Our lab focuses on the collective-action challenges surrounding community resilience, technological innovation and sustainability of public goods in metropolitan regions. We care about how communities are adapting to environmental and technological changes, and the disproportional impacts of these changes on more resource-constrained or disadvantaged rural and urban communities.
Over time, our work has begun to focus more closely on knowledge-building and the "soft" infrastructures (formal and informal institutions) which support collectively identifying and evaluating community vulnerabilities. Thus, our research projects are closely aligned with the Bloomington School of Institutional Analysis developed by Elinor and Vincent Ostrom and the subsequent systems-based analysis of shared public infrastructures. You can read more here: "Organizing and Institutionalizing Local Sustainability.'
Social Science for Local Governance
National Science Foundation support
Our work has received National Science Foundation support (Award #1941561, 2020-2025) to develop an interactive research and education program focused on understanding and advancing the integration of local government sustainability planning, capacity-building and performance management. This research involves analyzing municipal governments in Indiana to advance understanding of how communities a) formulate long-term sustainability strategies; b) develop the capacities to carry them out; and c) assess and improve performance.
We have also coordinated with other universities on an interdisciplinary NSF project (Award #1923880, 2019-2025) studying the role of infrastructure and management institutions in transitioning to more sustainable urban water supply systems. This research is analyzing transitions across 16 large-scale urban water systems in the United States to achieve two goals: 1) to better understand the complex interactions among various environmental and human stressors that may prompt transition, and 2) to identify which design choices, related to both system infrastructure and governing institutions, can foster proactive transitions to more sustainable operating states.