February 27, 2024

Associate Professor of History Kevin A. Young has been named a 2024 Public Engagement Faculty Fellow. Eight fellows selected in all by the Public Engagement Project (PEP) will draw upon their substantial research records to impact policy, the work of practitioners, and public debates.

Young studies how the fossil fuel industry wields political power and how the climate movement can overcome industry resistance to a Green New Deal. His research draws lessons from historical social movements that defeated other capitalist industries. As a PEP fellow, he will write a series of op-eds and build a network of media contacts.

The PEP Fellows Program, of which this group constitutes the 10th cohort, facilitates connections between fellows and lawmakers in the U.S. Congress and Massachusetts State House, journalists, practitioners and others to share their research beyond the walls of academia. The faculty fellows will receive a stipend and technical training in communicating with non-academic audiences.

“Over the past decade, the expanding network of PEP Faculty Fellows has made significant impacts,” says Lisa M. Troy, director of the Public Engagement Project and associate professor in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences and the Commonwealth Honors College. “By training UMass faculty to translate their scholarship to an audience beyond academia, UMass faculty are having broader impacts locally, nationally, and internationally. PEP Fellows have been invited to governor task forces, onto the National Academy of Sciences committees, and for congressional testimony, as well as informing the general public through various media outlets. In this way, PEP Fellows are facilitating the mission of UMass Amherst as a land grant university, ‘to advance knowledge and improve the lives of the people of the Commonwealth, the nation and the world.’”

The Public Engagement Project is a faculty-driven initiative building on a collaboration of the Institute for Social Science Research (ISSR), the Center for Research on Families (CRF) and the Transportation Center (UMTC). The PEP Faculty Fellowship has been made possible by funding from the College of Education, College of Engineering, College of Humanities and Fine Arts, College of Natural Sciences, College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, School of Public Health and Health Sciences, Office of the Provost and University Relations.