Salata Scholars Seminar Series

Salata Scholars Seminars are dedicated to climate, sustainability, and environmental work done by Harvard students and fellows. Its goal is to embrace the interdisciplinary nature of sustainability research that can’t be confined to a single Harvard school and help like-minded people connect with each other. Each week, there will be one or two brief talks followed by vegan dinner and discussion. In Fall 2024, we will meet weekly on alternating Tuesdays at noon (HUCE, 26 Oxford St., Cambridge) and Wednesdays at 6pm (Salata Conference Room 3.5, 79 JFK St., Cambridge).

Call for Speakers

Following a successful pilot last spring, we are calling for speakers for the Fall 2024 schedule of the Salata Scholars Seminars! We are looking for graduate students, postdocs, and fellows who can engage an interdisciplinary audience of peers with a 25-minute “tutorial” (approximately 15 min talk+10 min discussion) regarding their research or work at Harvard. 

We are calling it a “tutorial” because your audience will be a truly interdisciplinary crowd (last semester we got presenters and audience members from most Harvard schools) and because questions and discussion are a big part of the experience. A suggested format would include a concise introduction to your field, the method you intend to teach the audience, and a practical demonstration, application, or case study to effectively convey the concept.

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Upcoming Events

Check back in the Spring for another semester of Salata Scholar Seminars.

Past Events

Fall ’24

Week 1 | September 11

Greening the Black Gold: Transforming Saudi Arabia’s Oil-Driven Economy Through Sustainable Energy Innovations

Noura Mansouri, HKS, MPA

Modeling Tropical Islands in Climate Models

Nathanael Wong, GSAS, PhD Candidate in Earth and Planetary Sciences, GSAS 

Week 2 | September 17

Developing the Green AI Index: A Framework for Sustainable Computing

Jerry Huang, GSAS, MS in Computer Science

Assessing the Scalability of US Recycling: The Case of Flexible Plastic Packaging

Oksana Makarova, GSAS/MIT, PhD Candidate in Engineering and Applied Sciences

Week 3 | September 25

Politics of Water Shortages in Chile

Magdalena Larreboure, Ph.D Candidate in Public Policy, GSAS

AI and the Energy Revolution

Rowen VonPlagenhoef, Lemann Program Fellow, FAS

Week 4 | October 1

Breaking the mould- Understanding opportunities for off-grid sector in West Africa 

Manali Jain, HKS, MPP

Week 5 | October 9

Inefficient Policies in the Green Transition

Juan Dodyk, GSAS, PhD student in Government

Week 6 | October 15

The role of root exudation in the global carbon cycle

Nikhil Chari, GSAS, PhD student in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology

Week 7 | October 23

Promoting Climate Justice Through Greening Curriculum

Ranjitsinh Disale, GSE, MS

Week 8 | October 29

Confessions from a former Oil and Gas professional

Mohamed Abdelgaleel, HKS, MidCareer-MPA, policy director at African Caucus

Week 9 | November 6

COP29 Negotiations: What to Expect and Why It Matters

Alice Soewito, HBS and HKS, Joint MPP-MBA

Week 10 | November 12 at noon

Energy Transitions in Mexico

Santiago Creuheras, HKS, Weatherhead Fellow/Visiting Scholar

Week 11 | November 20 at 6 pm

Inequality in outdoor occupational exposure to heat waves in India

Arpit Shah, FAS, Postdoctoral Research Scholar

Assessing the Scalability of US Recycling: The Case of Flexible Plastic Packaging

Oksana Makarova, SEAS/MIT, PhD Candidate in Engineering Sciences  

Spring ’24

Week 1 | February 7

“What is the cheapest way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions? Lessons from carbon abatement costs” with Roxana Shafiee, Environmental Fellow at the Harvard University Center for the Environment

Week 2 | February 15

“Project of Hope: Indigenous Land Recovery & Ecological Restoration” with Leyla Uysal, Harvard GSD

Week 3 | February 21

A dual talk on transformative sustainability strategies featuring Lingling Jiang, founder of Intrapreneurs with Purpose (IWP) and an MPA student at HKS, and Elena Indar Athwal, LL.M. Candidate in International Environmental & Energy Law at HLS.

Week 4 | February 29

“The role of Substantive Youth Participation and Representation in Advancing Climate Change Policies” with Neringa Tumenaite, Ph.D. Candidate, SOAS University of London, Fulbright Schuman Fellow at FXB Center for Health & Human Rights, Harvard University

“Data-driven lessons from accessing international forest carbon funding for Costa Rica and Côte d’Ivoire” with Rafael Monge, Mid-Career Master’s in Public Administration student, Harvard Kennedy School, Former Director of the National Center of Geoenvironmental Information of the Ministry of Environment and Energy of Costa Rica

Week 5 | March 6

“Potential threats to ocean biodiversity in the transition to renewable energy” with Jacqueline Evans, an MC-MPA 2024 student at the Harvard Kennedy School from the Cook Islands in the Pacific

Week 6 | March 20

“Geospatial Machine Learning: Data-focused algorithm design, development, and evaluation” with Esther Rolf, a postdoctoral fellow with the Harvard Data Science Initiative and the Center for Research on Computation and Society

“Isotopes as a Tool to Investigate Organic Aerosol Emissions and Atmospheric Oxidation Pathways” with Daniel Crocker, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences

Week 7 | March 28

“From Meat to Greens: Transforming Taiwanese Diets for a Sustainable Future” with Sarah Wang
“Modeling Nutrition Transitions at Both Poles: the Arctic & Madagascar” with Sappho Gilbert

Week 8 | April 3

“Lithium Ion Battery Manufacturing” with Adhitya Raghavan, HBS

“Deliberative Climate Politics – Comparing the Irish Citizens’ Assembly and the French Citizen Convention for Climate” with
Postdoctoral research fellow, Ash Center, HKS

Week 9 | April 11

“Can Doughnut Economics Guide Urban Development in Balance with People and Planet?” with Emil Bender Lassen in Public Policy student at HKS

“Regenerative Agrivoltaics as a path to net zero- the case for widespread implementation” with Anastassia Nefedova, Graduate Student (ALM) in Sustainability at the Harvard Extension School

Week 10 | April 17

“Private Wind Rights and Their Public Consequences” with Dolly Bai, 3L J.D. candidate at HLS

“Environmental History of Brazilian Hydropower: Reflecting on Past Experiences with Low-Carbon Energy” with Matthew P. Johnson, an environmental historian and 2022-2024 postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard University Center for the Environment