The WeRISE (Working to Eradicate Racism In Science and Engineering) Summit is a conference that aims to unite a community concerned with racial justice, as well as economic, gender, disability, health, environmental, climate, and other social justice issues. The conference, held on May 24 in Banatao Auditorium, focused on emerging research topics such as equity, community engagement, and justice in engineering. The summit highlighted the latest research and curricula at the intersection of engineering, social justice, and community engagement. The conference is sponsored by the UC Berkeley Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) Department, UC Berkeley Community Engaged Education in Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE)², and grants from the National Science Foundation.
Faculty from Civil and Environmental Engineering, Educational and Psychological Studies, Anthropology, and the Institute on Black Life at the University of South Florida (USF) and the University of California, Berkeley (UCB) are collaborating with local community partners in the Tampa Bay and San Francisco Bay regions on this Level 3 project in the Engaged Student Learning track of the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Education and Human Resources (IUSE: EHR) program.
CEE Assistant Professor Maya Carasquillo is a research team member, and CEE Professor Mark Stacey is a member of the Advisory Board. Berkeley CEE-affiliated presenters included CEE Chair Joan Walker who gave opening remarks, Ph.D. candidate Tvetene Carlson, who presented on "The Tools of Alaska Native Subsistence, Indigenous Knowledge, and a Just Energy Transition"; Post-Doctoral researcher Seunghyun Lee and Ph.D. student Paola Larosso, who presented on "Addressing Social Vulnerability in Wildfire Resilience" and are in CEE Professor Kenichi Soga's lab group; and CEE Professor Tina Chow, who presented on "Design for Global Transformation: Systems Thinking for a Community-Engaged Engineering Design Course." These presentations not only showcased the cutting-edge research being conducted but also inspired the audience with their potential to bring about real-world change.
Berkeley CEE-affiliated poster presentations included B.S. students in Environmental Engineering Science, Samantha Becaria, Ph.D. students Hannah Wharton, Aqshems Meten Nichols, Fouzia Hossain Oyshi, and J'anna-Mare Lue. You can check out the full speaker line-up for the event here. Also, you can view the photos from the event on Box here.