our homes, communities and political institutions. Drawing on her research at the University of Exeter, UK, Juliet will explore how emotions shape the ways people understand climate change and respond to it together.
Stephanie Carey of the University of South Florida, US, will ask 'How do you stay healthy when your body is no longer designed for the place you live?' Stephanie, who spent time at Cardiff University, UK, will discuss our return to the moon and eventual establishment of long-duration habitats there. Using research in biomechanics, human movement and spaceflight physiology, she will explain how astronauts train on Earth, exercise aboard the International Space Station and how those strategies must evolve for life on the Moon’s one-sixth gravity.
Zoe Pearson of the University of Wyoming, US, has been exploring how the practice and cultural role of traditional haaf-net fishing in the Solway Firth has been shaped by processes including climate change, conservation efforts and political-economic transformations. Introduced by Viking invaders over 1,000 years ago, haaf-net fishing is disappearing and its role in place-based understandings of regional cultural heritage is shifting. Where once images of haaf net fishers on the Solway captured a way of life specific to this place, they now reference a place identity rooted in the past and at risk of erasure. Zoe will share her historical and geographical research on this extremely localised practice and share her efforts to preserve its heritage through the development of a living archive.
Why not join these US scholars online for a panel discussion as we reimagine the spaces we inhabit, from our personal space to outer space?
This event will take place live on Zoom Webinar. You will receive a link to join a couple of days before the event and a reminder an hour before. During the event, you can ask questions via a Q&A function, but audience cameras and microphones will remain muted throughout.
About the speakers
Stephanie Carey is an Associate Research Professor at the University of South Florida, US, in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and an affiliate faculty member in the Department of Medical Engineering. As Research Coordinator of USF’s Center for Assistive, Rehabilitation & Robotics Technologies (CARRT), she leads multidisciplinary projects integrating research, education and service to enhance the quality of life of individuals with functional limitations. At Cardiff University, Stephanie is collaborating with the School of Engineering and the School of Healthcare Sciences to advance human performance technologies including tools and systems designed to enhance, measure, and optimise physical and cognitive capabilities in real-world environments. Collaborating with researchers in biomechanics and sensorimotor science she explores low-cost, wearable solutions for tracking movement and performance in contexts ranging from rehabilitation and sports to the military and spaceflight.
Juliet Carlisle holds a joint appointment as Professor in the Department of Political Science and the School for Environment, Society & Sustainability at the University of Utah, US. Her research explores the intersection of political behaviour, public opinion, and environmental policy, with a particular focus on how emotions and generational dynamics shape public engagement on climate issues. She is co-author of The Politics of Energy Crises (Oxford University Press, 2017) and is currently working on a co-authored book analysing two decades of longitudinal data on environmental attitudes in the US. This project focuses on the nature of generational differences in environmental attitudes. Her research at Exeter examines how climate-related emotions -particularly anxiety and hope - shape collective action across generations in the UK. A recipient of the Francis D. Wormuth Esteemed Scholar Award, Juliet serves on the editorial board of Political Behaviour and co-founded the Environmental Politics Virtual Group. Juliet’s work has appeared in Political Psychology, Environmental Politics, Energy Research & Social Science, and PLOS Medicine. She gained a PhD from the University of California, Santa Barbara, US, and is a dedicated mentor to first generation and women scholars in environmental leadership.
Lucy Dunne is a Professor of Apparel Design at the University of Minnesota, US, where she founded and co-directs the Wearable Technology Lab. Her research addresses the future of what we wear: what it can do, how we will make it, and what impacts it has on the world around us. Clothes keep us comfortable, connected, and capable, and emerging technologies add new capacities and strengthen existing functions. At Loughborough University, UK, Lucy is collaborating with the Environmental Ergonomics Research Centre to understand how on-body heating can mediate indoor thermal comfort and help us reduce energy waste in climate control. She is working on a book about the ways in which clothing can protect us from the ever-increasing hazards of our current world.
Zoe Pearson is an Associate Professor of Geography and International Studies in the School of Politics, Public Affairs, and International Studies at the University of Wyoming, USA. Her research in human-environment geography centres on challenges surrounding the control, trade, and use of natural resources. At Durham University, UK, Zoe is studying the cultural importance and decline of haaf net fishing — and also gathering oral histories and other materials for an archive to preserve traditional ecological and knowledge systems, place-based understandings of local heritage, and ways of life that will be lost when haaf net fishing does disappear.
The event is moderated by Dave Harper. Dave is a Professor of English Literature and was a US-UK Fulbright Scholar at the University of York in 2022-23.