Science in the "Anthropocene"

I was recently invited to present the beginnings of my dissertation dreams at an interdisciplinary conference hosted by the Institute for the Advanced Study of Culture and the Environment (a mouthful, yes?) hosted at USF.

This conference was one of the rare occurrences where students across disciplines were invited to actually talk to each other and share their work.

I was shocked too, but it was a perfect opportunity to run some of my research by other faculty members who I could potentially invite to join my committee if I played my cards right, so I wasn't going to miss it.

Even though I'm sure you're a science whiz if you're reading this, I'll give you a short background on the Anthropocene, which is what some scientists propose we should name this "era" characterized by human's dominance over pretty much everything. There's a lot of debate over when this "era" should begin (when Homo sapiens broke off evolutionarily, when the "Great Acceleration," or rise of consumerism, began in the 1950s, when nuclear bomb testing began globally, changing the soil conditions in a visible way, etc.), which means it probably will never actually be termed because when do scientists ever agree on anything, right?

Except climate change. THEY ALL AGREE ON HUMAN-CAUSED CLIMATE CHANGE.

Anyways, the Anthropocene... Whether an "epoch" or not, it's at the very least a new normal for science. Or as Ravetz would put it a "post-normal science" where (and this is somewhat paraphrased): the facts are uncertain, the values are in dispute, the stakes are high, and the decisions are incredibly urgent.

You can check out my poster below and a rare picture of me and my advisor, Dr. David Lewis together!