Hotter, Wetter, Drier: Contemporary Urbanization and Challenges for Sustainability
Karen C. Seto, Ph.D., Yale University
Thursday, Nov. 14, at 4 p.m.
University of Connecticut, Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, Konover Auditorium
Please join us for the next Teale Lecture featuring Dr. Karen C. Seto.
Karen Seto is one of the world’s leading experts on contemporary urbanization and global change. At Yale University, she is the Frederick C. Hixon Professor of Geography and Urbanization Science in the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
By bringing multiple disciplines together, her work has generated new insights on the interaction between urbanization and food systems, the effects of urban expansion on biodiversity and cropland loss, urban energy use and emissions, and urban mitigation of climate change. She is a specialist in contemporary urbanization in China and India, and her research is notable for its systematic use of big data and a scientific lens to study urbanization as a process and to understand the aggregate global impacts of urbanization.
A geographer by training, Seto integrates remote sensing, field interviews, and modeling methods to study urbanization and land change, forecast urban growth, and examine the environmental consequences of urban expansion. She earned a BA in Political Science from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and MA in International Relations & Resource and Environmental Management and PhD in Geography from Boston University.
Seto has served on numerous national and international scientific bodies. She is co-leading the urban mitigation chapter for the IPCC 6th Assessment Report and co-lead the same chapter for the IPCC 5th Assessment Report. She co-founded and for ten years co-chaired an international science program, Urbanization and Global Environmental Change (UGEC), which framed, enabled, and coordinated urban environmental research with more than 1,000 affiliates across over 50 countries. She has served on numerous U.S. National Research Council (NRC) Committees, including the NRC Committee to the Advise the U.S. Global Change Research Program and the NRC Committee on Pathways to Urban Sustainability.
Seto was the Executive Producer of “10,000 Shovels: Rapid Urban Growth in China,” a documentary film that integrates satellite imagery, historical photographs, and contemporary film footage to highlight the urban changes occurring in China. From 2000 to 2008, she was faculty member at Stanford University, where she held joint appointments in the Woods Institute for the Environment and the School of Earth Sciences. She has received numerous awards for her scientific contributions, including a NASA New Investigator Program Award, a NSF Career Award, a National Geographic Research Grant, and the Outstanding Contributions to Remote Sensing Research Award from the American Association of Geographers. She is an elected member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering, and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.
Teale 2019-2020: https://cese.uconn.edu/the-edwin-way-teale-lecture-series/
Sponsored by the Office of the President, Office of the Provost, Office of the Vice President for Research, College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Graduate School, School of Engineering, School of Fine Arts, School of Law, Atmospheric Sciences Group, Center for Environmental Sciences & Engineering, Center of Biological Risk, Connecticut Institute for Resilience and Climate Adaptation, Connecticut State Museum of Natural History, Connecticut Sea Grant Program, Environmental Sciences Program, Environmental Studies Program, Geosciences Program, Human Rights Institute, Humanities Institute, Office of Environmental Policy, and UConn Library, as well as by Departments of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Economics, English, Geography, History, Natural Resources & the Environment, Political Science, and Physics.
For more information, contact: CSMNH at csmnhinfo@uconn.edu