Our next IRES Seminar is in AERL Room 107:

February 13, 2025: IRES Student Seminar with Jasmine Lambert and Emily Shilton

Time: 12:30pm to 1:30pm

Location: AERL Building Room 107 (main floor, 2202 Main Mall)

No food and no drinks allowed in the seminar.

Click here for Zoom link.

Weaving and respecting local Indigenous nations’ ways of knowing and being in land-based learning with the UBC Farm Wonders Summer Camps: A participatory action research project

Talk summary:

This case study examines how the UBC Farm Wonders Summer Camps can respectfully integrate local Indigenous nations’ ways of knowing and being into their land-based learning curriculum. Situated on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓-speaking xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) First Nation, these camps provide a unique opportunity to foster children’s connections to the land while uplifting Indigenous voices and practices. Guided by the principles of “two-eyed seeing” and the 4Rs of respect, relevance, reciprocity, and responsibility, the study employs interviews, focus groups, and participatory action research to assess the current state and potential of Indigenous-inspired land education at the camps. Data will be analyzed thematically to identify actionable improvements, with the ultimate goal of creating a toolkit for educators to incorporate meaningful land-based learning and contribute to the decolonization of outdoor youth programming. The findings aim to inform not only UBC Farm Wonders but also other outdoor programs in British Columbia and Canada, promoting a sustainable and equitable future grounded in respect for Indigenous knowledges and relationships with the land.

  Jasmine Lambert, IRES MA Student

Bio:

Jasmine Lambert (she/her) is an MA student at IRES, supervised by Dr. Robert VanWynsberghe and Dr. Kari Grain in the Faculty of Education. Jasmine’s current research focuses on land-based learning, nature connection, and environmental outdoor programming. She completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto, majoring in Environmental Studies and Peace, Conflict, and Justice, with a minor in Human Geography and a Certificate of Sustainability. Before Jasmine joined IRES, she worked at an environmental charity in Toronto that focused on inspiring a love of nature in urban areas. Jasmine believes that her passion for nature stems from her childhood years living on Saturna Island, which shaped her appreciation for the environment, and understanding that nature is not separate from us, but rather a part of us.

An Addictive E-Waste Problem: Assessing the Environmental Effects and Regulatory Requirements of Vape Products

Talk summary:

The production and disposal of electronics create significant environmental and social challenges, harming human health in developing countries, damaging ecosystems, and contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. Nicotine vaping products have recently become a rapidly growing source of e-waste, expanding from a perceived trend into a $22 billion USD global market with an estimated 82 million users. To address this rising waste stream, countries like the UK and New Zealand have introduced bans on single-use vapes or mandated removable batteries, but in Canada, vape products and the e-waste they generate exist in policy gray zone that is creating a unique challenge for recycling and material recovery. This project addresses these challenges by conducting material flow analysis (MFA) and life cycle assessments (LCA) to quantify the environmental impacts of vaping products, surveying consumer purchase and disposal behaviours, and developing Canadian policy recommendations.

  Emily Shilton, IRES MSc Student

Bio:

Emily Shilton (she/her) is an M.Sc. student at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, supervised by Dr. Milind Kandlikar (SPPGA) and Dr. Alex Tavasoli (Mechanical Engineering). Her current research focuses on circular economy, public policy, and life-cycle assessments related to consumer electronics. She completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Waterloo, studying Mechatronics Engineering with a minor in English Literature. Prior to joining IRES, she was working as an electrical engineer on the Google Pixel team where her work inspired an interest in learning more about the intersection between technology and the environment!

See you next Thursday in AERL Room 107!

 

_______________________________________________________________________________

Bonnie Leung

RES Program Support (she/her/hers)

Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES)

University of British Columbia | Vancouver Campus | Musqueam Traditional Territory

Aquatic Ecosystems Research Laboratory (AERL Building)

Room 429 – 2202 Main Mall | Vancouver, BC | V6T 1Z4 | Canada

 

Email: bonnie.leung@ubc.ca

Tel: 604-822-9249

 

Check out our IRES Seminar Series!

Attention graduate students 

An e-booking function to book counselling appointments is now available.

 

UBC Student Health and Wellbeing – eBooking

 

**************************************************************************************

I wanted to share our new e-booking function for students, who are now able to book counselling appts online (hooray for entering 2025!)

UBC Student Health and Wellbeing – eBooking

Feel free to keep referring students to reach out, but you can also share this link with them so they can book on their own and I will confirm it as they come through.

Let me know if you have any questions about this!

Have a great weekend,

Nicole

 

Nicole Adoranti  MEd, CCC (she/her)
Embedded Counsellor – Faculty of Forestry & Faculty of Land and Food systems
604-827-1555

nicole.adoranti@ubc.ca

Office location: Forest Sciences | 2722 Main Mall | Vancouver BC | V6T 1Z4 Canada

The University of British Columbia | Vancouver Campus | Musqueam Traditional Territory

https://forestry.ubc.ca/students/mental-health-wellbeing/

https://www.landfood.ubc.ca/current/undergraduate/wellness-support-and-advising/mental-health-and-wellbeing/

Student Health and Wellbeing, Counselling Services
https://students.ubc.ca/health/counselling-services

https://facultystaff.students.ubc.ca/health-wellbeing/counselling-services

 

Email is not a confidential method of communication and should not be used for the exchange of personal information. If you would like to meet with Nicole, please book an appointment online or call Counselling Services at 604-822-3811 and indicate you are a Forestry or LFS student.

 

We are writing to share an exciting summer opportunity for early-career academics, industry researchers, and artists of all types: the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI).

The idea behind DISI is simple. We bring together promising early-career scholars (graduate students, postdocs, and faculty) for several weeks of serious interdisciplinary exploration. If you are interested in the origins, nature, and future of intelligences—regardless of discipline—please apply!

Our program engages three broad themes:

• Recognizing intelligences (i.e., the study of biological but non-human minds)
• Shaping human intelligences (i.e., how development, culture, ideas, technology, etc., shape human capacities)
• Programming intelligences (i.e., artificial intelligence and its broader implications)

Each year’s DISI has a special thematic focus, which is reflected in additional faculty emphasis and a working group. The 2025 focus is AI and the Natural World; in other words, how AI can inform our understanding of living systems (e.g., animals, plants, ecosystems) and how living systems can inspire new directions in AI. If your work connects with this focus, please let us know! However, most participants will not connect with the annual focus, so please don’t let the topic deter you from applying. We welcome applications from scholars working on any and all aspects of mind, cognition, and intelligence; indeed, they will make up the majority of admitted participants.

To enrich the conversation, we also recruit several “storytellers” (artists, writers, filmmakers, etc.) who participate in the intellectual life of the institute while pursuing related creative projects.

We’re looking for open-minded participants who want to take intellectual risks and break down disciplinary barriers in the spirit of dialogue and discovery. We hope that this creative community will work together to develop new ways of engaging with big questions about mind, cognition, and intelligences. You can read more about DISI—including previous iterations—on our website: https://disi.org.

DISI 2024 will take place in the beautiful seaside setting of St Andrews, Scotland from July 6 to July 27, 2025. During this time, participants will attend lectures, workshops, social events, and salons, building connections with each other and with our world-class faculty. They will also work together on projects of their own devising.

Thanks to the generosity of our sponsors, we will cover most of the cost of participation in the institute (including lodging, breakfasts, and dinners). We ask admitted participants to seek travel funding from their home institutions or employers; a limited number of travel scholarships will be available. Moreover, participants will join our growing network of past faculty and alumni, with lifetime access to dedicated resources (e.g., funding opportunities for future projects and fellowships).

Review of applications will begin on Saturday, March 1 and will continue until all spots are filled. The application can be found at: https://disi.org/apply/.

We would be grateful if you would forward this announcement to any talented folks who might be interested in this opportunity. Thank you for helping us grow our DISI community!

With all our best wishes,

The DISI Admin Team

 

Erica A. Cartmill, DISI Director; Professor of Cognitive Science, Anthropology, and Animal Behavior, Indiana University

Jacob G. Foster, DISI Director; Professor of Cognitive Science and Informatics, Indiana University; External Professor, Santa Fe Institute

Kensy Cooperrider, DISI Associate Director (Content and Outreach); Host of ‘Many Minds’ podcast

Amanda McAlpin-Costa, DISI Associate Director (Administration)

 

*current working location is Apple Valley, CA, USA (PST)*

 

please note my new email address: amcalpi@iu.edu

 

Amanda McAlpin-Costa

Associate Director, Operations

Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute

DISI.org

(she/they)

Dear LFS and Forestry graduate students,

As part of the University-wide Black Faculty Cohort Hiring Initiative, the Faculties of Forestry and Land and Food Systems are conducting a search for an Assistant Professor in Natural Resource Economics (see Job Ad). Our last two candidates will be interviewed next week. We would like to invite you to lunch with the 3^rd candidate, as follows:  

Tuesday, Feb 11, 12:00-1:00pm, MacMillan 350 (Protensia Hadunka)

Please RSVP to lfs.recruiting@ubc.ca and include any dietary restrictions by 4pm on Friday, Feb 7

You are also invited to attend their research and teaching seminars. We would welcome your feedback following the interviews, as per forms below.

 

Protensia Hadunka (Feb 10-11)

Protensia Hadunka is a Ph.D. candidate in Agricultural and Applied Economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, specializing in Agricultural and Environmental Economics. His research examines the intersection of agricultural markets, climate change, and food security, applying causal inference to address key environmental and economic challenges. He investigates how climate shocks impact agricultural productivity, land use decisions, and deforestation. Hadunka has led extensive field research, designing and managing large-scale, nationally representative surveys in Zambia. He collaborates with policymakers and international organizations, including the International Growth Center (IGC) and the Zambian Presidential Advisory Board, providing policy recommendations on agricultural resilience and market stability.

Teaching Demonstration: Decentralized Policies in Environmental Economics: Exploring Liability, Property Rights, and Market Solutions

February 10th, 11:00am-12:00pm

FSC-2916 (CAWP Caseroom)

Research Talk: Agricultural Production Shocks, Natural Resources, and Welfare

February 11th, 9:30-11:00am

FSC-1222 (2424 Main Mall)

Abstract:

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is home to some of the highest rates of deforestation in the world. One driver may be negative agricultural shocks that lead households to consume natural

resources as a coping mechanism. This paper uses the introduction of a novel agricultural pest to estimate the effect of a negative agricultural shock on charcoal production and deforestation, and to test whether adaptation strategies mitigate this effect. Using four years of primary household panel data from across Zambia I find a positive and significant effect of FAW on charcoal production and deforestation. The estimates indicate that as the FAW intensity increases from 0 to the median level the probability of a farmer producing charcoal by 16%, leading to an increase in deforestation of 13.6%. When methods to mitigate FAW damage are available, farmers are less likely to resort to charcoal production as a coping strategy. Having the ability to reduce the share of maize, diversify the crops produced, use pesticides, or migrate for off-farm employment are associated with a lower propensity to switch to charcoal production in response to FAW. I find that households cut 13 additional trees due to FAW, but this increase is reduced by 4 – 5 trees when coping strategies are implemented.

Feedback Form: https://ubc.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3WAAv8e4QtmHzqS

 

Yacouba Kassouri (Feb 13-14)

Yacouba Kassouri holds a PhD in Economics and works as a postdoctoral fellow in the Biodiversity Economics group at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) in Leipzig, Germany. His research interests lie in the field of environmental and natural resource economics with a concentration on urban biodiversity conservation and the economic linkages between nature, human, and social welfare. As an applied environmental economist, he is particularly interested in understanding the human-nature nexus using modern econometric methods for causal inference and various non-market valuation techniques. In his current research, he proposes an alternative life satisfaction valuation approach that allows the use of causal inference tool to recover the shadow price for local environmental public goods, and explores potential trade-offs among natural landscape protection and the provision urban open spaces.

Teaching Demonstration: Economics of Timber Harvesting

February 13^th, 12:00-1:00pm

McM 258 (2357 Main Mall)

Research Talk: Life satisfaction shadow price for environmental public goods

February 14^th, 9:30-11:00am

FSC-1222 (2424 Main Mall)

Abstract:

Unpacking people’s self-rated life satisfaction to price environmental public goods is promising to inform well-being-improving decisions. Yet, previous contributions

yield inconsistent estimates of the income-life satisfaction conversion rate, leading to an overvaluation of non-market environmental goods. This paper develops and implements a new valuation framework for calculating the life satisfaction shadow price for environmental goods in a two-step regression procedure. Using restricted georeferenced longitudinal survey data on life satisfaction, we find that the two-step valuation approach produces smaller shadow prices (with and without instrumenting for income) compared to the individual level valuation (one-step regression). We provide strong empirical evidence that the overvaluation bias reported in the existing life satisfaction literature can be largely explained by the level of valuation rather than the endogeneity of income, as previously exposed in the literature. Exploiting variations in labor demand shocks across industries in a shift-share instrumental variable strategy, we demonstrate that although the instrumental variable approach significantly increases the size of the income coefficient, the resulting shadow prices remain relatively similar to those obtained without instrumenting for income. The valuation framework championed in this study knits together research on the causal linkages between humans and nature with studies on non-market environmental valuation.

Feedback Form: https://ubc.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_4Gf3yrAgP3rAiCa

 

 

Melanie Train

Human Resources Manager-Faculty | Faculty of Land and Food Systems

The University of British Columbia | Vancouver Campus

248-2357 Main Mall | Vancouver, BC Canada V6T 1Z4

Phone 604-822-3105 | Fax 604-822-6394

Email:  melanie.train@ubc.ca

Office: M/W/F: Remote: T/Th