Disability x Climate Change Interventions

This project is part of an NSF-funded REU site with the HMC Computer Science Department. Applications for this project will be processed on the ETAP website here: https://etap.nsf.gov/award/1783/opportunity/8020. Please submit your application there and not on the URO website! Note that due to the funding source, this project is restricted to US citizens or permanent residents. You can learn about other REU projects here: https://www.hmc.edu/cs/research/reu/mentors/

The design and implementation of any equitable intervention begins when we accurately understand different stakeholder perspectives. This fact holds true for technological interventions and global phenomena like climate change. This project aims to understand how disabled populations intersect with/have intersected with different climate change interventions. We will document our findings using qualitative data analysis in a survey paper and release our corpus open to the community. 

If this work interests you, I invite you to submit an essay using the following prompt:  1) Why are you interested in this project and 2) What has been your experience with climate change? (~3 paragraphs).

 

Name of research group, project, or lab
Kirabo Lab
Why join this research group or lab?

My goal is to build a community of emerging scholars with an interest in leveraging human-centered methodologies to design for equity in future climate change interventions and public transit interfaces. 

Logistics Information:
Project categories
Environmental Science
Human-centered Design
Human-Computer Interaction
Student ranks applicable
First-year
Sophomore
Junior
Senior
Student qualifications

We will be spending our time exploring academic literature and other media (books, movies, podcasts, etc). Our goal will be to read, listen, watch, and synthesize a diversity of evidence. As such, skills that are nice-to-have for this project include:

  • Reading academic literature
  • Clearly synthesizing highlights
  • Qualitative data analysis
  • Good data organization
  • Ample time in schedule to consume materials

In case this project excites you and you haven't had past experience collaborating on a survey paper, then the skill that is a must have is an enthusiasm to learn the above skills. 

Time commitment
Summer - Full Time
Compensation
Paid Research
Number of openings
2
Techniques learned
  • Qualitative data analysis
  • Paper synthesis
  • Writing survey paper
Project start
Summer 2024
Contact Information:
Mentor
Lynn Kirabo
lkirabo@hmc.edu
Principal Investigator
Name of project director or principal investigator
Lynn Kirabo
Email address of project director or principal investigator
kirabo@cs.hmc.edu
2 sp. | 1 appl.
Hours per week
Summer - Full Time
Project categories
Environmental Science (+2)
Environmental ScienceHuman-centered DesignHuman-Computer Interaction