Happy Monday, everyone! I hope that you all had a great weekend. Today we are going to discuss how to take an integrative approach to research with Dr. Sarah Wolfe. Integrative research is ESSENTIAL for effective climate action, which we will learn about in this post.
First, a little update. On Saturday I attended PickWaste’s Awareness Day, where they brought all of the litter they have been collecting in their weekly cleanups to make a giant display. They were showing just how much litter we are creating in our city, and specifically how much unnecessary single-use plastic products we dispose of.
It was a very inspiring day, and I know that all of the attendees were motivated by Sam and Dillon’s passion to make a positive change in the world. There was music, a cleanup, environmental companies to network with and lunch. Pickering’s mayor, David Ryan, was in attendance, as were several other Council members from around the Durham Region. Overall it was a fun-filled community event that was both inspiring and educational!
Dr. Sarah Wolfe
For this week’s post, I am featuring faculty member at the University of Waterloo that I was fortunate enough to have as a professor this past year. I found her course to be very insightful, and her teaching style was very different (a good different!) from any other course I have taken. She really makes the classroom feel like an intimate space, encouraging everyone to participate and empowering them to be the change. In addition, I find her research approach to be one of the most well-rounded and thought-provoking.
If you are a regular reader on the blog, you know that I always say that finding a solution to the problems we face in the world requires involvement from every stakeholder in the decision-making process. We need to hear everyone’s perspective. We may realize how our current systems are impacting everyone and everything else, as well as potentially find a solution we hadn’t found before. Once we have clear, strong communication between stakeholders, the media and the public, only then can we begin to solve the problems that we face today. Does all of this sound familiar? This perspective that I now have towards problem-solving was inspired by Professor Sarah Wolfe.
For a bit of background about her, here is an excerpt from Professor Wolfe’s website:
" I am an Associate Professor in the School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability (SERS, formerly ERS) at the University of Waterloo. My Post Doctoral research was completed in ERS at the University of Waterloo. My PhD (2007) is from the University of Guelph’s Department of Geography, MA from the University of Toronto’s collaborative program in Political Science and Environmental Studies, and a BA from the University of Guelph’s International Development program (Biophysical Environment). As part of my undergraduate program, I studied at the University of Haifa through their English-language program.
I’m a ‘water person’ to the core. I’ve been fascinated/obsessed by water issues since childhood. My grandfather built wooden sailboats for fun and some of my earliest memories are sailing with him. Even today, if I’m not researching water, I want to be on, in or near water.
The second thing to keep in mind is that I am constitutionally incapable of working within disciplinary boundaries. I’ve tried, found it painful and then sped back to transdisciplinary. I’m a pragmatist and willing to poach ideas from any discipline that offers useful insights or methods (defn: geographer?).
And third, the thing that drives me to research and teach every single day is that I’m worried about the world the children — yours, mine, theirs — will inherit. I talk about ‘hero projects’ in my research: figuring out why we — as individuals and as a society — make the decisions we do about water is my hero project. If we can figure out water — something so essential to our very existence — then maybe, just maybe…."
Terror management theory
During Professor Wolfe’s course, we discussed many different topics, all of which I found very fascinating. From water issues (Professor Wolfe’s main focus in her research), to cultural influence on decision-making, to communication barriers between science and policy-makers, to humanity’s naturally irrational mind, to my personal favourite topic in the course, Terror Management Theory (TMT).
TMT is a way of explaining why we act the way that we do. We are materialistic, consuming much more than what we need to survive. We strive for attention through friends, family and now strangers on social media. We live to be the “hero” in our community, whether that be as a police officer, a celebrated pop star or the Prime Minister. We do this because of both our conscious and unconscious fear of death; of being forgotten. We all want to be “immortal” in a sense; we all want to feel like we matter in the world. We consume, strive for attention, and live our lives according to societal norms so we can feel good about ourselves and forget the unavoidable truth: we are all going to die and be forgotten about eventually.
I know that it sounds morbid, but it is so fascinating. To understand it from an environmental perspective, in the course I took with Professor Wolfe we associated the destruction of the environment with humanity’s materialistic habits and selfish ways. We want to feel good about ourselves, we matter way more than the environment does. TMT examines how Homo sapiens are an innately selfish species that desire and value the approval from others over their own self-worth.
Our cultural history – religious, spiritual – all focus on immortal “beings” of a divine status, whether it be a god or something of that type. We want to be accepted within our culture. To do that we must consume material objects and constantly seek the approval of others to become our “best” selves. Meanwhile, the process of becoming our best selves (which, hint: if you’re trying to become your “best self,” you’ll never reach it because you’re already there) is environmentally, mentally and socially destructive.
With TMT, we seek to identify this desire of humankind to be accepted, and acknowledge this fundamental flaw that is destroying our self esteem and the planet. We must personally acknowledge that we are selfish, and this selfishness acts as a barrier and bias in our decision-making.
Without further ado, on to the interview!
How did you find yourself working at the university of waterloo?
When I finished my doctoral degree, I didn’t want to go directly on the academic job market but instead raised research funds to support two years of post-doctoral research and writing. SERS (ERS at that time) was a natural fit for me because it was so transdisciplinary and open to different ways of looking at environmental issues.
what questions do you seek to answer in your research?
When I look back over my research career so far, my overarching interest has always been the ‘how and why’ of environmental decision-making. Personally, I find it mind-boggling what we – and I include myself in this – are doing to the planet despite the best available evidence. Professionally, I’ve looked at this issue from multiple perspectives using social networks, social capital, gender, governance, and now cognitive science and social psychology. Of course, it would be impossible to look at all environmental issues and decision-making so I’ve always focused on water issues.
Also, from her site:
“The objective of my transdisciplinary research program is to generate scholarly and policy discussions within the context of climate change uncertainty and extreme water events (drought/flood).
My focus is understanding the ways that individuals make water decisions outside of formal institutional rules, processes and policies. I examine individuals’ values, beliefs and emotions (e.g., fear and awe) that are socio-culturally derived, often implicit and not readily quantifiable by standard metrics. I use mixed qualitative and quantitative methods to better explain how individuals and institutions make their water decisions under scarcity conditions. I ask questions such as these:
1) Will individuals’ cognitive and emotional processing effect their perceptions, definitions and prioritisation of water issues?
2) Do these individual-level responses then scale up to group or societal decisions about water management? By looking at the individual as a ‘micro-level’, it becomes possible to examine the foundation assumptions underpinning the water literature’s standard explanations of political will, economic incentives, policies/regulations.”
What is your field of expertise? If you had a "dream course" where you could teach just about anything, what would it be?
I’ve always been highly interdisciplinary because I see disciplinary boundaries as barriers to good scholarship and problem-solving. I consciously push myself outside of my knowledge ‘comfort zone’ so that I constantly learn new ideas, methods etc. This makes me a better research and teacher. It makes me a better research because I’m constantly evolving, not just building my career on ideas that I encountered 10 years ago. And it makes me a better teacher because I know what it’s like to be exposed to new information and the processes of taking in, processing and connecting new ways of understanding the world.
Dream courses: I’m teaching them! ERS 101 [quick note: this is the course that I (Jenna) took!] because I love the energy and openness of first year students. ERS 265 because we must understand the past and deep cultures associated with water to make good decisions now and for the future. ERS 316 because issues of urban water supply fascinate me and are so important for our urbanizing society. ERS 403 because mentoring emerging scholars through their first research projects – the ups, downs and turn arounds inherent to research – is a lot of fun and I always learn new things from students’ theses. My interests in environmental psychology, religion, ritual and water are all sprinkled throughout these existing courses.
I also teach WATER 601 – a transdisciplinary water course for graduate students from across the university – a course that makes me integrate everything I’ve learned about teaching over the last decade and keeps me on my toes.
How did you get to the point you are at in your career now? Did you know that this is what you wanted to do when you were younger, or did the interest grow as you progressed through your career?
I had to check with my mum for this question. When I asked her, she started laughing and her response was: “you told me when you were five years old that you wanted someone to pay you to read!”. I am First-Gen (i.e., my parents and grandparents didn’t go to university) so being a Professor – they pay me to read! – was something quite unimaginable as I went through my education.
How did I get to this point: a couple factors. First, I had amazing mentors all the way through my education. Teachers and professors who took the time to explain how things worked (e.g., the unspoken expectations and norms of academia) and wrote reference letters for graduate programs, scholarships and eventually jobs. Second, I learned that failing wasn’t terminal. I’ve had some spectacular fails – the events that knock you off your feet and make you want to hide under the covers forever – over the years but I learned how to pick myself up again with help from family, friends and therapists as needed. Failing is never fun, but I’ve always learned something new from it. Third, “deferred gratification”: study now, party later. Yup, I was that kid in school. But let me tell you that 20-years later, my post-tenure party was fantastic!
The environmental field is facing so much negativity lately with all of the talk about climate change, natural disasters, wars over resources, biodiversity loss, and other impacts of our actions. With all of these negative stories constantly coming out in the media, how do you keep a positive outlook when approaching your research?
I love the act of doing research so every opportunity to focus on that process is a good one, even if what I’m thinking about or the results are fundamentally troubling. That’s my selfish answer. Another answer is this: what choice do I have? I can either decide to give up and do nothing or engage to the best of my abilities. Since that first option is inconceivable, I must keep teaching and doing research. Finally, a TMT (terror management theory) research-based answer: fear for the future can be highly motivating when one feels empowered (see answers one and two above) to do something/anything. That’s how I keep going.
If you had one wish that could be granted, no limitations, what would it be?
Professionally, that as a species we would ‘wake-the-fuck-up!’ and start implementing the hard decisions around climate change and a post-carbon future.
If you had one wish that could be granted, no limitations, what would it be?
Website and read my academic or general audience publications, twitter where I brag about my students’ successes, come to my lectures (check with me first!), or invite me to talk to their group.
Final thoughts and resources
That’s all for the interview! I hope that you enjoyed this insightful conversation. If you would like to hear more about Sarah Wolfe’s research or her teaching methods, you can check out her website, sarahwolfe.ca. You can explore her CV at the University of Waterloo’s website, or follow her on Twitter @SarahWolfePhD.
If you enjoyed learning about how to take an integrative approach to research with Dr. Wolfe, check out these conversations on skill-building, creating change and following your passions:
- How to be a young entrepreneur with Tania Del Matto
- Catering your degree to your passions with Jeffray Behr: engineering, renewable energy and plant-based meats
- How to create a youth movement with PickWaste
Have a great week, and I will see you next Monday!
Until next time!