Making an Impact
Social Ecology faculty go beyond our local and regional communities to address global issues. Use this interactive map to easily see our global footprint and learn more about our outreach efforts.
View MapAround the Globe
Global Service Scholars
Building upon the Field Study program, this new one-year program offers students a unique opportunity to make a difference in the world by learning to approach issues with empathy and compassion. Through classroom work and a summer field study abroad, students tackle poverty problems and bring their ingenuity to those in need.
FloodRISE
FloodRISE focuses on flood and drought disaster risk mitigation in Southern California, Mexico and Africa. An interdisciplinary collaboration between Social Ecology and the School of Engineering, FloodRISE partners with communities to develop sophisticated computer models that incorporate local knowledge and customizes information for residents, emergency responders, planners, businesses and civic leaders, to powerfully reduces risk.
Divided Cities
Over the past 21 years, Professor Scott Bollens has interviewed over 360 urban professionals and community advocates in Jerusalem, Belfast, Johannesburg, Nicosia (Cyprus), Sarajevo and Mostar (Bosnia), Barcelona and Basque cities (Spain), and Beirut about the role of urban policy and city building amidst nationalistic ethnic conflict and political transitions.
Blum Center for Poverty Alleviation
The Blum Center operates on the idea that a world-class university must be a force for tackling the world’s most daunting challenge – poverty. The Center’s mission is to enable a new generation of students and researchers to ask and address critical questions about economic development that are key prerequisites to devising effective and innovative approaches to alleviating contemporary poverty.
Empathy in Swaziland
Professor Jodi Quas and doctoral student Kelli Dickerson, have studied empathy in children growing up in conditions of extreme adversity in Swaziland. Their goal was to better understand the emotional processes within the children and in their environments to identify ways to build empathy and prosocial tendencies in highly vulnerable children.
Toward a Sustainable 21st Century
For the past ten years, the Toward a Sustainable 21st Century conference series has brought together researchers, practitioners and experts to connect and collaborate on addressing unsolved global problems. Past conferences have covered diverse issues such as marine resource conservation, climate resiliency in coastal communities, clean energy, melting glaciers and green chemistry.