Two Purdue Doctoral Students Win Prestigious Sloan Post-Doctoral Fellowships to Study the New Carbon Economy

Janel Jett (Political Science) and Henry Seeger (Communication) have recently been awarded Sloan Post-doctoral Fellowships to study aspects of the New Carbon Economy through Purdue’s Center of the Environment, as supported through a collaboration with the A.E. Sloan Foundation and the multi-university network of the New Carbon Economy Consortium (NCEC). 

The NCEC Social Science Research Fellowship program is designed to foster interdisciplinary social science research that advances activities that will help determine pathways to an economy that captures and stores more carbon than it emits. While technical solutions are emerging, there is a lag in research that addresses the social implications of a transition to a low carbon economy. The fellowship matches early career scholars in the social sciences with mentors at one of several research universities that are members of the consortium. These fellowships at Purdue are also financially supported by the Office of the Provost and the Office of the Executive Vice President for Research and Partnerships. Tim Filley, Center director and professor of earth and atmospheric sciences and agronomy notes, “We congratulate Janel and Henry on this achievement and we look forward to having them join our NCE initiative within the Center. It is essential that we address both technical and socioeconomic strategies of equitably transitioning to a new carbon economy in the US and abroad. This fellows program will greatly advance our and NCEC’s efforts.”

Janel Jett will work on her project, “Bypassing Populist Barriers: How Framing Influences Public Support for Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) Technologies,” with assistant professor of Psychological Sciences and Political Science and Center affiliate Erin Hennes. Jett will be investigating the importance of trust for communicating messages about environmental sustainability in general and on CDR technologies more specifically. This project builds on work Jett conducted in 2020, when she was a Chateaubriand Fellow at the Université de Paris. She will be testing her hypotheses on messaging with both American and French respondents. 

Henry Seeger will study under the mentorship of two faculty: professor of Communication, center affiliate, and director of the Purdue Policy Research Institute, Stacey Connaughton, as well as center director Tim Filley.  Seeger’s project will investigate barriers to adoption of carbon-reducing practices such as agricultural practices. He will assess legal, cultural, financial, and attitudinal barriers to adoption that exist within agricultural communities in Indiana and Peru. For this project he will also be leveraging ongoing work done through the Center’s Arequipa Nexus program.

The Center for the Environment launched this new initiative on the new carbon economy (NCE) in 2020.  The NCE represents an emerging area of policy, social, and physical sciences research aimed at creating technologies and policy tools that will move our economy to sequester more carbon than it produces. Purdue, through the Center for the Environment, is an inaugural member of the multi-university organization the “New Carbon Economy Consortium,” which supports individuals from across institutions and disciplines to pose new research questions, share resources, and develop pathways towards the widespread deployment of carbon removal solutions. The goal is to apply science in areas of Purdue strength to help advance a more productive and less environmentally-harmful approach to our carbon economy.

Source: Lynne Dahmen, ldahmen@purdue.edu