Erin Baker, 2017 PEP Fellow, discusses what a just energy transition looks like

“The energy transition is going to be a massive change, truly massive, which presents challenges, but it also brings opportunities… So when we think of equity and justice, people often think about the distribution of good things and bad things — who’s getting good things? Who’s getting bad things? And that is very, very important. But I think we want to go beyond that and think about wealth because the energy transition is going to create wealth. And so can we kind of harness this so that the wealth is created in communities that have been cut out in the past?” Read more here

Joya Misra, 2021 PEP Fellow, comments on a new study finding that one-third of researchers quit science within five years of authoring their first paper, and almost half leave within a decade

The study used publishing as a proxy for activity level in academia and found that overall, women were more likely than men to stop publishing. “A lot of times, women aren’t recognized as collaborators on published work, and so we tend to be under-represented in the publications that appear. There’s also kind of a bias there,” says Misra, who was not involved in the study. “We don’t really know who should have been listed as authors on papers.” Read more here

Paul Collins, 2015 PEP Fellow, has written an article about the judicial nominations of the Trump-Pence and Biden-Harris administrations.

“The Trump-Pence administration emphasized the selection of very conservative jurists with deep ties to the conservative legal movement. In contrast, the Biden-Harris administration sought to diversify the federal bench, making it more closely reflect the America it represents,” Collins writes. Read more here

Julie Brigham-Grette, 2017 PEP Fellow, named to arctic council climate expert group

Julie Brigham-Grette, professor of Earth, geographic, and climate sciences at UMass Amherst, has been appointed as the U.S. co-lead for the Climate Expert Group of the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP), alongside leaders from Norway and Sweden. Selected by the U.S. Global Change Office, Brigham-Grette will help guide the integration of policy-relevant climate science to address global challenges. She also co-leads the Arctic Hub for UMass' Center for Braiding Indigenous Knowledges and Science (CBIKS), aiming to amplify the voices of Indigenous Arctic inhabitants. Read more here

Andy Danylchuk, 2022 PEP Fellow, has additional reporting on a report that assessed when a predator partially or wholly consumes an angler’s catch before it is landed

Danylchuk leads a team of researchers at UMass Amherst who are studying the increasing problem of depredation, where predators like sharks and seals snatch fish off anglers' lines before they can reel them in. This issue has become more frequent due to rising predator populations, thanks to conservation efforts, and an increase in recreational fishing. The researchers are seeking input from fishermen to better understand the problem along the Northeast coast and explore potential solutions to help reduce these occurrences. Read more here

Sanjay Arwade, 2020 PEP Fellow, is quoted in a story about Vineyard Wind, the nation’s largest offshore wind project, located 15 miles off Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket

Sanjay Arwade expects wind power to continue to progress in the U.S., regardless of the outcome of the 2024 presidential election. “What I would expect to see at that point [by 2050] is dozens of individual projects, dozens of wind farms, and thousands of individual turbines along the coast, let’s say from Virginia to Maine, all of which are generating power and sending it to the onshore grid and powering homes with no emissions,” Arwade says. Read more here

Rebecca Spencer, 2015 PEP Fellow, says that midday naps may replenish energy

Rebecca Spencer says taking a midday nap may replenish energy but won’t necessarily negate the health risks that may come with insufficient sleep at night. Read more here

Agnès Lacreuse, 2022 PEP Fellow, discusses the importance of countering sex bias in neurological study

“It’s a paralyzing and controversial subject, but it’s very dangerous to think that we should not study sex differences,” she says. As sex can influence multiple aspects of brain behavior and disease, “It is really important to include women in all studies, and while our studies speak about differences, it doesn't mean that one is better than the other.” Read more here

Donald Tomaskovic-Devey, 2018 PEP Fellow, comments on a report from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) finding that women are persistently underrepresented in technology industries

He says there is room for further analysis. “What I would have liked to see the EEOC do is make even better use of their data,” Tomaskovic-Devey explains. “By looking at firms over time, the EEOC could identify employers that made real progress as well as those that are becoming less diverse.” Read more here

Jamie Hartmann-Boyce, 2024 PEP Fellow, has additional coverage of a new review of evidence which identified the top three ways to quit smoking

“For people who smoke cigarettes, the single best thing they can do for their health is to quit smoking,” she says. “However, many people find it difficult to do so. Fortunately, there is strong evidence to support the use of several different ways to quit.” Read more here

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