News Archive

May 30, 2025 The Wall Street Journal

Behold, a Climate-Tech Venture Fund Closed in 2025

Planeteer Capital, a venture firm led by ENVS alumna Sophie Purdom '16, defied the odds this year by closing a $54 million first-time fund to invest in climate-tech startups.

May 29, 2025 Frontiers in Climate

When boundaries are blurred: infrastructure needs in support of the climate displaced

Article coauthor Jennifer Hadden, an IBES affiliate at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, proposes a framework for understanding the basic infrastructure needs of people displaced by climate change during four phases: initiation, mobilization, pause and settle.

May 26, 2025 The Boston Globe

A new Brown University center is exploring how climate, environment, and human health intersect

IBES Fellow Joseph Braun – a professor of epidemiology and director of the Center for Climate, Environment & Health – spoke about the new center's research and whether the current presidential administration could affect its work.

May 26, 2025 The Atlantic

A New Concept for Fighting Climate Change

IBES Fellow Elizabeth Rush, an assistant professor of the practice in the Department of English, penned this book review.

May 21, 2025 EcoRI News

What’s Old Is New Again: Age-Old Practice of Composting Gains Traction in R.I.

IBES Professor Stephen Porder offered commentary for this article.

May 20, 2025 The Guardian

Oil industry funded Girl Scouts and British Museum to boost image, evidence suggests

Visiting IBES Professor Robert Brulle offered commentary on “affinity of purpose advertising.”

May 20, 2025 USA Today

A new generation makes a career out of saving the planet

IBES Director Kim Cobb and alumna Ann Garth '20 offered commentary for this article.

May 19, 2025 News from IBES

How to solve the carbon challenge? Ask Brown students

Through a semester-long project, students in EEPS/ENVS 0360 partner with community stakeholders to implement carbon reduction strategies.

May 15, 2025 Science News

Cryopreservation is not sci-fi. It may save plants from extinction

This article features insights from IBES affiliate Xan Chacko, a lecturer in science, technology, and society and an expert on the history of biodiversity conservation.

May 14, 2025 NBC News

Chimps use medicinal plants to treat their wounds

This article features research from incoming Voss Postdoctoral Research Associate Elodie Freymann '18.

May 12, 2025 News from Watson

Student Spotlight: Charlie Adams ’25

Senior International and Public Affairs and environmental science concentrator Charlie Adams, who graduates this month, grew up around policy and politics. Naturally, he found himself at home in the Watson Institute's International and Public Affairs (IAPA) concentration.

May 9, 2025 Carbon Radio

What is Sustainability? A biogeochemical perspective

IBES and Biology Professor Stephen Porder outlined critical dynamics and challenges related to energy, food, and water as a featured guest on this podcast.

May 8, 2025 Nature Cities

Land subsidence risk to infrastructure in US metropolises

IBES Postdoc Sonam Futi Sherpa contributed to this study, which finds that all of the 28 most populous U.S. cities are sinking.

May 6, 2025 News from IBES

Spring 2025 at IBES: Sparking conversations, advancing solutions

Climate conversations came to life at IBES this semester as thought leaders, students, and changemakers gathered to exchange ideas, share stories, and shape real-world solutions.

May 5, 2025 Los Angeles Review of Books

The Teeming Earth

IBES and History Associate Professor Bathsheba Demuth reviewed Ferris Jabr’s “Becoming Earth: How Our Planet Came to Life.”

May 3, 2025 Los Angeles Review of Books

Listening to the Nonhuman World: On Including Other Life-Forms in Politics

This article considers recent books on the political rights of nonhuman beings, including “Eco-Emancipation: An Earthly Politics of Freedom” by Sharon Krause, an IBES affiliate and professor of political science.

May 1, 2025 The Brown Daily Herald

‘Honored and humbled’: Eight Brown faculty members elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences

IBES Director Kim Cobb is among the eight Brown faculty members elected to the AAAS.

May 1, 2025 News from IBES

Meet Voss Fellow Yoshihiro Yajima ’25: Toads, land development, and the future of biodiversity

Yajima explores how farming and development are reshaping toad breeding patterns, uncovering key insights into the broader impact on natural habitats.

April 29, 2025 News from Brown

New center at Brown to study the intersection of climate, environment and human health

During a campus conversation to celebrate the launch of the Center for Climate, Environment and Health, panelists explored the impacts of climate change on human health and the research that will drive life-saving solutions.

April 28, 2025 News from IBES

With new working groups, Equitable Climate Futures fosters stronger communities through research

Four recently awarded working groups bring a new, interdisciplinary, and engaged approach to climate solutions.

April 27, 2025 The Public's Radio

How climate change will affect Rhode Island’s drinking water, and how we can better prepare

IBES Fellow Baylor Fox-Kemper discussed how climate change impacts the ocean and how Rhode Island communities can better prepare for conditions that could negatively impact water utilities.

April 25, 2025 The Brown Daily Herald

Environmental studies pioneer, UEL driving force, master tomato gardener: Remembering Harold Ward, chemistry and environmental studies professor

Harold Ward, the father of the environmental studies program at Brown, passed away on in December 2024 at the age of 89.

April 24, 2025 Brown Division of Research

2025 Research Achievement Awardees

IBES Assistant Professor Daniel Ibarra received this year's Early Career Research Achievement Award in the Physical Sciences.

April 24, 2025 DeSmog

Climate Scientist Michael Mann Fights New Court Penalties in 2024 Defamation Trial

Visiting IBES Professor Robert Brulle offered commentary for this article.

April 24, 2025 EcoRI News

Federal Funding Woes Stunt Rhode Island Climate Research

IBES Professor Stephen Porder spoke to Colleen Cronin '21 about the effects of recent federal funding cuts.

April 23, 2025 News from Brown

Brown scholars elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences

With their election to the prestigious honor society, eight members of the Brown University faculty join the nation’s leading scholars in science, public affairs, business, arts and the humanities.

April 22, 2025 American Lung Association

2025 State of the Air Report: Air Quality Worsens in Providence Metro Area Due to Wildfire Smoke

Members of the IBES-housed Breathe Providence project offered commentary for this press release.

April 22, 2025 News from Brown

Staff Spotlight: Sowing more than seedlings, Nicholas Vasques cultivates learning and research

As Brown’s research greenhouse manager, Vasques tends the Plant Environmental Center run by the University’s Department of Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology.

April 22, 2025 News from Brown

Video: Brown biologist Stephen Porder on taking purposeful, planet-positive personal steps

This Earth Day, Brown University’s associate provost for sustainability offers strategies to minimize carbon dioxide emissions and help mitigate climate change.

April 22, 2025 The Guardian

Tariffs will raise prices. But the climate crisis is the real inflation risk

IBES Affiliate Mark Blyth penned this opinion piece with Visiting Scholar Nicolò Fraccaroli.

April 16, 2025 Chemical & Engineering News

Scientists face deficiencies in leadership countering US policies

IBES and Sociology Professor Scott Frickel offered commentary for this article.

April 11, 2025 News from IBES

Amanda Lynch named to Advisory Council of The North World Approach

IBES’ founding director joins global leaders to help shape a new framework for sustainable and just governance in the Arctic.

April 10, 2025 Brown Alumni Magazine

Bite-Sizing Climate Action

"Possibly" – IBES' podcast with the Public's Radio – fights climate-change overwhelm, one “let’s break this down” episode at a time.

April 10, 2025 The Washington Post

Trump’s new reason for canceling grants: ‘Climate anxiety’

“The answer to rising levels of climate anxiety is to meet the moment with robust and durable evidence-based solutions,” IBES Director Kim Cobb told The Washington Post. “It’s not to stick our heads in the sand.”

April 9, 2025 The Atlantic

America Is Backsliding Toward Its Most Polluted Era

Corwin Zigler — a biostatistics professor and IBES affiliate who served on an EPA scientific advisory panel on air pollution under the Biden administration — provided commentary for this article.

April 4, 2025 The Brown Daily Herald

What Brown experts, RI officials think about the EPA’s planned climate rollbacks

IBES Professors Kim Cobb, Scott Frickel, and Meredith Hastings offered commentary for this article, condemning the rollback of federal environmental oversight.

April 3, 2025 Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space

Growing sustainable capitalism: The environmental politics of agri-tech in Singapore

This article, written by Voss Postdoc Vanessa Koh, examines the nexus of the emergence of the agri-tech ecosystem in Singapore and concerns over climate change.

April 1, 2025 News from IBES

Meet Voss Fellow Sidharth Siddapureddy ’25: How a tree can reshape forests in a warming world

Siddapureddy, a senior concentrating in ecology, explores the impact of invasive trees to understand climate change.

March 26, 2025 WCAI

Five months after closed-door meeting on Cape Cod machine gun range, discussion revealed

Kurt Pennell — an engineering professor, IBES fellow, and groundwater remediation expert — offered input during an October 2024 meeting to review the environmental impacts of the the Massachusetts Army National Guard's controversial proposal for a machine gun range on Joint Base Cape Cod.

March 25, 2025 Jackson Advocate

Free Environmental Explorers School for Mississippi middle school students

With the help of an IBES Catalyst Research Award, affiliate faculty member Erica Walker and her Community Noise Lab will launch a free, self-paced online summer environmental health and science program for middle school students in Jackson, Mississippi.

March 24, 2025 News from Brown

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