This week, the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society hosted Brown’s first-ever Climate Week. From a climate career fair to movie screenings, the events were a celebration of action for a sustainable future.
The Herald spoke with Climate Week organizers and participants to understand how different industries and corners of academia can contribute to climate solutions.
The week’s origins
Climate Week emerged from ongoing collaboration among climate leaders across the University, said IBES Director Kim Cobb.
“The original motivation really stemmed from a group of us who have been working together as climate leaders across campus, across different units, to try to coordinate our activities, and then to try to lift our ambitions for climate at Brown,” Cobb said.
After holding a climate career fair last year — which Cobb described as “incredibly successful,” — she and her colleagues in IBES thought another career fair could serve as an “anchor event” for a full week of programming this year.
Organizers invited departments and campus groups to contribute to the week’s events, which included a range of panels, discussions and activities.
Climate education and the importance of care
Monday’s event, “Where Climate Meets Education Policy and Practice: Perspectives from the Field in Rhode Island,” featured three speakers involved in education and the environment.
The panel was hosted by the Sustainable Education Research Initiative, a program focused on climate and education research launched by the Annenberg Institute in 2025.
The conversation included Rhode Island leaders seeking to create “more resilient and sustainable schools,” Matthew Kraft, SustainEd founder and faculty director and professor of education and economics, said at the event.
“IBES is a longtime supporter and partner of our work,” Grace Falken, project director on Kraft’s research team, wrote in an email to The Herald, adding that the institute helped with outreach for the event.
Panelist Jeanine Silversmith, executive director of the Rhode Island Environmental Education Association, said she has noticed that climate anxiety among students and educators is intense. But she added that social relationships can assist in combating these heightened concerns.
“Often it’s just people connecting with each other and being humans with each other, and that’s what they need in order to do their work,” she said.
Jules Ho ’27 said that the event helped her realize “how important care is” since the approach to climate storytelling is usually “doom and gloom.”
Avenues to climate activism
On Tuesday, Brown’s Global Environmental Justice Working Group and the Breathe Providence project hosted “Providence EJ Goes Global: Local Activists and the EJAtlas.”
The event introduced audience members to the Global Atlas of Environmental Justice, an interactive platform logging stories from around the world centered on environmental justice. The discussion framed five cases of Rhode Island-based environmental justice efforts in the context of the global database.
As part of the discussion, panelists reflected on their own experiences with environmental justice advocacy.
When educator and community organizer Ellen Tuzzolo — a speaker at the event — worked as a special education teacher, their school was near a former chemical plant. They said that many of their students had learning disabilities and were from families that had been exposed to the plant’s toxins for generations.
This was a “very big wake-up experience for me,” Tuzzolo said at the event.
Since then, Tuzzolo has engaged in awareness and mobilization efforts surrounding environmental justice.
Calvin Woodruff ’29 said that the event helped him realize that “when you want to get involved in environmental justice, you can take many different avenues, including things that you’re currently passionate about.”
Careers in climate
In addition to events featuring potential job opportunities, IBES hosted a Climate Career Fair on Thursday to directly connect students with climate and sustainability-related careers, which was central to the week’s purpose, Cobb told The Herald. The event featured employers across various fields, including finance, climate tech and policy.
At a virtual event titled “Creating Your Path to a Climate Career: A Conversation with Brown Alumni,” Brown alumni also shared their career trajectories and gave advice to those who want to pursue climate-related careers.
“We want to help connect the dots for students that are interested in maybe eventually working within the climate space,” Cobb said.
A healthier future
Certain events throughout the week also highlighted the climate’s impact on health.
At a talk titled “Health and Vulnerability in a Changing Climate,” researchers and professionals who study areas from infectious disease modeling to food sustainability spoke about how they tailor their work to address the confluence of public health and climate change.
Gavin Li ’28 said the event spotlighted climate-related work that “is really important to illustrate.” He added that many people think of climate change as a problem of the future, rather than the present.
“Climate change is a truth of our world right now, and I think it’s really important to address it,” said event attendee Elena Shen ’29.
Flo Dapice ’29 added that Climate Week is important “because there’s so much student interest.”
“I just think it’s important for Brown to be a leader in this type of environmental space, because we have the resources to do it,” she added.
Cobb said that IBES plans to host the week-long event again next year.
Not only does “this generation (demand) climate leadership,” Cobb said, “this generation deserves climate leadership.”
Angel Lopez is a senior staff writer covering Science and Research. He’s a first-year student from Tyler, Texas and planning to study neuroscience and literary arts. In his free time, you can find him playing ping pong, listening to music, or reading.
Miriam Davison is a Senior Staff Writer for University News covering Academics & Advising. She is a first-year from Los Angeles, CA and plans to study tentatively the realm of International & Public Affairs and English, though her interests span from linguistics to history to music. In her free time, she plays on one of Brown's ultimate frisbee teams and likes writing silly poems.
