As global warming continues to intensify, ecologically sensitive urban places are particularly prone to its consequences. This panel will focus on the world-renowned Galapagos Islands, a place experiencing meteoric growth in land- and sea-based tourism (up from 18,000 in 1980 to 271,000 in 2019) as an example. Speakers engaged in Penn IUR’s Galapagos Goes Green Project, will underscore their efforts to increase public awareness about the conflict between local desires to maximize visitors and resulting induced negative effects (e.g., uncontrolled urban growth, increased use of fossil fuels, ongoing threat to biodiversity) as a means to guide public and private decision-making about many dimensions of the islands’ economy. A short, animated video, What Would it Take to Make Galapagos Tourist Resilient?, will be shown and explain the underlying research.
In this panel discussion sponsored by the Penn Institute for Urban Research and the Perry World House, academics, researchers, and artists will come together to discuss interdisciplinary methods on raising public awareness on climate change. Speakers will include: Simon Richter, Class of 1942 Endowed Term Professor of Germanic Studies, School of Arts & Sciences and Joshua Mosley, Professor of Fine Arts, Weitzman School of Design, and Kelly Kennedy, Research Coordinator and Lab Manager of the Galápagos Education and Research Alliance. Eugenie L. Birch, Co-Director, Penn Institute for Urban Research will moderate the session.
Kelly Kennedy is the Research Coordinator and Lab Manager for the Galapagos Education and Research Alliance (GERA). Kelly spends her time supporting the current students in the development and execution of research projects, beginning at Penn and continuing onsite in San Cristobal, Galápagos. Her involvement with GERA predates its founding: she began working with Dr. Michael Weisberg in 2014 while completing her undergraduate degree at Penn, where she studied psychology and philosophy of science. Kelly has helped with various endeavors during her tenure, including launching GERA’s first community science project investigating the complicated relationship between humans and sea lions living in San Cristóbal. In the past, she served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Indonesia, where she organized an environmental conference for students living in Eastern Java.
Joshua Mosley is Professor of Fine Arts in the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design. He received his M.F.A. and B.F.A. from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and his A.A. from St. Louis Community College. Joshua is a recipient of the Joseph H. Hazen Rome Prize, the Pew Fellowship in the Arts, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship. His work has exhibited and screened at the 2014 Whitney Biennial, the 2007 Venice Biennale, the Museum of Modern Art, NY, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, the Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Basel, Switzerland, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, CT, the Reina Sofia in Madrid, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Donald Young Gallery, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the the Fabric Workshop and Museum, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, the SITE Santa Fe Eighth International Biennial, and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.
Simon Richter is the Class of 1942 Endowed Term Professor of Germanic Studies. His research and teaching focus on cultural aspects of climate adaptation and resilience in the Netherlands, Germany, Indonesia, and the United States. As an environmental humanist, he engages in activities that blur distinctions between traditional scholarship, urban design, and environmental activism. He instigated the Penn 1.5* Minute Climate Lectures, starting in 2019, and, with Billy Fleming, initiated Climate Week at Penn in 2020. He frequently collaborates with colleagues in the Weitzman School of Design. In 2018-19, he was a member of One Resilient Semarang, an international team of urban designers, engineers, ecologists, and urban and environmental activists from Indonesia, the Netherlands and the United States, organized by Penn Professor of Practice Matthijs Bouw. Since then, he’s been on similar design teams in Amsterdam and the Eastern part of the Netherlands. He is the PI together with Bouw and Joshua Mosley for a novel Penn Global research project involving theater, serious gaming, and documentary filmmaking on future transboundary climate migration in the Netherlands and Germany.
Eugenie L. Birch is the Lawrence C. Nussdorf Chair of Urban Research and Education and Co-Director of the Penn Institute for Urban Research. She teaches courses in global urbanization and the doctoral seminar and serves as chair, Graduate Group in City and Regional Planning, co-director, Penn Institute for Urban Research, co-editor, City in the 21st Century Series, University of Penn Press and co-editor, SSRN Urban Research e-journal.
Professor Birch has been active in the field’s professional and civic organizations in the United States and abroad. She is president, General Assembly of Partners (GAP), the engagement platform for the implementation of the UN’s New Urban Agenda and associated global agreements, co-chair, Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) Thematic Group on Cities, and an Associate Editor, Journal of the American Planning Association. In the past, she has been president, Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning; president, Society of American City and Regional Planning History; president, International Planning History Society; and co-editor, Journal of the American Planning Association. She has been a member of the Planning Accreditation Board, having served as its chair from 2004-2006. She has been a member of the editorial boards of Planning Theory and Practice, Journal of Planning History, Journal of Planning Education and Research and Planning Perspectives. In the early 1990s, she was a member of the New York City Planning Commission, and in 2002, she served on the jury to select the designers for the World Trade Center site. She has chaired the Board of Trustees of the Municipal Art Society of New York and is currently a member of the Board of Trustees of the Regional Plan Association of New York.
Providing expert commentary on urban topics and highlighting Penn IUR's research in the context of pressing urban issues.
