Category: News

Many people believe climate change is happening, but most don’t act. Why?

Originally published on May 27, 2025 by Sarah DeWeerdt for Anthropocene Magazine.

A new study looks systematically for what works—and what doesn’t—to overcome psychological barriers that keep people stuck in the carbon-emissions status quo.

Getting people to think more about the future, especially their own and that of people they care about, is the most effective way to motivate climate action, according to a new study. The findings come from a head-to-head test of a 17 different strategies to inspire people to fight climate change, ranging from viewing information about carbon footprints to brainstorming the personal benefits of environmentally friendly actions.

In the past, most studies of such strategies just tested one intervention at a time to see whether or not it worked. But this made it hard to compare results across studies. Now, researchers are starting to look systematically to find out not just what works but what works best to overcome psychological barriers that keep people stuck in the carbon-emissions status quo.

The new study is an example of an “intervention tournament,” an emerging study design in which a multiplicity of climate interventions are all tested at the same time using the same methodology. Researchers recruited 7,624 adults living in the United States for an online study. They randomly assigned each participant to one of 17 intervention groups or a control group. Each intervention group tested a different psychological strategy to motivate climate action.

To measure the effectiveness of the interventions, the researchers asked participants how often they engage in various climate-related actions, whether they planned to do so more or less often in the future, and how beneficial they thought it would be if many people engaged in the action. Participants also viewed 5 headlines and 3 petitions about climate change and were asked how likely they were to share the information both broadly on social media and directly with people they know.

“We found that guiding people to imagine the future of climate change, especially scenarios that involved oneself and close others, was the most effective way to motivate action,” says study team member Alyssa Sinclair, a postdoctoral researcher in the Communication Neuroscience Lab and the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Such future-oriented interventions include imagining oneself experiencing negative effects of climate change in the future, and writing a letter to a child about one’s efforts to secure a livable planet for that child to read as an adult.

“Prompting people to relate climate change to themselves and people they care about was the most effective way to motivate sharing news and petitions about climate change,” Sinclair adds. This could be done, for example, through the letter to a child or through an exercise in which participants were asked to describe why news headlines on climate change were relevant to them or people they know.

The findings appear in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Interventions that aimed to increase people’s appreciation of the effectiveness of climate actions achieved this goal, although they did not actually inspire action itself – a surprising result, Sinclair says. “In prior surveys, we found that perceived impact was associated with intentions to engage in actions that are good for the environment,” she explains. “These results suggest that although increasing perceived impact may be helpful, it’s not always necessary or sufficient for motivating action.”

The researchers also identified interventions that are ineffective at inspiring action or information sharing, notably providing information about one’s personal carbon footprint – despite this being a frequent strategy for climate communication.

Writing a letter to a child also emerged as an effective strategy in another recent intervention tournament, which tested 11 different climate action interventions across 63 countries. In that study, the letter writing was even effective for people on the political right in the U.S., who tend to be skeptical about climate change and climate action.

In the new study, all participants were people who affirm the existence and human cause of climate change, a stance associated with the political left in the U.S. “In ongoing studies, we are further exploring promising interventions that are effective for both liberals and conservatives,” Sinclair reports. The researchers are also testing ways to measure the effects of interventions not just on people’s intentions but on their everyday behavior.

Source: Sinclair A.H. et al.Behavioral interventions motivate action to address climate change.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2025.

Image: ©Anthropocene Magazine, AI-generated

What behavioral strategies motivate environmental action?

Originally published May 13, 2025 by Erica Moser for Penn Today

 

A collaborative study from researchers affiliated with the Annenberg School for Communication, Annenberg Public Policy Center, and School of Arts & Sciences tested 17 strategies in an ‘intervention tournament.’

4 min. read

 

 

Image: Irina_Strelnikova via Getty Images

Survey data show that most people believe climate change is happening, but many don’t act, and as a postdoctoral fellow in Annenberg School for Communication Professor Emily Falk’s Communication Neuroscience Lab, Alyssa (Allie) Sinclair has thought a lot about why that might be.

“People may struggle to understand how the issue is relevant to them or people they know [relevance], focus on the present instead of future consequences [future thinking], or feel like their actions don’t matter [response efficacy],” says Sinclair, also a member of Professor Michael Mann’s Penn Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media, a joint venture of the Annenberg Public Policy Center and School of Arts & Sciences.

Building off health behavior studies and other literature in psychology, neuroscience, and communication, Sinclair led an interdisciplinary team of researchers examining how to overcome these barriers to climate action. In an “intervention tournament” with 7,624 U.S. adults, Penn researchers including Sinclair, Falk, and Mann tested 17 interventions targeting the themes of relevance, future thinking, and response efficacy to see which were most effective for motivating action.

“We find that helping them think about the future—especially when that future involves themselves and people they care about—is the most effective way to motivate action,” Sinclair says. This is true for motivating both individual actions, such as driving less or eating vegetarian meals, and collective actions, such as donating or volunteering. Interventions emphasizing relevance—why climate change should matter to you and people you care about—were the most effective in motivating people to share articles and petitions. Their findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“There’s been a growing number of efforts from other teams and from us to systematically look at what works and what doesn’t work, and it’s been really gratifying to see the fruits of that—to see that people are open to change when we give them the tools and resources,” Falk says. This study builds on her research on messaging to motivate positive changes in health behaviors.

This study embodies the call in Penn’s strategic framework, In Principle and Practice, for an “all-in” University effort to do more in the challenge of climate.

“This work reflects the emerging collaborations across campus in the climate space, something that I’m trying to foster in my new role as Vice Provost for Climate Science, Policy & Action,” Mann says, adding that “understanding how to communicate the science and its implications in a way that leads to useful policy and action is central” to the role.

The work is also inventive in its approach. Sinclair, the paper’s first author, explains that the traditional model of testing whether one idea works makes it difficult to compare findings across studies, so the researchers decided to test many ideas. She says intervention tournaments are not new, but they are rare, as they are ambitious efforts involving a lot of time, energy, and expertise.

Findings

The study—conducted among participants who affirm the existence and anthropogenic causes of climate change—found that two strategies targeting future thinking had the strongest impact on intentions to act: imagining oneself experiencing a negative future that could result from not addressing climate change and writing a letter for a child to read in the future. Both increased intentions to engage in both collective and individual actions.

The letter-writing approach also had the highest impact on intention to share petitions, both broadly on social media and directly with another person. Two interventions targeting relevance had the greatest impact on intention to share news articles: describing why news headlines on climate change matter to them and to people they know. They found that interventions emphasizing response efficacy increased the perceived impact of pro-environmental actions but did not consistently inspire action.

Some strategies exist at the intersection of relevance, future thinking, and response efficacy: brainstorming short-term personal benefits from engaging in pro-environmental behaviors in the next six months and developing a detailed plan to achieve an individual or collective goal. These also increased intentions to act.

Researchers also identified ineffective strategies, showing that receiving information about reducing one’s carbon footprint did not increase intentions to act. This is important because many environmental agencies promote actions focused on individual carbon footprints, but these strategies may not be effective.

“There is a huge gulf between the actions people tend to think make a difference, and the actions that *actually* make a difference when it comes to climate action,” Mann says. “Practitioners, i.e. communicators and organizations that participate in climate communication, could increase their effectiveness by incorporating the key findings of this and related work.”

Sinclair says the perspective of climate scientists has been missing from a lot of behavioral science work on climate change, and Mann advised the team on what actions matter most.

The road ahead

The authors note that while research shows “behavioral intentions are reliably related to actual behavior,” an important goal for future work is to test whether their top-performing interventions change real-world behavior. Such studies could measure the impact on a particular action—such as donating to environmental organizations or signing up for renewable energy programs—or take a longitudinal approach by repeatedly assessing participants’ behaviors in real time.

In the future, the team aims to adapt their findings into interactive online tools, work with museums to highlight the leading interventions through displays and interactive activities, and partner with environmental journalists.

“Overall, we recommend illustrating future scenarios and emphasizing the personal and social impact of climate change as leading strategies to promote behavior change and information sharing,” they write. Additionally, they note that their findings around behavior change, motivation, and information sharing have potential applications in domains beyond climate action, such as for motivating healthy behaviors or civic engagement.

Alyssa H. Sinclair is the Joan Bossert Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media and the Annenberg Public Policy Center and a member of the Communication Neuroscience Lab at the University of Pennsylvania.

Emily B. Falk is a professor of communication, psychology, marketing, and operations, informatics, and decisions at the University of Pennsylvania; vice dean of the Annenberg School for Communication; director of the Communication Neuroscience Lab; and director of the Climate Communication Division at the Annenberg Public Policy Center.

Michael E. Mann is Vice Provost for Climate Science, Policy, and Action at the University of Pennsylvania; Presidential Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science in the School of Arts & Sciences, with a secondary appointment in the Annenberg School for Communication; director of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media; and affiliate of the Annenberg Public Policy Center. 

The other co-authors are José Carreras-Tartak, Danielle Cosme, and Kirsten Lydic of the Annenberg School for Communication and Diego A. Reinero of the Department of Psychology in the School of Arts & Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania.

This research was supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (140D0423C0048), Annenberg Public Policy Center’s Climate Communication Division, the Annenberg School for Communication, and the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media.

Small nuclear reactors are no fix for California’s energy needs

Originally published on April 18, 2025 by Joe Romm for the LA Times

It might seem like everyone from venture capitalists to the news media to the U.S. secretary of Energy has been hyping small modular reactors as the key to unlocking a nuclear renaissance and solving both climate change and modern data centers’ ravenous need for power.

On Monday, the Natural Resources Committee of the California Assembly will consider a bill to repeal a longstanding moratorium on nuclear plants in the state, which was meant to be in place until there is a sustainable plan for what to do with radioactive waste. Defeated multiple times in the past, this bill would carve out an exception for small modular reactors, or SMRs, the current pipe dream of nuclear advocates.

SMRs are typically under 300 megawatts, compared with the combined 2.2 gigawatts from Diablo Canyon’s two operating reactors near San Luis Obispo. These smaller nukes have received so much attention in recent years mainly because modern reactors are so costly that the U.S. and Europe have all but stopped building any.

The sad truth is that small reactors make even less sense than big ones. And Trump’s tariffs only make the math more discouraging

I’ve been analyzing nuclear power since 1993, when I started a five-year stint at the Department of Energy as a special assistant to the deputy secretary. I helped him oversee both the nuclear energy program and the energy efficiency and renewable energy program, which I ran in 1997.

So I know all too well that the hype is built on quicksand — specifically, a seven-decade history of failure. As a 2015 analysis put it, “Economics killed small nuclear power plants in the past — and probably will keep doing so.” A 2014 journal article concluded many of those “building support for small modular reactors” are putting forward “rhetorical visions imbued with elements of fantasy.”

But isn’t there a nuclear renaissance going on? Nope. Georgia’s Vogtle plant is the only new nuclear plant the U.S. has successfully built and started in recent decades. The total cost was $35 billion, or about $16 million per megawatt of generating capacity — far more than methane (natural gas) or solar and wind with battery storage.

As such, Vogtle is “the most expensive power plant ever built on Earth,” with an “astoundingly high” estimated electricity cost, noted Power magazine. Georgia ratepayers each paid $1,000 to support this plant before they even got any power, and now their bills are rising more than $200 annually.

The high cost of construction and the resulting high energy bills explain why nuclear’s share of global power peaked at 17% in the mid-1990s but was down to 9.1% in 2024.

For decades, economies of scale drove reactors to grow beyond 1,000 megawatts. The idea that abandoning this logic would lead to a lower cost per megawatt is magical thinking, defying technical plausibility, historical reality and common sense.

Even a September report from the federal Department of Energy — which funds SMR development — modeled a cost per megawatt more than 50% higher than for large reactors. That’s why there are only three operating SMRs: one in China, with a 300% cost overrun, and two in Russia, with a 400% overrun. In March, a Financial Times analysis labeled such small reactors “the most expensive energy source.”

Indeed, the first SMR the U.S. tried to build — by NuScale — was canceled in 2023 after its cost soared past $20 million per megawatt, higher than Vogtle. In 2024, Bill Gates told CBS the full cost of his 375-megawatt Natrium reactor would be “close to $10 billion,” making its cost nearly $30 million per megawatt — almost twice Vogtle’s.

All of this has played out against a backdrop of historically cheap natural gas and a rapid expansion of renewable energy sources for electricity generation. All that competition against nuclear power matters: A 2023 Columbia University report concluded that “if the costs of new nuclear end up being much higher” than $6.2 million per megawatt, “new nuclear appears unlikely to play much of a role, if any, in the U.S. power sector.” R.I.P.

SMRs are just one of several wildly overhyped false promises on which the world is poised to spend hundreds of billions of dollars by 2040, including hydrogen energy and direct air carbon capture.

But nuclear power is the original overhyped energy technology. When he was chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, Lewis Strauss — the Robert Downey Jr. character in “Oppenheimer” — predicted in 1954 that our children would enjoy nuclear power “too cheap to meter.”

Yet by the time I joined the Department of Energy in 1993, nuclear power costs had grown steadily for decades. Since then, prices for new reactors have kept rising, and they are now the most expensive power source. But solar, wind and battery prices have kept dropping, becoming the cheapest. Indeed, those three technologies constitute a remarkable 93% of planned U.S. utility-scale electric-generating capacity additions in 2025. The rest is natural gas.

China is the only country building many new nuclear plants over the next five years — about 35 gigawatts. Less than 1% of this projected capacity would be from small reactors — while more than 95% will be from reactors over 1,100 megawatts. Now compare all that to the 350 gigawatts of solar and wind China built — just in 2024.

For the U.S., President Trump’s erratic tariffs make small modular reactors an even riskier bet. If the U.S. economy shrinks, so does demand for new electric power plants. And the twin threats of inflation and higher interest rates increase the risk of even worse construction cost overruns.

Also, China, Canada and other trading partners provide critical supply chain elements needed to mass-produce SMRs — and mass production is key to the sales pitch claiming this technology could become affordable. That logic would apply only if virtually all of the current SMR ventures fail and only one or two end up pursuing mass production.

So, can we please stop talking about small modular reactors as a solution to our power needs and get back to building the real solutions — wind, solar and batteries? They’re cheaper and cleaner — and actually modular.

Joseph Romm is a former acting assistant secretary of Energy and the author of “The Hype About Hydrogen: False Promises and Real Solutions in the Race to Save the Climate.”

 

Photo credit: A small modular reactor is constructed in China last year. These power plants are “small” only in output; their expense is huge. (Luo Yunfei / China News Service / Getty Images)

Penn Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media hosts first Research Day

Originally published by Norah Findley for the Daily Pennsylvanian on April 17, 2025

The Penn Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media will host its first Research Day on Friday, April 18.

Showcasing the ongoing work at PCSSM, the Research Day will include research talks by a number of PCSSM staff and researchers, as well as a poster and networking session. PCSSM research focuses on a range of topics in communication science, including climate and health, energy justice, behavioral science, climate distress, and solutions-focused research.

PCSSM Administrative Coordinator Heather Kostick — who organized the event — wrote to The Daily Pennsylvanian that sharing these research efforts with partners and colleagues is crucial to further PCSSM’s mission to address climate communication challenges, including misinformation and disinformation.

“I personally believe that doing science is pointless unless we share the work we’ve been doing,” Kostick wrote.

The event will be open to both the Penn community and the greater Philadelphia area, creating opportunities to strengthen existing partnerships and network with new people and groups, according to Kostick.

PCSSM Joan Bossert Postdoctoral Research Fellow Allie Sinclair will be one of the featured speakers. Her research with PCSSM focuses on ways to motivate people to take action and spread awareness around climate change in their everyday lives.

According to Sinclair, the opportunity to work with Annenberg Vice Dean Dr. Emily Falk on an “intervention tournament” project — aimed at identifying strategies to motivate individuals to adopt environmentally-friendly behaviors — was the initial inspiration for her decision to begin working at PCSSM.

“The idea is to brainstorm and then test a whole bunch of different ideas for strategies we might use to motivate people to take action, and then to systematically test them all at once in a big group of people and compare which ones are most effective,” Sinclair told the DP.

She added that this research is now “more important than ever” to address the climate crisis.

Sinclair is also involved in research on how the emotional framing of news headlines can impact engagement with climate change media, which she said complements her work with PCSSM.

PCSSM Gloria and Melvin Chisum Postdoctoral Research Fellow Eryn Campbell will also deliver a research talk at the event. Campbell’s research at PCSSM focuses on climate and health equity communication, specifically whether messaging around energy justice trade-offs could advance support for a renewable energy transition.

By calling attention to the harms that renewable energy opposition causes for vulnerable communities, Campbell found that people become more aware of health disparities and more willing to support policies that address them.

“This is some of the first work of its kind and demonstrates there is an important (and positive!) opportunity for this type of messaging to contribute to progress towards climate and health equity and climate solutions,” Campbell wrote in a statement to the DP.

The event will conclude with a poster session highlighting undergraduate and graduate student research projects.

 

Interactive Map Shows Economic Impact of Cuts to Federal Funding for Health Research

Originally published on April 3, 2025 by the Annenberg Public Policy Center.

In the wake of sweeping cuts to federal funding for scientific research, including a proposal to reduce support for medical research nationwide, an interdisciplinary team of academic researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and four other institutions developed an interactive, data-driven map to communicate the impact these cuts would have at national, state, and county levels.

The Science & Community Impacts Mapping Project (SCIMaP) shows how proposed federal funding cuts lead to reduced economic activity and job losses nationwide. The SCIMaP team’s analysis of across-the-board reductions to research infrastructure support for National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants, known as indirect costs, shows an estimated $16 billion in economic loss and 68,000 jobs lost nationwide.

Allie Sinclair“The NIH funds crucial research to address leading health problems like cancer, diabetes, dementia, heart disease, infectious diseases, mental illness, and more,” said project co-lead Alyssa Sinclair, Joan Bossert Postdoctoral Fellow at the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania and the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media. Sinclair, who is also a postdoctoral fellow at the Communication Neuroscience Lab at the Annenberg School for Communication, added that research innovations have a big impact on our daily lives. “Research innovations directly improve our daily lives by curing and preventing diseases, unlocking new technologies, and improving the safety of our food, water and environments.”

In recent years, more than $35 billion in NIH-funded medical research has been made possible annually through grant support to universities, hospitals and research institutes in communities across the U.S.

“Science transforms our world; however, the process of doing science and the impacts of scientific research are often hidden from view,” said project co-lead Joshua Weitz, Professor of Biology and Clark Leadership Chair in Data Analytics at the University of Maryland, with a joint appointment in the University of Maryland Institute for Health Computing. “Through interactive, data-driven visualizations, we aim to help Americans explore how science and health research fuels the economy, supports jobs and improves health outcomes.”

The team behind the project also includes researchers at the University of Utah, Georgia Institute of Technology and University of Oregon.

Although less than 1% of the federal budget goes to the NIH, the investment has a big impact. The United for Medical Research coalition estimates that every $1 invested in scientific research through the NIH produces $2.56 in new economic activity, a more than 250% gain in investment. Further, NIH research supports over 400,000 jobs across the U.S. Research funded by the NIH has led to major breakthroughs, including the prevention, treatment, and cures for cancer, heart disease, and type 1 diabetes.

SciMap website image
The SCIMaP website.

The proposed NIH federal funding cuts would greatly reduce the funding that covers the indirect costs of research already committed in grants. These funds pay for essential facilities, special equipment, skilled staff and safety checks that are shared across many research projects. Currently, the effective indirect cost rate is approximately 42% at institutions nationwide. In February 2025, the NIH announced a policy to cut this by more than half, reducing indirect costs to a flat rate of 15%. Medical research would be slowed by drastic cuts in total research funding, according to Heather Pierce, senior director for science policy at the Association of American Medical Colleges, in a recent interview with the New York Times.

“Medical and scientific breakthroughs supported by the U.S. government impact all our lives,” said Emily Falk, Professor and Vice Dean of Penn’s Annenberg School for Communication (ASC), and director of APPC’s Climate Communication Division. “Research innovations are at the core of many things that enhance our daily lives and keep us safer.”

She added that the U.S. government’s investment in research has made the nation a leader in the world. “SCIMaP shows what’s at stake for local economies and the future of innovation in our communities,” Falk said.

In addition to Sinclair, Weitz, and Falk, the team behind SCIMaP includes Danielle Cosme, scientific director of APPC’s Climate Communication Division, along with Mallory Harris (University of Maryland), Clio Andris (Georgia Institute of Technology), Angela Fagerlin (University of Utah), Ellen Peters (University of Oregon) and other researchers at institutions across the country.

This story was originally posted at the Annenberg School for Communication. To learn more about the project, read the full story at ASC.

Data-Driven, Interactive Map Shows Local Economic Impact of Cuts to Federal Funding for Health Research

Originally posted on April 3, 2025 by Meredith Rovine and Mandira Banerjee for the Annenberg School for Communication.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Maryland show that proposed NIH funding cuts lead to an estimated $16 billion in economic loss and 68,000 jobs lost nationwide.

By Meredith Rovine and Mandira Banerjee

Philadelphia, PA & College Park, MD April 3, 2025 – In the wake of sweeping cuts to federal funding for scientific research, including a proposal to reduce support for medical research nationwide, an interdisciplinary team of academic researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, University of Maryland, University of Utah, Georgia Institute of Technology and University of Oregon developed an interactive, data-driven map to communicate the impact these cuts would have at national, state and county levels.

The Science & Community Impacts Mapping Project (SCIMaP) communicates how proposed federal funding cuts lead to reduced economic activity and job losses nationwide. The SCIMaP team’s analysis of across-the-board reductions to research infrastructure support for National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants, known as indirect costs, shows an estimated $16 billion in economic loss and 68,000 jobs lost nationwide.

“The NIH funds crucial research to address leading health problems like cancer, diabetes, dementia, heart disease, infectious diseases, mental illness, and more,” said Alyssa Sinclair, Joan Bossert Postdoctoral Fellow at UPenn’s Annenberg Public Policy Center and co-lead for the project. Sinclair, who is also a postdoctoral fellow at the Communication Neuroscience Lab at the Annenberg School for Communication, added that research innovations have a big impact on our daily lives. “Research innovations directly improve our daily lives by curing and preventing diseases, unlocking new technologies, and improving the safety of our food, water and environments.”

In recent years, more than $35 billion in NIH-funded medical research has been made possible annually through grant support to universities, hospitals and research institutes in communities across the U.S.

“Science transforms our world; however, the process of doing science and the impacts of scientific research are often hidden from view,” said project co-lead Joshua Weitz, Professor of Biology and Clark Leadership Chair in Data Analytics at UMD with a joint appointment in the University of Maryland Institute for Health Computing. “Through interactive, data-driven visualizations, we aim to help Americans explore how science and health research fuels the economy, supports jobs and improves health outcomes.”

Although less than 1% of the federal budget goes to the NIH, the investment has a big impact. The United for Medical Research coalition estimates that every $1 invested in scientific research through the NIH produces $2.56 in new economic activity, a more than 250% gain in investment. Further, NIH research supports over 400,000 jobs across the U.S. Research funded by the NIH has led to major breakthroughs, including the prevention, treatment, and cures for cancer, heart disease and type 1 diabetes.

The proposed NIH federal funding cuts would greatly reduce the funding that covers the indirect costs of research already committed in grants. These funds pay for essential facilities, special equipment, skilled staff and safety checks that are shared across many research projects. Currently, the effective indirect cost rate is approximately 42% at institutions nationwide. In February 2025, the NIH announced a policy to cut this by more than half, reducing indirect costs to a flat rate of 15%.  Medical research would be slowed by drastic cuts in total research funding, according to Heather Pierce, senior director for science policy at the Association of American Medical Colleges, in a recent interview with the New York Times.

“Medical and scientific breakthroughs supported by the U.S. government impact all our lives,” said Emily Falk, Professor and Vice Dean of UPenn’s Annenberg School for Communication. “Research innovations are at the core of many things that enhance our daily lives and keep us safer.”

She added that the U.S. government’s investment in research has made the nation a leader in the world. “SCIMaP shows what’s at stake for local economies and the future of innovation in our communities,” Falk said.

In addition to Sinclair, Weitz and Falk, the interdisciplinary team behind SCIMaP includes Danielle Cosme (University of Pennsylvania), Mallory Harris (University of Maryland), Clio Andris (Georgia Institute of Technology), Angela Fagerlin (University of Utah), Ellen Peters (University of Oregon) and other researchers at institutions across the country.

The SCIMaP team sourced its data from a public database of NIH grants that were active in 2024 and estimated the economic impact of NIH grants (or reductions in NIH funding) based on a recent report from the United for Medical Research coalition. The SCIMaP team estimated the number of jobs that would be lost by a reduction in NIH funding by using the ratio of the number of jobs supported over the economic activity enabled in the 2024 fiscal year. The researchers also used census data on where U.S. commuters live and work to estimate how economic loss in each county impacts adjacent counties.

Moving forward, the SCIMaP team plans to expand its analysis beyond the impacts of NIH cuts to assess the impacts of other threats to federally supported research, including termination of research grants, cancellation of student-centered training programs and a proposed reduction of up to $6 billion of the National Science Foundation’s $9 billion budget.

About the University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania, founded in 1740, is an Ivy League institution with a distinctive past. Its 12 undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools are located in Philadelphia on an attractive urban campus that serves a diverse community of more than 20,000 students from throughout the nation and around the world. Ranked consistently among the top universities in the nation, Penn has a longstanding reputation for excellence in graduate and professional education.

PCSSM Student Researcher Received Earth & Environmental Science Department Award

The Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media is excited to share that PCSSM Student Researcher Bronwyn Patterson will receive the Fred N. Scatena Award for Research on Climate Change on May 2, 2025 from the Penn Earth and Environmental Science Department.

 

Bronwyn Patterson is a fourth-year undergraduate candidate for a B.A. of Environmental Studies with a concentration in Sustainability and Management. From Annapolis, Maryland, Bronwyn is the captain of the Women’s Varsity Track and Field team here at Penn. Aside from competing for Penn Track, she is also a member of the Sphinx Senior Society, a team representative for the Student Athlete Advisory Council (SAAC), and was a 2022-23 Undergraduate Fellow for the the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy. She is interested in the overlap between finance and climate action, as well as sustainable investing that can support the clean energy transition for the decades to come. Bronwyn’s senior thesis partners the programming language R with ChatGPT 4o-Mini to capture how ExxonMobil’s climate-change related discourse has changed over time, specifically within the last decade (2015-2024). Specifically, her research employs automated text analysis to quantify the number of press releases from ExxonMobil that include the linguistic “market levers” frame, which includes a range of phrases and diction that address climate change and/or its market risks. Her work aims to address a critical lack of extensive research into the fossil fuel industry’s public facing communication via automated text analysis, and will be used to establish connections between regulatory frameworks, financial risk, and climate communication in the energy industry. Bronwyn’s senior thesis project is an offshoot of a larger doctoral project by Annenberg School for Communication PhD Candidate Julia Cope.

Data-driven map shows local economic impact of cuts to federal funding for health research

Originally published April 9, 2025 by Meredith Rovine and Mandira Banerjee for Penn Today

 

Data-driven map shows local economic impact of cuts to federal funding for health research

A new interactive map co-developed by researchers at Penn’s Annenberg School for Communication shows that proposed NIH funding cuts lead to an estimated $16 billion in economic loss and 68,000 jobs lost nationwide.

Science & Community Impacts Mapping Project (SCIMaP).

(Image: Courtesy of Annenberg School for Communication)

The Science & Community Impacts Mapping Project (SCIMaP) communicates how proposed federal funding cuts lead to reduced economic activity and job losses nationwide. The SCIMaP team’s analysis of across-the-board reductions to research infrastructure support for National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants, known as indirect costs, shows an estimated $16 billion in economic loss and 68,000 jobs lost nationwide.

“The NIH funds crucial research to address leading health problems like cancer, diabetes, dementia, heart disease, infectious diseases, mental illness, and more,” says Alyssa Sinclair, Joan Bossert Postdoctoral Fellow at the Annenberg Public Policy Center and co-lead for the project. Sinclair, who is also a postdoctoral fellow at the Communication Neuroscience Lab at the Annenberg School for Communication (ASC), added that research innovations have a big impact on our daily lives. “Research innovations directly improve our daily lives by curing and preventing diseases, unlocking new technologies, and improving the safety of our food, water and environments.”

“Medical and scientific breakthroughs supported by the U.S. government impact all our lives,” says Emily Falk, professor and vice dean of ASC. “Research innovations are at the core of many things that enhance our daily lives and keep us safer.”

She added that the U.S. government’s investment in research has made the nation a leader in the world. “SCIMaP shows what’s at stake for local economies and the future of innovation in our communities,” says Falk.

This story is by Meredith Rovine and Mandira Banerjee. Read more at Annenberg School for Communication.

Fifth Energy Week to bring Penn community together around solutions

Originally published February 5, 2025 by Erica Moser for Penn Today.

More than two dozen events held Feb. 10-14 will give students, faculty, and staff an opportunity to learn about energy-related research and work at Penn and beyond.

Penn is holding its fifth Energy Week from Feb. 10-14, with a lineup of daily events for faculty, staff, and students to engage in the latest solutions-focused work happening at Penn and in government and industry.

“We are in a moment with a lot of shifting energy and climate policy at both the federal and the state level. This presents a real opportunity for places like Penn to provide research, education, and community around good, sound policy outcomes,” says Cory Colijn, executive director of the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, which is co-hosting Energy Week with the Vagelos Institute for Energy Science and Technology (VIEST). “We anticipate there being an increased amount of appetite for bipartisan solution-making, and we feel like Penn can be a real platform to advance those conversations.”

“We need opportunities to recognize the good work that we’re doing, to celebrate what everyone on campus is doing every day to try to bring us to energy solutions that get us to the sustainable future that we really need,” says Nadine Gruhn, managing director of VIEST.

“Like our fall Climate Week, Energy Week is one of the great opportunities we have at Penn to showcase the important work we are doing in the energy/climate/sustainability arena,” says Michael Mann, vice provost for climate science, policy, and action. “It offers us an opportunity to engage in a larger conversation with our students, faculty, staff, and community about what we’re doing to address the great challenges we face today.”

Mann gave insights into an event he will participate in on Feb. 13: “Conservative and Concerned About Climate Change? You’re Not Alone,” with Bob Inglis, the executive director of republicEn.org. “I’m thankful to be part of a conversation with my friend Bob Inglis, a leading conservative voice on climate, about what we can do to encourage collaboration across the partisan divide on matters of climate and environmental sustainability,” says Mann. “I hope it’s a model for the sort of progress we can make in the years ahead.”

The full schedule can be viewed at energyweek.upenn.edu. Events include:

  • Feb. 10-14, 9 a.m.-5 p.m., Kleinman Center (Fisher Fine Arts Building)—An E-Waste Drive gives people the opportunity to responsibly recycle electronics, such as old cell phones and accessories, laptops and keyboards, and batteries.

  • Monday, Feb. 10, 12-1:30 p.m., Kleinman Center Energy Forum (Fisher Fine Arts Building)—In the Energy Week Lightning Talks, students will present TED-style talks on energy-related research for an audience and panel of judges.

  • Monday, Feb. 10, 3-4 p.m., Wu & Chen Auditorium (Levine Hall)—This year’s Joseph Bordogna Forum is a discussion about creating lasting impact at the interface of energy, technology, and society, featuring David Turk, former deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy, and Vanessa Chan, formerly of DOE and now Penn Engineering’s inaugural vice dean of innovation and entrepreneurship.

  • Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2-3 p.m., Berger Auditorium (Skirkanich Hall)—In a panel moderated by Chan, three members of the Biden-Harris Administration will discuss their work catalyzing clean energy technology investments in the private sector. This includes Maria Robinson of the Grid Deployment Office, Jigar Shah of the Loan Programs Office, and Giulia Siccardo of the Office of Manufacturing Energy and Supply Chains.

  • Tuesday, Feb. 11 and Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2-3 p.m. both days, (Penn Museum)—A tour of the Penn Museum collection will focus on ancient climates and energy production, giving participants a chance to learn from people of the past.

  • Tuesday, Feb. 11, 5-6:30 p.m., Kleinman Center Energy Forum (Fisher Fine Arts Building)—Students interested in a career in the energy sector will benefit from an alumni panel featuring graduates of the School of Arts & Sciences, School of Engineering and Applied Science, and Wharton School. This includes Derek Wong of Excelerate Energy, Kelly-Ann Corrigan of Runwise, and Lolita K. Jackson of Sustainable Capital LLP.

  • Thursday, Feb. 13, 11 a.m.-12 p.m., Annenberg School for Communication, Room 300—As part of the Environmental Innovations Initiative’s Climate 101 series, Benjamin Lee of Penn Engineering will give a talk about climate change and artificial intelligence.

  • Thursday, Feb. 13, 12:30-1:30 p.m., Kleinman Center Energy Forum (Fisher Fine Arts Building)—Michael Mann will join Bob Inglis, the executive director of republicEn.org for a conversation called “Conservative and Concerned About Climate Change? You’re Not Alone.”

  • Thursday, Feb. 13, 4-5 p.m., Vagelos Laboratory for Energy Science and Technology, Room 121—Gregg Beckham, group leader and senior research fellow at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, will present the 3rd Vagelos Institute Lectureship in Energy Science and Technology, focusing on the U.S. Department of Energy-funded BOTTLE Consortium and its approach to plastics recycling and redesign. This and other events, such as a poster session and pitch showcase for graduate students, give people a chance to see Penn’s newest building.

  • Friday, Feb. 14, 12-4 p.m., Fisher Fine Arts Library—The Common Press hosts a hands-on studio where participants can print an energy-themed valentine or write an energy-related valentine to a local, state, or federal policymaker.

Heather Kostick appointed Associate Director of PCSSM

The Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media is happy to announce that Heather Kostick has been appointed Associate Director of PCSSM. Heather has been with PCSSM since its launch in 2022, and looks forward to continuing advance and expand the mission of PCSSM under the direction of Dr. Michael Mann.

Heather manages center research, communications, planning, and programming while collaborating with Penn organizations and centers, as well as, external organizations to further the center’s mission of science and sustainability communication in the media. She joins PCSSM after having previously worked for the Masters of Environmental Studies and Applied Geosciences programs in LPS. Heather received her B.Sc. in Wildlife Conservation from Juniata College, her M.E.S. from the University of Pennsylvania, and is a Ph.D. candidate in Environmental Science at Drexel University. Heather’s research interests include climate misinformation and disinformation, urban ecology, urban green space, biodiversity, and conservation.