Craig is a PhD candidate in the UO Environmental Sciences, Studies, and Policy Program. She is gratefully a member of the Glacier Lab and UW Tribal Water Security Network, and she also assists with the Tribal Climate Change Project through the PNW Just Futures Institute. As a non-Native scholar, her dissertation research promotes living oceans and climate justice in Aotearoa (New Zealand), with focuses on coastal and fisheries co-management, marine cultural health and mauri (life force), and supporting Māori sovereignty and self-determination.

Coronado studies public schools of low socioeconomic status in the Americas through case studies in the US, Chile, and Colombia. Classrooms play a significant role in shaping the educational experience and understanding their environmental performance is vital for the well-being of children and teachers. Coronado will measure the indoor environmental conditions of classrooms, and talk to teachers and facility managers, to create a baseline of school environmental comfort data. She will then visualize practices and protocols that achieve good environmental quality inside schools. With the project, Coronado hopes to find transferable knowledge that can aid school stakeholders in promoting better school environments in their local contexts.

Fofie examines the contributions of women in local language media in Ghana to feminist history, political economy and gender and sexuality. The goal is to understand the role women play(ed), particularly in relation to gender and sexuality, and what that suggests about the intersections of colonial history, patriarchy, religion, political economy, and other factors shaping the media construction of African women, historically and contemporaneously.

Klaas researches disparities in access to high quality Early Childhood Education (ECE) programs for children from low-income backgrounds. She also investigates important predictors of high-quality ECE at the center level, such as specific teacher characteristics and school resources, as well as broader community-level predictors that may influence ECE quality, such as community safety and community participation in Indonesia. The first step in her project is identifying groups of children that are most at risk of enrolling in low-quality ECE programs. She will then assist government efforts to improve the quality of ECE in rural and low-income areas with limited resources by highlighting the most important predictors of high quality. The overall goal is to provide evidence-based recommendations for the government and policy makers in Indonesia to guide their work on improving ECE programs quality for all children.

Vicente-Vidal’s doctoral dissertation research explores the experiences of Maya wage workers in luxury boutique hotels along the beaches of Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico. Her project investigates the ways gendered service work in tourist hotels and restaurants shape how Maya workers mete out their time and energy and how gendered work duties differently affect the physical and mental well-being of Maya service workers. She will also explore how Maya wage workers describe their treatment at work and their experiences with people who hold more power in the gendered and racialized labor hierarchy and to explore the strategies they employ to buffer/counteract the stresses of work and illuminate the perspectives of tourism business owners, managers, and planners about workers and the challenges and contributions of tourism-linked businesses.