Research
Environmental dimensions of transportation systems
Environmental dimensions of transportation systems
Highways are high stakes, multi-functional landscapes. They are also near ubiquitous - with over 75% of the continental US within 1km of a road. Critically, highways are designed and managed for the safe transit of people and products as their primary goals - yet a growing movement aims to use highway roadsides for ecological purposes. We are interested in the interplay between policy, bureaucracy and animals at landscape scales - always in systems with human communities and often with a lens onto how environmental outcomes shape human health. We have used empirical fieldwork, GIS modeling, scenarios, case studies, and policy analysis as some of our tools. We recently completed projects on these topics supported by the University Transportation Research Council and the decoizart trust.
Example recent publications:
- Kaitlin Stack Whitney. 2023. C-17-12 Effects of a Modified Mowing Regime in NYSDOT ROWs on Pollinators and Vegetation (2023)
- Santangelo et al. (287 authors, including Kaitlin Stack Whitney and 5 RIT students). 2022. Global urban environmental change drives adaptation in white clover. Science 375 1275-1281. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abk0989
Critical examinations of ecosystem services
Critical examinations of ecosystems and science
Environmental science is a human endeavor, shaped by individual and institutional structures, processes, and biases. Part of our research program centers on understanding how these factors shape contemporary ecosystem service sciences, using both qualitative (e.g. feminist biology) and quantitative (e.g. informatics) approaches. Feminist biology is an approach to biology that explicitly acknowledges historic and current biases at the micro- and macro-levels, from the naming of species, to prize awarding, to study methods. A truly feminist biology must not only address gender/sex though - an intersectional feminist biology is also anti-racist and anti-disablist. SWEET is interested in environmental biology incorporating intersectional feminism, in particular bringing a critical eye to environmental projects that ignore (or the opposite - surveil) marginalized bodies.
Example recent publications:
- Kaitlin Stack Whitney. 2023. Ladybugs: The (Natural) Enemy of My Enemy Is My Friend? Enlisting Ladybugs into the War on Insect Pests. Catalyst: feminism, theory, technoscience 9 (1): 1-11. https://doi.org/10.28968/cftt.v9i1.38252
- Kaitlin Stack Whitney. “Deerly Held Beliefs: feminist biology and white-tailed deer population control.” Lady Science, The New Inquiry. August 16, 2018.
Ableism and accessibility in biology and society
Ableism and accessibility in biology and society
SWEET is committed to inclusion, accessibility, and reproducibility. Yet while “openness” is now becoming more accepted in research fields as ‘best’ practice, it is not an inherently positive attribute or goal. Open science is an umbrella term that includes movements aimed at democratizing science, to make science available to "everyone. Yet there can be significant individual (e.g. cost) and structural (e.g. cultural context) barriers. Open data and research must not benefit some at the expense of marginalized communities, particularly nonwhite, Indigenous, and multiply-marginalized communities and their data. SWEET is committed to ongoing learning, research, and engagement in conversations on ethical open scholarship and critical open studies. In particular, we focus on disability access and inclusion (or lack thereof) in science.
Example recent publications:
- Kaitlin Stack Whitney, Julia Perrone, Christie A. Bahlai; Open access journals lack image accessibility guidelines. Quantitative Science Studies 2024; doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00338
- Open Science Isn't Open to All Scientists - American Scientist