Session:

As the climate crisis worsens, it becomes increasingly clear that solutions will be found at the intersection of science, policy, and community. Attracting and retaining graduate students who work to integrate energy justice into materials science will create a workforce with the tools to address climate change. It is important to consider energy justice when developing materials for a clean energy transition as marginalized communities that have been affected most by climate change tend to benefit least from new energy technology.

Scientists often exclusively receive scientific training, their research motivated by advancement of the field with little regard to societal needs. Graduate students who may take interest in supplementing their work with justice considerations frequently face resistance from advisors and delayed graduation. Energy justice in materials science at the academic level has only recently been garnering attention, so there are few studies in how to engage, retain, and train graduate students in this interdisciplinary field to employ just technologies. We propose a set of solutions at various levels aimed at enabling graduate students with existing interest in justice and engaging students who have not yet considered bringing this aspect into their graduate degrees.

In a doctorate degree, students are regularly discouraged from pursuing interests that do not directly relate to their PhD projects. If research students follow pursuits outside of conventional STEM research, they likely will face extra time in graduate school, which can be a significant deterrent. To address this, interdisciplinary PhD tracks can be created for the purpose of combining energy justice and materials science will explicitly train graduate students in this area. Additionally, adjusting departmental culture to encourage inclusion of justice in current materials science, chemistry, and engineering programs is a significant component. This shift can be partially accomplished by preferentially admitting students and hiring faculty who are committed to intersectionality, as well as encouraging students to include justice results in their dissertation alongside scientific development.

The participation of current graduate students who may not have previously considered societal implications in their degree is crucial. Education is a proven effective path to inspire interest. This exposure is possible through amending required course syllabi to include justice concepts, hosting speakers knowledgeable in these areas, and encouraging students to openly discuss ideas during prescribed meetings. Attracting and retaining researchers in this field will rely on conveying the benefits of environmental and justice work, which is often believed to be draining or even hopeless. Portraying the excitement of working in a cutting-edge field and seeing tangible positive impacts on communities will garner more interest.

Scientific journals are another important factor, as they shape the material that researchers are exposed to. Many journals consider pieces that discuss justice as less scientific and will even instruct authors to remove these components. However, by openly accepting papers which include a justice component related to the materials research, journals will not only educate readers about the societal context of researched technologies, but also encourage potential authors to include justice in their own work while acting as an example of how to do so. This prioritization can have a large impact on how academics view materials science.

In this work we put forth a set of solutions to be used as guidelines for academic departments and journals to teach students to be well-rounded scientists who develop technologies to equitably better all communities. Implementing these solutions will ultimately help create a workforce that has the tools to address the climate crisis in an effective and thoughtful manner.

Co-Author(s): Sasha Neefe (University of Colorado Boulder), Lacey Roberts (University of Colorado Boulder), Ronan Kennedy (University of Colorado Boulder), Michael Toney (University of Colorado Boulder)

Casey Davis

University of Colorado Boulder

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