Winter 2025 Newsletter

Reflecting on the Fires in Los Angeles and the Environmental Impacts of Artificial Intelligence

Reflecting on the Fires in Los Angeles

The Initiative’s Iris Stewart-Frey commented on the role climate change might play in the deadly Los Angeles fires, including to TV station ABC7 and the BBC, which was picked up by other news outlets such as the National World and the Global Herald. In the BBC article, Stewart-Frey discussed how the LA wildfires are a wake-up call to major sports event organizers about the need to adapt to climate change as the city prepares to host matches during the 2025 Club World Cup, 2026 FIFA World Cup, and 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Stewart-Frey pointed out that the recent wildfires are a reminder that we need to weigh the benefits and costs of major sporting events such as these, including their contributions to climate change. "Coming together to be in friendly competition, in goodwill, and understanding each other, is a real benefit from these kinds of events and in many ways we need more of that," she said. "We just have to figure out how we do that without destroying the environment at the same time." Stewart-Frey also provided insights on the environmental impacts of the rise in data centers fueled by AI’s growing power demands for the article, "As California AI Data Centers Grow, So Does Dirty Energy," in The Slick.

Image credit: toast21, Wikimedia Commons

Advocacy and Organizing Opportunities: Jesuits West CORE California Ignatian Advocacy Summit and PACT San José

Chad Raphael collaborated with Darcy Phillips of SCU’s Ignatian Center for Jesuit Education to organize advocacy trainings for students and staff at SCU. In December and February, Alyssa Perez of People and Communities Together (PACT), an interfaith organization leading South Bay campaigns on housing and immigrant rights, offered introductory trainings on community organizing and advocacy to SCU faculty and students. Anyone interested in joining PACT can do so on their website. In February, Annie Fox of Jesuits West CORE offered training for student leaders of the California Ignatian Advocacy Summit, which will take place in Sacramento on April 6-7. The Summit will focus on legislative advocacy for environmental and social justice to mark the 10th anniversary of Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’. Students and faculty interested in attending the Summit on April 7 can register here.

Call for Applications: Summer Curriculum Development Workshops on Sustainability and Justice

Call for Applications: Summer Curriculum Development Workshops

Faculty and academic staff from all institutions are invited to apply for our summer online Sustainability & Justice Curriculum Development Workshops. The workshops are for anyone who is revising a module or course, or who trains colleagues on their campuses to integrate sustainability and justice across the curriculum. These workshops are offered jointly with SCU’s Center for Sustainability, which is a national training center for sustainability across the curriculum affiliated with the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). Apply by April 1 for priority consideration. Applications close on May 2. For more information and to apply, visit our website.

Our New YouTube Channel

The Initiative launched our YouTube channel, where you can find discussions, research presentations, and expert panels on food and climate justice, water and climate justice, youth and environmental justice, and our networks at SCU and across Northern California. Our videos highlight collaborations between academics, community leaders, and policymakers working toward sustainable and equitable solutions, including plenary panels from our most recent conference and many other events. Watch, subscribe, and stay updated!

Jesica Fernández wins Early Career Scholarship Award

The Initiative’s Jesica Fernández received the 2024 Michael Alexander Early Career Award granted by the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI). The award was established in 2005 to recognize early career excellence in scholarship as well as in service. For this award, scholarship is defined in terms of substantive academic contributions (theoretical, empirical, or applied) to the psychological study of social issues.

Special Issue of "Social Sciences" on Community-Engaged Research for Environmental Justice

The Initiative’s Chad Raphael collaborated with Martha Matsuoka (Occidental College) and Ana Baptista (The New School) to co-edit a special issue of the journal Social Sciences about Community-Engaged Research for Environmental Justice. Highlights include articles on community murals by the Initiative’s Jesica Fernández (SCU Ethnic Studies) and Laura Nichols (SCU Sociology), and on science education by Won Jung Kim (SCU Education and Counseling Psychology). Additional articles address urban water runoff, photovoice and community science, and conservation science. Each article involves research conducted in partnership with community organizations that are working to advance environmental justice.

Recovery from a Historic Levee Failure: Focus Groups in Pajaro, CA

Recovery from a Historic Levee Failure

In March 2023, a historic storm caused a levee failure that flooded Pajaro, a predominantly immigrant farming community in California's Monterey County. To date, questions about why the levee was not fortified against storms of this size and how residents were supported in the aftermath persist. The Initiative’s Rocio Lilen Seguro and Iris Stewart-Frey, together with colleagues David DeCosse from the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics are conducting community-based research that seeks to change how flooding risks are assessed for environmental justice communities and suggest better policies for recovery. In February, the team of researchers, together with colleague Allan Baez Morales (Frugal Innovation Hub), collaborators from the California Rural Legal Assistance, and undergraduate research assistants Victory Chika-Okafor (ESS), Sophia Toribio (ESS), Mahi Shah (CESE) and Giselle Aviles (CESE) conducted three focus groups with community residents to learn about the lasting impacts on their community and the barriers to receiving aid, flood recovery, and disaster preparation under climate change.

Engineering Research Showcase Posters about the Levee Project

In February, Rocio L. Segura and Iris Stewart Frey, along with students from the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Sustainable Engineering Dana Johnson (’25), Anna Krebs (’25), and Karina Martin (’25) presented two posters at the 7th Annual School of Engineering Research Showcase. Their research explores the intersection of flood risk, social vulnerability, and community resilience in marginalized communities living behind levees. The two posters were:

How Can We Improve Levee Risk Assessments by Incorporating Community Identities and Social Vulnerabilities? A Case Study on the Community of Pajaro, California
Exploring Marginalized Communities' Flood Risk Perceptions and Resilience: Insights from the 2023 Pajaro Levee Failure

Their work highlights the often-overlooked social dimensions of levee risk assessments and disaster resilience, emphasizing how structural vulnerabilities intersect with community identity and lived experiences. Through a combination of qualitative research, policy analysis, and community engagement, the team aims to advance more equitable approaches to flood risk management.

New Grant to Support Food Justice Conference and Curriculum

Chris Bacon received a $24,998 award from Western Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education to support his project “Co-producing a Place-Based Food Justice Conference and Curriculum in the South Bay.” This project will be coordinated with the Initiative, SCU faculty and student researchers, the South Bay Food Justice Collaborative, Veggielution community farm, University of California Extension, and other partners. They will convene a mini-conference as the culmination of an urban agroecology and food systems change short course. The team will subsequently develop a hybrid place-based curriculum with learning outcomes focusing on an equity competency model for sustainable food systems and fostering cross-institutional collaboration in the South Bay Area.

New Article on Critical Participatory Action Research

Jesica Fernández published an article with Michelle Fine (CUNY, The Graduate Center) in the journal Qualitative Psychology entitled “Methodological Retrospective: Critical Participatory Action Research.” The article describes the history, foundations, and ethical imperatives of engaging in critical participatory action research (CPAR) as a paradigm for democratizing research, decolonizing knowledge, and challenging dominant narratives. The authors highlight multiple participatory projects involving traditionally trained and community-based researchers in schools, prisons, and communities.

Presentation at the Forum for Integral Ecology at Ibero Mexico

Iris Stewart-Frey and Allan Baez Morales gave an invited presentation on “Building Resilient Communities through Partnerships between the Global North and the Global South and the Principles of Integral Ecology” at the Ibero Mexico Forum for Integral Ecology: Sustainability and the Common Good in Latin America. The presentation highlighted the application of Laudato Si' principles in practice and underscored universities’ roles in addressing global challenges like climate change, especially through transdisciplinary work. By combining the expertise of environmental scientists, engineers, designers, social scientists, and local community members, the NicaAgua app developed by the Water and Climate Justice team serves as a model for how technology can be harnessed to promote environmental justice and support the common good.

Agroecology for Sustainability and Justice: A Commentary

Agroecology for Sustainability and Justice

Christopher Bacon published a commentary on agroecological transformations for environmental sustainability for the Social Justice and Ecology Secretariat (SJES - Rome). In this commentary, Bacon draws on his years of experience as a Peace Corps Volunteer, a student of sustainable food systems at University of California, Santa Cruz, and his recent research to show the value of a community-based agroecological approach for responding to Pope Francis’s call in Laudato Si' to fix our broken global food system. As Bacon explains, “Agroecology is a principles-based approach that draws on Indigenous and local knowledge and ecology and agricultural sciences to foster diversified farming and inclusive food systems.” He offers many examples of how Jesuits and others are implementing this approach to create a more just and sustainable food system around the world.

Keynote Address at Global Congress on Climate Change

Iris Stewart-Frey gave a keynote presentation on “Community-Academic Partnerships to Support Climate Adaptation to Recent and Future Hydroclimatic Shifts” at the 4th Global Congress on Climate Change (GCCC-2024) in Lisbon in September. In her address, she highlighted the possibilities of connecting the work of the climate science community to efforts at strengthening climate resilience on the ground, especially in the Global South. She also called on the climate science community to provide the resources for science-based decision-making on local scales, using the collaboration around the NicaAgua climate app at SCU as a case study.

Building Diverse and Sustainable Food Systems with East San José Entrepreneurs

Christopher Bacon and Maria Eugenia Flores Gomez, along with student researchers from the Initiative’s Food and Climate Justice program and the Department of Environmental Studies & Sciences capstone course, gave presentations and engaged in dialogue with residents and regional experts during two stakeholder meetings. Student researchers Josue Josue Hernandez-Perez (‘25), Sofia Perron (‘25), Gabrielle Canola-Leach (‘25), and Maylin Pollack (‘25) presented their research in Spanish. As part of the Collaborative Innovation for Food Justice project, this team is working with the Veggielution community farm to design a food systems data dashboard and conduct a values-based purchasing feasibility study for a new worker-owned food catering cooperative. Santa Clara University has now connected with five new local food vendors offering culturally rooted meals from this community.

Addressing Basic Needs Insecurity Among First-Generation College Students at SCU

The Initiative’s Christopher Bacon and student researcher Wanyu (Mary) Xiang (Public Health ‘25) recently presented key findings from the Basic Needs Survey Research Team at SCU’s First-Generation, Limited-Income (FLI) Forward Conference. The presentation highlighted critical challenges, including the fact that 28% of SCU students experience food insecurity, and 1 in 4 students face housing insecurity. First-generation college students are disproportionately affected, with 44% experiencing food insecurity, double the rate of their non-first-generation peers. This multi-year research initiative has directly contributed to creating SCU’s Basic Needs Program, which provides essential resources for students. As Eva Blanco-Macias (Vice President for Enrollment Management) emphasized, as SCU expands access for FLI students, we must deepen our understanding of their needs. Through ongoing survey analysis, food and housing insecurity assessments, and action research, the research team remains committed to ensuring that all students have the support they need to thrive.

In Our Networking

Collaboration across Jesuit Networks for Agroecology, Food Security, and Youth Participation

Collaboration across Jesuit Networks

For five years, the Initiative’s Food and Climate Justice Program has partnered with Dr. Pedro Walpole, SJ of Apu Palamguwan Cultural Education Center (APC) in the Philippines to advance Laudato Si inspired work across global networks. In 2024, after Chris Bacon shared agroecology and food security methods from long-term community-based participatory action research work in Nicaragua, Pedro teamed up with Indigenous youth and researchers from the Institute for the Environment and Social Change to adapt methods from the Nicaragua project to their local context. As part of the dissemination of their results, Pedro’s team convened a workshop for 70 neighboring youth and presented findings from their survey and focus groups, opening a conversation about how to address seasonal hunger and improve access to safe drinking water in the context of climate change and other hazards. This year, the Climate and Food Justice program and APC launched a project to expand community-engaged agroecology to address climate change, food insecurity, and vulnerability, and to prepare an educational case study of youth experiences and the use of Indigenous environmental knowledge to foster resilience responses. These results will be shared in the case study, a short comparative article, and potentially as part of a delegation to the United Nation’s COP 30 climate meetings.

Proposing Policies that Support Access to Safe and Clean Water to California’s Water Board

Proposing Policies that Support Access to Safe and Clean Water

The Initiative’s Iris Stewart-Frey, together with representatives from environmental justice organizations Clean Water Action, the Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability, and the Central California Environmental Justice Network, were part of an invited environmental justice panel at a public workshop organized by and for California’s State Water Resources Control Board in February. The workshop addressed possible processes and solutions to widespread water contamination affecting more than 100,000 people dependent on domestic wells and small water systems in the Central Valley. The panel provided summaries of community experiences and concerns, and policy recommendations for defining metrics, addressing data gaps, practicing transparency, and conducting outreach.

SCU Networking Meetings on Youth, Environmental Justice, and Health

In February, 15 SCU faculty and staff interested in research and teaching at the intersections of youth, environmental justice, and environmental health convened to explore opportunities for collaboration and support for their work. Participants learned about the range of research and teaching currently being done on these topics at SCU, shared resources to support this work, and envisioned new collaborations with SCU colleagues and potential community partners. The networking meeting was organized by the Initiative’s Jesica S. Fernández and Chad Raphael.

Recent Programming

Visualizing Environmental Justice: A Youth-Centered Mural Installation

The Youth for Justice Project (YJP), an afterschool program at Sacred Heart Nativity School in San José, partnered with Local Color SJ, a non-profit organization fostering community development opportunities for artists and creatives, to lead a series of art workshops. Jesica Fernández, who oversees YJP and is a member of the Initiative, along with student researchers Ashley Orozco-Plata, Linda Soto, and Naomi Hernandez, facilitated this collaboration. The three art-making workshops supported youth to create a mural-like art installation at their school that featured themes of environmental justice at the intersections of social change. With the guidance of local artist Tomas “Wisper” Talamantes and art-educators Jessica Carmen and Wednesday DeGuzman, youth created individual canvases featuring social and environmental justice issues they care about – from education to economic equity to diversity and racial justice. Each canvas helped form a unified, youth-centered mural that was inspired by the 100 Block Mural SJ, a mosaic-tiled mural featuring the artwork of 100 artists in San José. The canvases that were produced by YJP youth were brought together to create a mural that was installed in the hallway of Sacred Heart Nativity School. The mural installation captured youth voices – reflecting their hopes and dreams – along with their calls for social change in their living and learning environments.

Students Present at 2024 American Geophysical Union Conference

Iris Stewart-Frey co-mentored six students in the Water and Climate Justice Lab to present their research at the American Geophysical Union conference in Washington D.C., including Dana Johnson (Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering ‘26) and Environmental Studies & Sciences majors Samantha Lei (‘26), Elyse Kenyon (’25), Stephanie Davis (‘25), William Alexander (‘26), and Emma Young (‘24). The students presented their work on mapping Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) and assessing their impacts on groundwater in the Central Valley, conducting a domestic well testing program in the Central Valley, assessing rainfall changes in Northern Nicaragua, and analyzing the ethical and engineering perspectives of the 2023 levee failures in the Pajaro Valley. All posters reflected the environmental justice dimensions as well as scientific aspects of the students' projects, and were very well received. The students were engaged in lively discussions with other researchers and came away with many new ideas. SCU colleagues who co-mentored some of these students included Rocio Lilen Segura, Ed Maurer, and Aria Amirbahman from Civil, Environmental & Sustainable Engineering; Jake Dialesandro and Will Rush of Environmental Studies & Sciences; and David DeCosse of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics.

Research Grant Spotlight

Highlights of research supported by our research grant program.

The Politics of Coastal Reclamation in Indonesia

Ryan Tans (formerly of SCU Political Science, now at Northern Arizona University) published "Social Movements and Climate Adaptation: The Provincial Politics of Coastal Reclamation in Indonesia" in the journal Perspectives on Politics. Tans examines movements of environmentalists, fisherfolk, and coastal residents that oppose the infilling of coastal waters and wetlands. The article applies the concept of political opportunity to explain the variation in the ability of anti-reclamation movements to achieve their goals. This research was informed by interviews and fieldwork that were facilitated by a grant from the Initiative awarded to Ryan and Naomi Levy (SCU Political Science).

New Research Grants Awarded

The Initiative announced our newest research grants in collaboration with SCU’s Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship. The Initiative and Miller Center will fund two projects to advance SCU’s vision to create a more humane, just, and sustainable world, while promoting the Miller Center’s mission to eradicate global poverty and protect the planet, and EJCGI’s mission to foster community-driven research for social and environmental justice.

Lee Panich (Anthropology) and Amy Lueck (English) received funding for “Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Community-Engaged Learning.” This project continues community-engaged research into the traditional ecological knowledge of Ohlone ancestors through the analysis of their interviews with early anthropologists. SCU students will work with members of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe to identify important knowledge in archived field notes and prepare transcriptions for use by the contemporary tribal community. These transcriptions will play a central role in the annual Ohlone Youth Cultural Campout held on the SCU campus each summer. Chan Thai (Communication) received funding for “Impact Assessment Training on Knowledge and Practices of Community Development Facilitators in the Philippines.” This project is a collaboration with the Alternative Indigenous Development Foundation, Inc. (AIDFI), which installs water pumps to provide Indigenous upland communities in the Philippines with running water. The project seeks to develop, implement, and assess the impact of an Impact Assessment Training on the knowledge and practices of AIDFI staff. The training may be adapted for other non-government organizations and social enterprises.

Partner Spotlight

Sibyl Diver - Stanford University

Sibyl is an Environmental Scientist and Lecturer in Stanford’s Earth Systems Program and the Co-Lead of Stanford’s Environmental Justice Working Group. In addition to sharing her wisdom as a valued member of the Initiative’s Advisory Board, Sibyl has collaborated with the Initiative’s Iris Stewart-Frey and others to create the Northern California Environmental Justice Network, which has attracted 375 members from academia, community organizations, and government agencies to share information and organize events.

For over two decades, Sibyl has partnered with community leaders on issues of Indigenous peoples and salmon around the North Pacific – in the Russian Far East, Alaska, Canada, and the US. She does community-engaged research on Indigenous water governance from an allied perspective, focusing on Pacific Northwest salmon watersheds. She received her PhD from Berkeley's Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, where she helped build the Karuk-UC Berkeley Collaborative, a group supporting the Karuk Tribe's eco-cultural revitalization strategy in Northern California.

Sibyl and her co-authors – including Ron Reed, a traditional Karuk dipnet fisherman and a cultural biologist for the Karuk Tribe of California – have presented their work several times at conferences and events organized by the Initiative at SCU. Their most recent journal article, “Recasting Klamath Dam Removal as Eco-Cultural Revitalization and Restorative Justice through Karuk Tribal Leadership,” examines the sociocultural impacts of the historic Klamath River dam removal and river restoration through Karuk knowledge.

All of us at the Initiative are grateful for Sibyl’s good example of how to be a community-engaged researcher and teacher, her valuable advice to the Initiative, and her contributions to building a Northern California network for environmental justice.

Fostering community-driven research and learning for social and environmental justice

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