UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Institute of Energy and the Environment (IEE) has welcomed two new researchers, Mook Bangalore and Mark Ortiz. The hiring of these faculty members reinforces the University's commitment to interdisciplinary climate research and was strongly supported by the Penn State Climate Consortium. Bangalore and Ortiz will also work with the consortium.
Bruce Logan, director of the Institute of Energy and the Environment, said the addition of Bangalore and Ortiz will strengthen the institute’s research in climate policy and public engagement.
“We are delighted to have Bangalore and Ortiz join the Institute of Energy and the Environment,” Logan said. “Their unique perspectives and methodologies will undoubtedly enrich existing energy and environmental research projects. With their expertise in climate research, coupled with their commitment to policy and public engagement, they will be instrumental in developing innovative solutions to the pressing challenges of climate change.”
The research of Mook Bangalore, an assistant professor in the School of Public Policy in the College of the Liberal Arts, focuses on the relationship between the environment and development and explores how households across The Global South are affected by environmental change and the climate crisis. He said to address a challenge as complex as the climate crisis, expertise from all disciplines is required.
“We might have technical solutions that engineers and natural scientists develop, but we need economists to get the prices right and sociologists to help understand people’s behavior,” Bangalore said. “So many solutions in this space have not worked because we don’t bring enough people to the table. And this critically includes communities that are impacted by environmental change. Local knowledge and community involvement is critical and must be a central part of the process.”
As a part of his work, Bangalore is working on projects related to rice farming in India, which is a major contributor to water depletion and greenhouse gas emissions from methane. The research looks at how electricity access impacts farmers' decision-making, how technology can support farmers achieve environmental goals and how communities can be engaged as actors of change.
“As someone who has eaten rice almost every day for 30 years, I’ve started to change some things in my life,” Bangalore said. “I’ve been experimenting with other ancient grains which are less water and greenhouse gas intensive, for example millets which can be grown right here in Pennsylvania.”
Mark Ortiz, an assistant professor in the Department of Geography in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences and a faculty member in the Social Science Research Institute, is a geographer with research interests spanning youth politics, social movement studies, storytelling methods and environmental and climate justice. He said interdisciplinary research has always been central to the field of geography.
“In my particular corner of geography, scholars have long discussed natural and social dynamics in concert, exploring the irreducible interconnections between nature and society,” Ortiz said. “This interdisciplinary orientation — the opportunity to speak to an environmental scientist on one hand and a social scientist on the other, all within this same big umbrella discipline — is what attracted me to the field.”
Ortiz’s research has long focused on the involvement of children and young people in the international politics of climate change and questions of intergenerational justice.
“A specific research question I am thinking about is what it would look like for climate policy to prioritize the rights of children and future generations,” Ortiz said. “One current research direction I am excited about is a new regional focus on community-based energy and environmental justice research in the U.S. South, a region I am from and that is uniquely positioned in contemporary energy and socioenvironmental systems.”