The Kleinman Center for Energy Policy recently awarded several grants to School of Social Policy & Practice faculty members to research energy and climate policy.
The Kleinman Center, which is housed in the Stuart Weitzman School of Design, seeks to address issues related to energy and climate policy. The center announced on Oct. 11 that three projects, led by SP2 faculty, will receive grant support from the center for the 2024-25 academic year to advance research in the area of climate inequality.
Social policy professor Dennis Culhane and professor Chenyi Ma are among the grant recipients. Their project will focus on analyzing the effects of energy insecurity — particularly on low-income and minority households — during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Professor Siva Mathiyazhagan and his team will be using the grant to explore disparities in cooling systems and develop solutions to alleviate heat stress in urban neighborhoods.
Sanya Carley, the Presidential Distinguished Professor of Energy Policy and City Planning and director of the Kleinman Center, is leading a project that will explore the impact of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 on energy policy and its implications for marginalized communities.
Additionally, the Penn Environmental Innovations Initiative is supporting a yearlong project led by SP2’s Center for High Impact Philanthropy Executive Director Katherina Rosqueta. The team, which includes Ma and professor R. Jisung Park, as well as other Penn faculty members, will determine guidelines that would optimize the positive impact that nonprofits and philanthropic organizations can have as they support marginalized communities facing climate disparities.
At a recent SP2 speaker series event, Park emphasized the importance of the climate-related research being done at Penn.
“It’s really important that we understand the broader trends and economic inequality totally distinct from climate change, so that we can think about the effects of climate change in that kind of contextualized environment,” Park said.
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