Climate change is often framed as a scientific problem — one that will be solved through data, technology, and policy. But many of the biggest obstacles to climate action are fundamentally human: How do we motivate people to act? Whose knowledge shapes environmental decision-making? How do we govern shared resources? And how do the stories we tell influence public understanding of the crisis?
Meet four UBC Faculty of Arts PhD students whose research is helping answer these questions. From behaviour change and climate communication to environmental governance and Indigenous-led approaches to justice, their work is helping build a more sustainable future.
Romina Tantaleán-Castañeda
Program: PhD in Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice
From: Lima, Peru
Research focus: Indigenous knowledge and the rights of nature
Most legal systems treat rivers and forests as property: resources that can be owned, managed, and extracted. But many Indigenous communities understand them differently — as living beings with whom humans have reciprocal relationships. What would it mean for the law to recognize that perspective?
That question sits at the heart of Romina Tantaleán-Castañeda’s research. A PhD candidate at UBC’s Social Justice Institute, Romina is working in partnership with FEMIPA, a federation of Indigenous women in the Peruvian Amazon. Together, they are exploring how Indigenous women are defending their territories, rivers, and forests in the face of resource extraction and environmental destruction.
Her research examines what more just environmental protections could look like — and what legal systems would need to change to make them possible.
Jade Radke
Program: PhD in Psychology
From: St. Albert, Alberta
Research focus: Motivating climate action through positive reinforcement
How do we motivate people to make more sustainable choices?
One common approach is to emphasize sacrifice: drive less, consume less, waste less. But for people who are skeptical about climate change — or simply overwhelmed by messaging focused on sacrifice and doom — that approach can backfire.
Jade Radke is exploring what psychology can bring to this challenge. A PhD student in the Behavioral Sustainability Lab, Radke tests behavioural interventions grounded in positive reinforcement and has found that messages focused on joy, connection and personal benefits are far more effective than messaging focused on guilt and deprivation.
Her findings could influence how climate campaigns, public policy, and environmental organizations communicate one of the defining challenges of our time.
Simon Beaudoin
Program: PhD in Political Science
From: Sept-Îles, Québec
Research focus: Environmental governance
Climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution are global challenges that no country can solve alone. Yet efforts to address them are often fragmented across governments, institutions, and international agreements.
Simon Beaudoin studies how global and local communities can work together more effectively on environmental challenges. A PhD student in the UBC Department of Political Science, his research takes him from UN biodiversity negotiations to Pacific Island communities on the frontlines of climate change, searching for reforms that are both effective and just.
He explores how local and Indigenous knowledge can inform international decision-making, and how stronger cooperation can bridge the gaps between climate, biodiversity, and pollution policy.
Kimberly Grogan
Program: PhD in English Language and Literatures
From: Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Research focus: Climate communication and metaphors
What role do metaphors play in how we understand the climate crisis, feel responsible for it, or become motivated to act on it?
When a politician says we’re “on a highway to climate hell,” a late-night host compares climate change to “a car speeding off a cliff while some of us are fiddling with the radio,” or an activist poster shows a melting glacier in the shape of a drowning human, these framings do more than grab our attention. They also nudge our brains toward specific emotions, assumptions, and ways of understanding the crisis.
Kimberly Grogan is a PhD candidate in the UBC Department of English Language and Literatures and a cognitive linguist who studies the metaphors and images that shape how people make sense of the climate crisis. Her research spans news media, television, and activist campaigns, exploring how different messages resonate with different audiences.
Her findings could help communicators craft climate messages that connect with a wider range of audiences.
