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Western’s faculty and students are engaged in exciting research and scholarship across a variety of fields. Each week, Western Today will share short summaries of the latest developments in scholarly work at the University. Interested in reading in-depth stories about science and research at Western? Go to , discovery and scholarship, and subscribe (it's free) to that site by clicking the "Follow" button. Want more research news? Follow  on Twitter.

Rebekah Paci-Green

Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Rebekah Paci-Green has received a $5,043 grant from Risk Reduction Education for Disasters, U.S.-based non-governmental organization that champions the right of children to safer schools worldwide. The grant, which runs from August 2021 through July 2022, includes work on a family safety plan app for a school in Fiji, including a survey to form the content of the app, development of graphics and icons, and an algorithm to assess risk for users based on their survey responses and make risk-reduction recommendations.

Catherine Armstrong Soule

Associate Professor of Marketing Catherine Armstrong Soule and her co-author Sara Hanson, assistant professor of marketing at the University of Richmond’s Robins School of Business, have had their article, accepted for publication in the Journal for the Association of Consumer Research. The ahead of print.

The article explores consumer-to-consumer secondhand exchange, noting that this practice is flourishing as consumers are participating on both sides of the secondhand market, buying used items as well as reselling their own items. It poses the question of whether participation in the secondhand market changes the way people think about and evaluate the attractiveness of prices, using recently published consumer research studies to explore and come to conclusions on the question.

Graduate Student Sydne Tursky

Sydne Tursky is a first-year graduate student of environmental studies who analyzes techniques for reframing climate policy to appeal to climate skeptics. Her current focus is on white evangelicals in the South, and she’s a recipient of the �������� Graduate Research Award for her thesis entitled, “Agree to Disagree: Reframing Climate Policy to Appeal to Skeptics.”  

  Tursky understands that climate change deniers are often reasonable people with an interest in being responsible stewards of the land. But without reframing the conversation to incorporate what Southern white evangelicals and other climate skeptics value, Tursky says we risk never getting enough support or momentum to pass critical and comprehensive climate policy aimed at protecting billions of people and the land we all inhabit. Her approach to reframing climate policy then must be nuanced, giving priority to a multidimensional understanding of how various populations understand their responsibility to climate stability.  

Tursky’s approach works in the vein of cooperation and leverage rather than opposition on this highly contentious but urgent issue. 

Tursky’s graduate research advisor is Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Rebekah Paci-Green.