Faculty Spotlight: Fiona Burlig
The video spotlights Fiona Burlig, a faculty member whose early experience living in Cape Town revealed stark economic inequality and ignited a career dedicated to improving livelihoods amid energy transitions. Her academic journey began with a dissertation on rural electrification in India, and she has since expanded to examine how increasing renewable capacity reshapes the Indian power system and its implications for coal use. Burlig’s current projects develop climate forecasts for farmers and explore affordable access to electricity and clean water for low‑income rural populations, emphasizing India’s unique scale—over a billion people facing disproportionate climate risks. At EPIC, she champions a collaborative model that brings government partners into research from day one, ensuring findings translate directly into policy decisions that balance development, climate mitigation, and public health. This approach aims to guide India’s transition from a coal‑dominant grid to a renewable‑heavy system while safeguarding the poorest communities, making the research both academically rigorous and immediately actionable for policymakers.
Faculty Spotlight: Shaoda Wang
In a recent Faculty Spotlight, Professor Shaoda Wang discusses his work examining the economic dimensions of China’s aggressive anti‑pollution campaign launched in 2014. The campaign cut nationwide PM2.5 concentrations by roughly 40 % within six years, but Wang notes that the rapid...
Behind the Scenes: Rachel Westrate
Rachel Wester, a former EPA International Affairs delegate now at Vermont Law, unveiled a draft model law that integrates air‑quality and climate‑pollution regulations. The initiative, born from her EPA work on UN resolutions and the Monte Vivido program, seeks to give...