A significant part of my current work focuses on the impacts of transitions, including energy transitions, on workers and communities and on strategies to make these transitions more socially and ecologically just and effective. To that end I am working on two projects. The first is a collaboration of the Center for Environmental Justice and Political Science at CSU, the Just Energy Transition Center at Arizona State University, the Economic and Workforce Development Office at Marshall University, WV, and the Just Transition Fund. This Just Transition Academy Exchange will train graduate students and advanced undergraduates in the management of energy transitions, starting with coal transitions in Colorado, Arizona and West Virginia. In the short term it will involve an online course and an internship with community organizations and under resourced governments. In the medium term it will result in a certificate.
The second project examines the workforce and community impacts of the lithium lifecycle in the USA and is funded by the Sloan Foundation. We are focusing on four sites – from extraction to manufacturing. This builds expertise on the critical minerals and metals front, a topic of increasing national and regional significance.