A major goal of my research agenda is to better understand the circumstances under which collaborative governance processes – those that involve diverse stakeholders in consensus-oriented deliberations about public policy issues – can improve both democratic policy processes and socio-environmental outcomes. I'm particularly interested in how collaborative processes can be used to enhance sustainability in arid and snowmelt-dependent river basins facing water scarcity, especially the Colorado River and Lake Tahoe basins.. I am also interested in how collaborative processes change shift our traditional assumptions about the policy process, as embedded in frameworks such as the Advocacy Coalition Framework and the Multiple Streams Framework.
My current project on this topic, funded by an NSF CAREER Award, examines how collaborative processes have impacted polycentric governance and water sustainability outcomes in the Colorado River Basin. It uses the Ecology of Games Theory as a theoretical framework. This project will run concurrently with the process of renegotiating a number of major Colorado River Basin policies from 2021-2026.
This interdisciplinary and collaborative project seeks to understand what drives individuals' risk perceptions and risk-reduction behaviors in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. The team collects and shares timely and relevant data with policymakers and stakeholders to inform both risk communication and policymaking. I bring experience in public policy, disaster policy, survey methods, and narrative analysis to the team. I am currently working to understand racial disparities in COVID-19 perceptions, behaviors, and outcomes, as well as how COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter protests interact as policy focusing events with risk perceptions.
Urban water-supply systems consist of both physical infrastructure and policies that govern their use. These systems are designed to be adaptable to a wide range of supply and demand conditions. However, climatic and social shifts are placing new stresses on water-supply systems that require substantial changes, also called transitions, to maintain system performance. Using a "convergence" approach, this research analyzes transitions across 12 large-scale urban water systems in the United States to achieve two goals: 1) to better document the interactions among various environmental and human factors that may prompt transition, and 2) to identify which infrastructure and policy design choices can foster practical transitions to increase sustainability. Knowledge relating design to outcomes is key because, although cities cannot control the dynamics of hydrological or human systems, they can alter design choices. To accomplish these goals this project will gather and analyze longitudinal human and environmental data to synthesize relationships and trends, and develop two complementary models to identify pathways that can lead to a sustainable water-supply transition. This project will directly involve stakeholders in multiple stages of the research to both learn from their experiences and ensure that outputs meet their needs. This project also will provide education and training opportunities to help students develop the competencies needed to collaborate across fields, a skill that is essential to tackle current environmental challenges.
Recent decades have witnessed significant changes in snowpack volume and in the timing of snowmelt across the western United States. These changes, which are expected to intensify due to climate change, have impacted seasonal water availability for agricultural producers and have put stress on water allocation institutions. We are an interdisciplinary team of researchers working to understand how predicted changes in mountain snowpack will alter the quantity and timing of water flows, how agricultural producers and other downstream users will respond to changes in water flows, and how water allocation institutions can be amended to help communities adapt. This project will provide information to water managers, agriculture producers, and other decision-makers to improve the efficiency of water allocation institutions and support continued agricultural production in snowmelt-fed basins in the western United States.