July 25, 2025, Filed Under: Presentations and Workshops, Student AchievementsCongratulations Dr. Sandeep Paul! Dr. Sandeep Paul successfully defended his dissertation, earning his doctorate in Public Policy. Dr. Paul’s research makes important theoretical and empirical contributions to understanding urban climate agenda setting and action in India and beyond. Dissertation: Governing Climate Change: Policy Communities and Science Policy Interfaces in Urban India.
July 17, 2025, Filed Under: Presentations and Workshops, Student AchievementsCongratulations Dr. Joyce Ovalle! Dr. Joyce Ovalle successfully defended her dissertation, earning her doctorate in Public Policy. Dr. Ovalle’s research focuses on the environmental nonprofit sector in the U.S. Through her innovative mixed-methods approach that includes network analysis, machine learning, and large-scale text analysis of over 10,000 organizations, she demonstrates how factors like political context, revenue composition, and organizational legacy shape how environmental nonprofits frame climate issues. Dissertation: Environmental Nonprofits in U.S. Climate Governance: Understanding Resources, Rhetoric, and Heterogeneity
July 2, 2025, Filed Under: Publications, Student AchievementsNew publication in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction Postdoc Koorosh Azizi and PhD students Yuer Wang and Olivia Enriquez co-authored a paper with Dr. Paola Passalacqua, Dr. Dev Niyogi, and Dr. Patrick Bixler examining multi-sectoral perspectives on flood governance in coastal communities. Using thematic analysis and fuzzy cognitive mapping of interviews with 14 government, nonprofit, and industry stakeholders in Texas and Alabama, the study revealed two competing governance frameworks: (1) an equal opportunity view predominantly held by government and industry actors that favors technical infrastructure solutions, and (2) a disparate impact view emphasized by nonprofits that highlights how flooding disproportionately affects marginalized communities due to existing social inequities. Misalignment between these frameworks produces gaps in collaboration and fragmented risk reduction efforts, with government stakeholders prioritizing physical infrastructure improvements while nonprofit organizations focus on social vulnerabilities and community trust-building. These findings suggest that effective coastal resilience requires integrating drainage and structural investments with targeted social programs, fostering purposeful cross-sector dialogue, and developing mechanisms that build local adaptive capacity rather than relying solely on technical solutions.
July 1, 2025, Filed Under: Publications, Student AchievementsNew publication in Environmental Science and Policy. Sandeep Paul, Kayee Zhou, and Patrick Bixler examine how social connections shape heat risk perception across Texas communities. Through a survey of 3,450 urban Texas residents, this study explores three key dimensions of heat risk perception: worry, awareness, and preparedness. The research reveals that stronger social capital, such as neighborhood relationships and community interactions, is associated with heightened awareness of heat-related risks. These findings suggest hyper-local climate adaptation strategies that prioritize relationship-building within communities may prove more effective for preparing residents for our warming climate than top-down approaches alone. Read the paper here.
April 23, 2025, Filed Under: Presentations and Workshops, Student AchievementsTrevor Passed His Qualifying Exam! PhD Student Trevor Brooks passed his qualifying exam, and has advanced to candidacy status. Trevor will be focusing on his dissertation, Urban Hot Spots: A New Framework for Assessing and Mitigating Heat Risk in Cities.
April 4, 2025, Filed Under: Presentations and Workshops, Student AchievementsSandeep presents at MPSA PhD Candidate Sandeep Paul presented his research at the Midwest Political Science Association Annual Conference.
March 18, 2025, Filed Under: Publications, Student AchievementsMiles Co-authors a Review of Climate Action Plans Master’s student Miles Baker recently co-authored a paper in Climatic Change that conducted a qualitative review of 157 climate action plans in U.S. cities. Read the paper here. This review used qualitative content analysis to understand what sectors received the most focus and what actions cities implement most often, and identified recommendations for future climate planning.
March 10, 2025, Filed Under: Presentations and Workshops, Student AchievementsCongratulations Dr. Matthew Preisser! Dr. Matthew Preisser successfully defended his dissertation, earning his doctorate in Environmental and Water Resource Engineering. Dr. Preisser’s research is at the intersection of hydrology and social sciences. Dissertation: Description, prediction, and prescription of the compounding impacts of hazards on society
February 28, 2025, Filed Under: Presentations and Workshops, Student AchievementsSSPG showcased their work at PT2050. Eight SSPG members presented their research at the Planet Texas 2050 Symposium, and hosted two workshops. Maddy Richter-Atkinson & Deidra Miniard both presented as part of a panel on Data, Design, and Decision-Making: Integrating Research, Policy, and Community Engagement in Austin. Maddy talked about her work on the Climate Atlas and Deidra discussed the A2SI project. Patrick Bixler was a panelist on Community-Based Participatory Research for Community Resilience: Lessons and Perspectives from Project CRESSLE to discuss how to establish partnerships between academia and community members. Jacquie Moss served as a moderator for the panel: Get your Umbrella (Organizations) for Texas WEATHER: Whole-community Efforts to Adapt, Thrive, and Enhance Resilience. The panel discussed barriers communities face when planning for disasters and how to build capacity and resilience. Miles Baker, Yuer Wang, Rodrigo Leal, and Matt Preisser presented posters. Miles presented on emergency preparedness and social connectedness, Yuer discussed how community-centered surveys can be a useful tool to engage residents and community organizations. Matt presented his research on flooding and resilience. Rodrigo’s poster discussed his work on heat in vulnerable communities. SSPG also contributed to two workshops. In partnership with the UT-City Climate CoLab, Deidra helped organize a workshop to connect students with city departments to address city agency-driven research questions, attended by SSPG members Philip and Sarah. Maddy developed a workshop to evaluate the usability of the Climate Atlas for advocacy purposes.
December 1, 2024, Filed Under: Award, Student AchievementsSSPG members part of NSF CHIRRP award. Dr. Patrick Bixler is a Co-PI, and Jacquie Moss and Deidra Miniard serve as team members on the CHIRRP proposal (Confronting Hazards, Impacts and Risks for a Resilient Planet) recently awarded to the LBJ Extreme Weather Adaptation Lab. The project, Texas Weather: Whole-community Efforts to Adapt, THrive, and Enhance Resilience, aims to address the challenges communities face from weather-related disasters. Texas WEATHER project will employ a co-production approach to develop research questions based on the reciprocal exchange of experiential and scientific knowledge between community partners, hazard scientists, and policy specialists. The project will unfold over two years to develop actionable solutions for community-scale resilience.
