New MCSC Impact Fellows Bring Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives to Scale Climate Solutions
October 4, 2024
The MIT Climate & Sustainability Consortium (MCSC) is welcoming three new Impact Fellows with backgrounds in biodiversity, green chemistry, and engineering policy for two-year appointments within the Impact Pathways for nature-based solutions, circularity, and social dimensions.
The Impact Fellowship Program is a postdoctoral opportunity for exceptional researchers seeking to apply their expertise to near-term change for a more sustainable future—transcending academia and industry through synergistic partnerships between MIT researchers and industry representatives. Launched in 2021, the program invites Fellows to collaborate with other MIT faculty, as well as external organizations and communities, to shape and implement the innovative solutions needed to address global climate change and sustainability. They bring their talent to MCSC’s core Impact Pathways, which also include tough transportation modes, value chain resilience, natural carbon sinks, carbon capture and storage, data and computing, and climate finance.
Michelle Westerlaken
An interdisciplinary design researcher specializing in biodiversity technologies and community-based practices, Michelle (she/her) holds a PhD in Interaction Design from Malmö University (Sweden) and has undertaken postdoctoral research at the Planetary Praxis research group at the University of Cambridge (UK).
Michelle aims to create more impactful forms of community and stakeholder participation in sustainable innovation by developing design openings and articulating socio-political challenges to influence strategic decision-making. Michelle’s research and design works build on Science and Technology Studies and Participatory Design methods to critically and generatively investigate how emerging biodiversity technologies such as sensors, digital simulations, and digital data infrastructures can be brought in conversation with the communities most impacted by such innovations.
“Research is not just an individual, cognitive, or human-centered practice, but a collective effort that we can shape but not master alone."
“Research is not just an individual, cognitive, or human-centered practice, but a collective effort that we can shape but not master alone,” says Michelle. “In order to create more sustainable futures, we need to pay much closer attention to the other entities (animals, plants, rocks) we share this planet with. Only by taking into account their responses to climate change and their collective world-making practices in the design of new technologies can we figure out how we can thrive together.”
Over the last decade, Michelle’s publications have advanced knowledge through collaborative design theory and prototyping practices, engaging a variety of communities—including humans, other species, and forests—by using various interactive technologies. Michelle also played a vital role in the development of the Smart Forests Atlas, an open-data and digital methods platform on environmental technologies.
Michelle is looking forward to being immersed in the vibrant interdisciplinary environment that the MCSC cultivates. As an Impact Fellow, Michelle is researching the socio-technical dimensions of nature-based approaches to sustainability, especially in relation to biodiversity, with the goal of creating more multidimensional approaches for understanding biodiversity that inspire alternative environmental futures and technologies.
Mary Kate Mitchell Lane
Mary Kate (she/her) earned a PhD in Chemical and Environmental Engineering from Yale University, in Dr. Julie Zimmerman’s green engineering research group. Mary Kate’s thesis research utilized supercritical fluids as green solvents for biorefinery and nanoparticle synthesis applications. Mary Kate was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow, the 2021 ACS Green Chemistry Institute Joseph Breen Memorial Fellow, and an Advanced Graduate Leadership Program Fellow.
Prior to graduate school, Mary Kate gained experience in a diverse set of industry and research roles, from interning in oil refining and natural gas distribution to research in ultracapacitor development, biofuel synthesis, and water treatment. Mary Kate’s work considers the many pieces that must be brought together in the pursuit of green chemistry, renewable energy, and sustainability—including the practical balance of lab work with policy and industrial impact.
“An eye-opening moment in my trajectory was the realization that I should be more than just a technical engineer. I started to think about how my research can impact broader systems and people.”
“An eye-opening moment in my trajectory was the realization that I should be more than just a technical engineer,” says Mary Kate, “I started to think about how my research can impact broader systems and people.”
Informed by the drive to integrate lab work with social concerns, Mary Kate’s perspective paper “Green Chemistry as Just Chemistry,” published in Nature Sustainability, demonstrated that the goals of green chemistry and environmental justice are often aligned and that these two fields can, and should, synergistically work together. Mary Kate also led a literature review project on how green chemistry can create safer lab spaces for pregnant researchers, “What to Expect When Expecting in Lab: A Review of Unique Risks and Resources for Pregnant Researchers in the Chemical Laboratory,” published in Chemical Research in Toxicology.
As an MCSC Impact Fellow in the Circularity pathway, Mary Kate is investigating the optimization of converting waste materials into usable products like sustainable aviation fuel through experimental research in the Plata Lab in Civil and Environmental Engineering, as well as the broader impacts of material and energy flows across the economy. Mary Kate is looking forward to filling in knowledge gaps with the industry perspectives of MCSC member companies, towards increasing circularity and sustainability to positively impact the Earth and economic systems.
Laurent Lioté
Laurent (he/him) holds a PhD in Engineering and Public Policy from University College London (UK), where he worked with the UK’s energy ministry to explore how engineering advice is deployed in renewable energy policy practice. Having taught and presented across Europe, North America, and Asia, Laurent has a keen interest in public speaking and is passionate about teaching future policy makers and engineers the skills needed to better collaborate on climate policy making.
Laurent’s research has generated award-winning academic and policy publications catering to both the engineering and policy communities, including “Modeling for the UK’s Utility-Scale Solar Regulation Change,” presented at the International Society for Technology in Education Conference on Transdisciplinary Engineering at MIT in 2022. Drawing on a background in anthropology, policy, and experience in strategy consulting, Laurent’s work mixes ethnographic data with a custom theoretical framework based on Engineering Studies, Science and Technology Studies and policy literature to map out the engineering-policy interface. This includes understanding how engineering and policy experts work together to create net zero policies, what the barriers to collaboration might be, and how to overcome them.
“It is fascinating to explore how different organizational structures and cultures impact the work of both engineers and policy makers, and how these groups find middle ground to collaborate effectively.
Laurent reflects, “It is fascinating to explore how different organizational structures and cultures impact the work of both engineers and policy makers, and how these groups find middle ground to collaborate effectively.”
As an Impact Fellow, Laurent will work jointly with the MCSC, the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI), and the MIT Climate Policy Center (MCPC) and is looking forward to gaining the additional perspectives of industry experts at MCSC member companies. Laurent aims to investigate different micro- and organizational-scale strategies to improve collaboration between engineers in government, industry and academia, and policymakers. His ultimate goal is to improve bi-directional knowledge exchange at the engineering-policy interface for better facilitation of global sustainability transitions.