The Cooperative Institute for Climate, Ocean, and Ecosystem Studies

Bonjour everyone! My name is Ladanijirah Lightner and I’m a senior at SUNY College Environmental Science and Forestry in upstate NY. This past summer I had the pleasure of being a CICOES participant working with Dargen Frierson as my mentor. Our project used a climate justice framework to critically evaluate the shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) data, which are future energy pathways most commonly used by the climate modeling community. I analyzed this data, produced a few graphs, and compared the results to Hoodwinked in the Hothouse, a booklet written by a coalition of climate justice groups around the world. We used this booklet to define justice, in addition to conducting interviews with authors of Hoodwinked and experts in the field. I’m very grateful to my mentor for being patient and teaching me how to use Python, a software I had never used before the program. Throughout this experience, I learned to communicate with other professionals more effectively and I attended a few cool events outside of the program through my mentor. Surprisingly enough I had incorporated some of the information from those events into my project!

I recommend this program to anyone interested in climate, ocean, and ecosystem studies. I went into this program not knowing what I wanted to do after graduation and left with somewhat of an idea and a passion for energy systems. This was a very transformative experience for me. I learn better in a supportive environment, and I was encouraged by the CICOES staff. This program provided me with the necessary tools, so that now I feel more confident about my career goals. Also, I met some amazing people who inspired me to keep going in this field.

Project Introduction

Research Poster