SPEAKER: Gabrielle Wong-Parodi Assistant Research Professor Department of Engineering and Public Policy Carnegie Mellon University DATE: Wednesday, February 14, 2018 TIME: 4:00-5:30pm PLACE: 126 Barrows

TITLE: Integrating Social Science into Global Environmental Change Solutions DESCRIPTION: The social and behavioral sciences are critical for informing the development of policies to meet the challenge of global environmental change. Policies for mitigating environmental change or reducing the harm that it causes inevitably make assumptions about the behavior of the people who must execute or respond to those policies. Unless those assumptions are realistic, those policies may fail. Applying the social and behavioral sciences, decision science approaches any problem through three interrelated activities: characterizing the choices a fully informed rational actor would take, examining how people actually behave in those circumstances, and holding interventions designed to create viable, effective options and helping decision makers choose among them. Each activity requires substantive collaboration with technical experts and continuing engagement with decision makers. This talk will illustrate the approach through examples of my work on adapting to and preparing for long-term environmental change and episodic events. BIO: Gabrielle Wong-Parodi is an Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. She uses behavioral science approaches to create evidence-based strategies for informed decision making, with a particular focus on building resilience and promoting sustainability in the face of a changing climate. Dr. Wong-Parodi received her B.S. in Psychology and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Energy and Resources all from the University of California, Berkeley.