Aronson Center for International Studies Speaker Series: Sarah Jordaan, Lana Weidgenant '20, and Sophia Kianni

Description

The Fall 2021 Aronson Center for International Studies Speaker Series continues with "Climate Change and Capitalism: The Cost of Our Modern Lifestyle" with Sarah Jordaan, assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and climate activists Lana Weidgenant '20 and Sophia Kianni.

Please attend the event by using the Zoom link.

Sarah Marie Jordaan is an assistant professor of energy, resources, and environment at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on life-cycle assessment, techno economic analysis, technology innovation, and policy. Her publications determine solutions to environmental and economic trade-offs of energy decisions with an emphasis on supply chains and life-cycle assessment. Her collaborations have been published in journals such as Nature Energy, Nature Climate Change, Science, Environmental Science & Technology, and Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews. Prior to Johns Hopkins, she held positions at Harvard University, the Electric Power Research Institute, Shell Canada, the University of Calgary, and the Laboratory on International Law and Regulation at the University of California, San Diego. She earned her doctorate in environmental design from the University of Calgary in 2010 and a Bachelor of Science in physics with a minor in computer science from Memorial University in 2003. She teaches a variety of courses including Life-Cycle Assessment and Climate Science, Economics and Policy.

Lana Weidgenant is a recent graduate of Johns Hopkins University who is involved in international climate action. She is the vice-chair for shifting to sustainable consumption patterns for the UN Food Systems Summit and also a deputy director of international climate justice organization Zero Hour. At Zero Hour, activists host educational campaigns on "getting to the roots of climate change," which include addressing capitalism.

Sophia Kianni is an Iranian-American environmentalist studying climate science and public policy at Stanford University. She is the founder and executive director of Climate Cardinals, an international nonprofit with 8,000 volunteers in 40+ countries working to translate climate information into over 100 languages. She represents the U.S. as the youngest member on the inaugural UN Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change. Kianni's work has been featured in news outlets including Forbes, CNN, Business Insider, BBC, NPR, Elle, Time Magazine, The Guardian, NBC, and even on the front page of the Washington Post. She was previously a fellow with PBS NewsHour and has written for news outlets such as MTV News, Cosmopolitan, Refinery 29, and Teen Vogue. She is a prolific public speaker and has spoken at universities across the country including Columbia University, the University of California at Berkeley, Emory University, and Harvard University. She has been named Vice Media's youngest Human of the Year, a National Geographic Young Explorer, and BuzzFeed's youngest Woman to Watch.