Measuring Patterns Across the State — and Across the Street

Vivek Shandas, one of OEC's new Board members, has always been interested in land - what it's made of, how it's allocated, and the ways society interacts with it. It started at a young age, when he and his family moved from a tropical region of Southern India to dry-and-mild Northern California. The contrast was immediately apparent.

"I saw firsthand the different ways the earth can reveal itself based on where you are," says Vivek. "That got me interested in trying to understand why we see such unique patterns in different parts of the planet."

That spark would eventually lead to Vivek studying "agroecosystems" - in his words, "trying to understand how plants talk to each other, and how they draw on the land's resources to produce the things we consume" - early in his academic career. It wasn't until grad school that his research turned toward urban areas and their relationship with climate change.

"The risks of climate change haven't been a part of urban studies for very long," he says. "In the 90's, scholars were even arguing that climate change would be good for cities; they said it would increase productivity in colder places, and that the melted ice would make it easier to transport goods. But that changed by the turn of the century. In 2008, I helped publish a paper that really pointed to cities and climate as two trains on the same track, barreling toward each other. More people living in cities means climate events will impact more people as a result."

In 2010, Vivek founded PSU's Sustaining Urban Places Research Lab - or SUPR (pronounced "super") Lab, as it's affectionately known on campus.

Much of the SUPR Lab's work is focused on how patterns change between different places - but on a smaller scale than India and California. They've researched "heat islands" (urban areas that are significantly hotter than surrounding neighborhoods), air quality differences across Oregon, and even how temperatures can change from one side of a street to the other. Beyond these data sets, they look at the contributing factors - from systemic inequalities that lead to things like heat islands, to the policies that allow them to persist.

"Convergence is the core of our approach at the SUPR lab," says Vivek. "There are all these different factors at play - like more people moving to cities, climate change, policy (some of which are out of touch with the science). Our work is all about bringing these sometimes fractured disciplines together. We need to be looking at all the factors at play if we want to drive the adaptations and transformations needed to create healthy communities going forward."

Like many facets of academia and science, the SUPR lab is feeling the impacts of the Trump administration this year, facing terminated federal contracts and withheld funding. But despite current challenges, Vivek remains optimistic about the future.

"I'm actually more hopeful than I've been in a long time," he says. "Seeing the amount of people coming together around me - and organizations like OEC rising up to meet the moment - is a big part of what keeps me going."