2020 CIERP and CPL Research Assistants, Interns, & Researchers

We are thrilled to have a breadth of research assistants working at CIERP and the Climate Policy Lab. We are hopeful that these experiences in conducting compelling research, creating exciting projects, and upgrading our media strategy will provide useful experience for Fletcher students in their future career paths.

For further information about open positions at CIERP and Climate Policy Lab, please visit this link: Open Positions, or contact Sara Rosales at sara.rosales@tufts.edu.

Find out what our research assistants are doing below:

Kelly Sims Gallagher’s Climate Policy Lab Research Assistants & Interns

Visit the Climate Policy Lab website for further information.

	Sabrina Andrews, Research Assistant Community-Based Natural Farming, Tufts CREATE Initiative Sabrina is reviewing evidence of the impacts of a natural farming practice known as Community-Based Natural Farming (CBNF), which is being scaled up throughout the state of Andhra Pradesh, India. She is reviewing literature about CBNF’s impacts on climate change mitigation and resilience, soil health and crop productivity, socioeconomic income and resilience, and food security, among other impact areas. This research assistantship is in collaboration with Professor Gallagher and Professor Aker at the Climate Policy Lab, Professor Griffin and graduate student Jeremy Halstead at the Friedman School, as well as advisors at the Woods Hole Research Center and Council on Energy, Environment, and Water.
	Eliza Sheff, Research Assistant CIERP Communications and Media Eliza is working in with Sara Rosales, the Program Coordinator on CIERP's communication and media strategy. Eliza is assisting with all things communications and media – such as curating the Climate Policy Lab blog posts, adding publications and media mentions to the CIERP website, adding contacts to the CIERP database, and making the CIERP, Climate Policy Lab and Tufts CREATE Solutions websites more accessible to our visitors.
	Bethany Tietjen, Research Assistant Climate Policy Lab, The Fletcher School Bethany is working on compiling literature for the National Academies study on deep decarbonization in the U.S. She is also working on two annotated bibliographies looking at the social transitions that accompany decarbonization processes and on the policies needed for deep decarbonization to occur.
	Nikolas Westfield, Intern Climate Policy Performance Index Intern, Climate Policy Lab, The Fletcher School Nik is working with CPL’s Director to develop a new Climate Policy Performance Index (CPPI). The CPPI, which includes a policy database, will track progress on the drivers and outcomes of climate policy, capturing both short term trends and longer structural trends, in a framework that brings together mitigation and adaptation. The Index will be developed to provide a snapshot of which countries are most effectively addressing climate change through policy. It will serve as a resource to help guide climate investments, identify gaps in climate policy, assist in identification of best practices, and aid comparative research. Nik’s responsibilities include product management, market research, data collection of climate policy performance metrics, and formulation of alternative approaches to the index.
	Emelia Williams, Research Assistant India Policy Analysis, Climate Policy Lab, The Fletcher School Emelia has conducted a detailed review of government documents, think tank policy reports, and academic literature in order to compile a chronological inventory of direct and indirect greenhouse gas mitigation policies in India across different sectors including industry, electricity, transport, buildings, land-use change and forestry, adaptation, and agriculture. She is also working on producing a bibliography of academic literature that has already studied Indian climate change policy gaps. Emelia will soon start to compile a similar inventory for another developing country, likely Mexico.

Jenny Aker’s Research Assistants

Jenny Aker’s research assistants are conducting research on projects focused on: the adoption of demi-lunes to address nutrient depletion and poor soil fertility, the adoption of PICS (hermetically sealed bags) to limit crop degradation, and primary school teacher monitoring in Niger. For further information about this research, please visit the Technology and Development page.

Girija Bahety	Alex Carroll
Madison Chapman	Jeremy Danz
Parthy Kalva	Vasudha Ramakrishna
Venky Ramamoorthy	Mikalyn Rush
Yasmeen Fatimah Shaikh	Joseph Thomas

Rising Power Alliances Researchers

Visit the Rising Power Alliances project page for further information.

Lisa May, Researcher Rising Power Alliances Project Lisa is developing a dataset for BRICS policy convergence, conducting research on BRICS actions on specific policy agendas for journal article projects, and developing data visualizations. As well, Lisa is working on Russian translation activities.