Projects
Storytelling for Climate
The second season of Data Dialogues is a narrative long form 6-episode podcast that I conceptualized, directed, and hosted as Science Communications Fellow at the Open Environmental Data Project.
The Data Dialogues podcast brings together multiple perspectives to look at a single environmental data issue. The second season focuses on Indonesia’s OneMap policy: a decade-long, ongoing effort to resolve land conflict with data. I spoke to adat elders, drone ecologists, journalists, lawyers, community mapping networks, data technologists, policy folks, and a multi-species ethnographer about the limitations of modern cartography, Indonesia’s place in the international climate finance ecosystem, and Indigenous struggles over being seen.
Data Dialogues is streaming on all podcast platforms from March 14, 2023.
At the Confluence of Digital Rights and Climate & Environmental Justice
With The Engine Room, I co-authored a landscape analysis of intersections between digital rights and environmental and climate justice to strengthen open collaboration over questions of digital safety, disinformation, extractive green technologies, rights of access, and sustainable internet. We spoke to over 20 practitioners, grantmakers, and scholars from 10+ countries, and many more joined our community calls to share their insights, experiences, and hopes for the future.
As the effects of the ongoing climate emergency amplify, the fight for environmental & climate justice has become more crucial than ever. While technology is being used to support these efforts, it can also be part of the problem: technological innovation is taking an environmental toll, climate justice activists face increasing digital attacks, social media platforms are full of unfounded claims about climate change, and many of the communities affected the most by the climate emergency continue to lack basic access to digital resources that are needed to adapt to, and mitigate effects of, the climate crisis – from internet access to reliable online information in their own language and cultural context.
With all this in mind, it is clear that an exploration of the intersections between environmental/climate justice (EJ-CJ) and digital rights (DR) movements – with an eye on identifying opportunities for collaboration and support – could help both sectors achieve their respective goals.
The report was published in July 2022. You can access it in full here.
Stewarding Ocean-reliant Communities
I guided the Environmental Defense Fund’s Small-Scale Fisheries Hub through the first half of IYAFA 2022 (International Year of Aritsanal Fisheries and Aquaculture) as an Online Community Building Strategist.
After three months of audience development research, I designed a playbook for driving engagement on coastal adaptation strategies; built trust with partner organizations; and facilitated events via the Hub, a multilingual global network for artisanal fishers, fish farmers, fish workers, and their allies.
‘If you build it, will they come?’
For two years at Rare’s Center for Behavior & the Environment, I built, grew, and managed a virtual community of practice at the interface between behavioral insights and human-centered design.
This was my first foray into community engagement strategy, user experience research, and web design. I sustained engagement through quarterly content and marketing calendars, hosted community check ins for different time zones, and worked closely with backend support to ensure linguistic inclusivity and web accessibility for differently abled users.
I drew on paritcipatory research methods to conduct usability testing for the new platform. In-depth interviews helped identify international users’ pain points. My findings led to a set of interface redesign solutions that increased unique page views across the learning platform by 210%. Our first annual recruitment drive ended with 1400+ members from 79 countries.
Agricultural Challenges are also Behavioral Challenges
What is preventing farmers from shifting their behaviors? Why are farmers reluctant to experiment with new methods and inputs? Why is investing into soil regeneration or water conservation postponed in favor of immediate livelihood concerns? This is where the Behavior Change for Agriculture Guide comes in.
Tapping into farmers’ motivations and barriers takes us closer to solutions grounded in behaviorally informed insights. Illustrated with data from partner organizations in Mexico, China, Peru, and Colombia tracking the rate of adoption, this Guide invites us to center farmer behaviors, develop insights and design improved livelihoods for the world’s 570 million smallholder farms.
I led the concept, research, interaction design, and wireframing of this virtual ‘Behavior Change Toolkit for Agriculture’ with the Marketing/Communications team at Rare. Washington D.C.-based web design agency Taoti lent design support. The content was co-authored with Deissy Martínez-Barón, social scientist at the Alliance of Bioversity and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT). The CGIAR research program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) also provided research guidance.
You can read more about the toolkit here.