Resilience Fellows

2021 cohort takes collaboration to the next level

Each year we bring community experts and ASU researchers together for a year-long program to share knowledge and conduct research on local vulnerabilities and solutions.

The cohort meets regularly so that as they explore resilience concepts and research practices, they also have the opportunity to teach and learn from one another. For example, as climate experts learn about the daily work of combating homelessness, and nonprofit managers pick up new data analysis skills, the fellows develop a network of supportive relationships to lean on while they study and implement changes to build community resilience.

This year, two pairs of fellows found a high degree of complementarity in their work so they decided to team up to complete joint projects. Together, they have been able to tackle ambitious projects and deepen collaboration between their organizations.

Learn more about the program at resilience.asu.edu/fellowships

Bradley Adame

ASU Hugh Downs School of Human Communication How can we better communicate about risks associated with environmental change? https://resilience.asu.edu/adame-project

Adame used Vested Interest Theory to understand how residents conceive of and react to risks associated with environmental change. These insights can inform the design and testing of messages that communicate risk and motivate behavioral change towards resilience.

Diana Bowman

ASU Center for Smart Cities and Regions What resilience measures do decisionmakers need to make policy decisions? https://resilience.asu.edu/bowman-project

Bowman identified the most important resilience metrics for the Greater Phoenix region and created a user-friendly dashboard to allow decision-makers and residents to track these metrics. Access to real time resilience data will allow decision-makers to make more informed decisions while promoting transparency in the decision-making process.

Doran Dalton

Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community What actions can mitigate the impacts of land fractionation on the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community? https://resilience.asu.edu/dalton-project

Land fractionation, the division of land among multiple heirs, presents a barrier to resilience for Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community (SRPMIC) members. Dalton created education materials to help tribal landowners, employees and leadership better understand and mitigate this challenge at an individual and policy level.

Ian Dowdy

Center for the Future of Arizona Watershed: Arizona — Can a strategy board game connect Arizonans to their watersheds? https://resilience.asu.edu/dowdy-project

Dowdy created a board game that aims to reconnect Arizona residents to their watersheds. Confronted with rapid population growth, each player must deploy urban planning strategies, build water infrastructure to serve their thirsty cities, and steward fragile watersheds. The game offers ideas for building awareness as a fundamental component of water resilience.

Tina Skjerping Drews

Salt River Project

Lauren Withycombe Keeler

ASU School for the Future of Innovation in Society How can Arizona organizations support the development of resilience hubs?

https://resilience.asu.edu/keeler-drews-project

Resilience hubs are community spaces that provide bolster resilience before, during and after a shock through community development, emergency services and recovery assistance. Drews and Keeler held a webinar with key local stakeholders and developed a website to serve as an online resource for communities interested in developing resilience hubs.

Augie Gastelum

RAIL CDC

Rafael Martínez Orozco

Southwest Borderlands, ASU College of Integrative Sciences and Arts How can we harness the power of community based solutions to combat displacement?

https://resilience.asu.edu/gastelum-martinez-project

Gastelum and Martínez worked with a large group of stakeholders to mitigate the anticipated displacement of low income families from gentrification in Southside Mesa. By mapping historic disinvestment in the area, holding a series of community chats, and creating a StoryMap to share with a broad audience, they collaborated with local leaders to design communitybased solutions, leveraging local assets for resilience against displacement.

Stephanie Lechuga-Peña

ASU School of Social Work Can Photovoice help us center student and parent voices when addressing challenges in our schools?

Partnering with Paideia Academies, Lechuga-Peña asked students and their parents to capture photos documenting the challenges and strengths of their school community, a method known as Photovoice. Families then created photo board displays to present to the broader school community, providing them a platform to address changes they want to see in their school community to mitigate and adapt to shocks and stresses felt in the education system.

Felicia Mitchell

ASU Watts College of Community Solutions How can we improve adaptive capacity to water insecurity among American Indians in Arizona? https://resilience.asu.edu/mitchell-project

Mitchell explored how American Indians living in Arizona experience and think about water and water insecurities by surveying their reflections on photographs depicting images of water-related issues. Her study provides insights into the nonmaterial aspects of water that may help in building long-term water resilience in Indigenous communities.

Rachel Smetana

City of Scottsdale, Office of the Mayor How can cities improve systems and networks for family caregivers? https://resilience.asu.edu/smetana-project

More than 45 million Americans act as family caregivers, providing an average of 21 hours per week of unpaid care. Smetana held local focus groups to learn more about how the city could connect these caregivers to existing services and networks, to improve the overall resilience of systems of care. She also collaborated with other city departments and institutions to provide educational programs and create a database of local resources for family caregivers.

Kenan Song

School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy; The Polytechnic School How can custom mobile mini generators be used to support resilience? https://resilience.asu.edu/song-project Addressing energy access for those in remote areas, Song created and tested an innovative device that converts heat from everyday surfaces into electricity to power small devices. In addition to improving energy efficiency and providing a sustainable energy source, this thermoelectric generator may soon form the foundation of a self-powered health monitoring system.

Steve Torres

Valley of the Sun United Way Can visualizing the gap between household incomes and true costs of living motivate policy change? https://resilience.asu.edu/torres-project

Torres designed an interactive dashboard to help users better understand gaps in services for vulnerable populations by comparing costs of living to household incomes and available services. He then held a focus group of community members, researchers, funders and service providers to gather user feedback. This tool is intended to help guide outreach strategies, inform service provision and allocate resources for improved community economic resilience.

Brian Winsor

Paideia Academies, Inc. How does exposure to nature impact school and community wellbeing? https://resilience.asu.edu/winsor-project

Winsor launched a longitudinal study to determine the long-term impact of frequent childhood exposure to nature on the social cohesiveness of a school community. Community partners, including ASU, have embedded systems for nature exposure in the daily life of Paideia and the local community. Winsor’s study compares data from before and after these designs were implemented, highlighting how school infrastructure can build social resilience.