Interim Director, Center for Climate Change Education
Email: crioux@framingham.edu
Dr. Rioux received her MS in environmental engineering and PhD in Interdisciplinary Environmental Health from Tufts University. As senior scientist, senior project manager, and university professor her work in environmental health and engineering includes projects in 16 US states, as well as several international collaborations in Hong Kong, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Tanzania, Uganda and Vietnam. Her research and publications have advanced the understanding of environmental vulnerability, One Health, and climate-related impacts using a variety of investigative methods including: health risk assessment, spatial epidemiology, field studies and community-based research. In her capacity as Interim Director of C3E she hopes to help catalyze the work of the amazing faculty and students at FSU and to facilitate greater diversity and inclusion in climate change education and the green economy.
Professor and Chair, Earth Science and Physics
Email: vsingh@framingham.edu
Vandana Singh is the co-founder of the Center for Climate Change Education. She has a PhD in theoretical particle physics from Louisiana State University and is interested in everything from quarks to multiverses. Dr. Singh is very interested in climate change science and pedagogy, transdisciplinarity, and the impacts of climate change on indigenous peoples. She teaches the science of climate change in all her physics courses. She has written an interdisciplinary case study on climate change and the Arctic as part of a program award from the American Association of Colleges and Universities.
Her greatest concerns about climate change include recognizing the climatic and sociological tipping points specifically for the most vulnerable populations. Her work aims to help FSU students be ready to mitigate and adapt to climate change but also be change makers.
Professor, Physics and Earth Science
Email: lmckenna1@framingham.edu
Dr. McKenna is co-founder of the Center for Climate Change Education. After completing his B.S. and Ph. D. at MIT he joined the faculty at the University of Kansas, founded the staff development firm Working Knowledge in 1997, and joined FSU in 2008. McKenna’s primary interest now is educating the public about the physics and ethics of climate change. McKenna believes that effective climate education must start with K-12 educators, as they can influence thousands of students during their careers. McKenna is completing his textbook, Conversations with the Earth, which is to be published by Oxford University Press. He is also manages FSU’s Master’s in Education program for STEM.
Professor, Sociology
Email: mpipkins@framingham.edu
Martel Pipkins has a PhD in Sociology and Women’s Studies from Texas Women’s University. His research and teaching interests include transnational solidarity, social inequality, women’s labor, global stratification, and the intersections between racism, sexism, and nation. His areas of Specialization include: Criminology, Stratification, Comparative/Global Sociology, Women’s Studies, Teaching and Learning/Critical Pedagogy.
Dr. Pipkins addresses the challenges of climate change in several of his courses through a sociological/criminological lens using contemporary examples of corporate pollution as a form of white collar crime and how these crimes impact the most vulnerable populations.
His greatest concerns about climate change is its large, immediate effects on vulnerable populations who contributed to it the least and through his work, he hopes FSU students will continue to build their awareness and organize to counter these issues.
Faculty, Sociology and Anthropology
Email: meredith.marchioni@framingham.edu
Dr. Meredith Marchioni received her PhD in Sociology and from Florida International University and her M.A. in Anthropology from American University. Her graduate work focused on social, economic, and environmental resilience within Alaskan commercial fishing communities. More recently, she worked as a cultural anthropologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s Division of Subsistence. In this position, Dr. Marchioni conducted ethnographic research with Native Alaskan hunters and fishers. She collected Traditional Ecological Knowledge that she then presented to resource managers and governing bodies to implement change. Her research and teaching interests include environmental sociology, qualitative and quantitative research methods, and human adaptation to climate change. Her greatest concerns about climate change involve the lives of individuals in the most vulnerable areas of the world. She hopes that her students will go on to be successful in their chosen careers while remaining conscious of how all cultures treat their natural and social environments.
Assistant Professor, Chemistry
Email: dbell@framingham.edu
Dr. Bell received his PhD in Chemistry from the University of Texas at Austin. His areas of expertise include organic, industrial and environmental chemistry. His research is related to biofuels, specifically the oxidative delignification of woody materials. His greatest concerns related to climate are ocean acidification and the approaching impact of peak oil on human civilization. His hopes for his FSU students are to obtain a respect for the magnitude energy consumption that drives a modern civilization and the environmental consequences of that energy input.