Sara Meerow, a doctoral student at the School of Natural Resources & Environment, is a recipient of the 2013 Marshall Weinberg Population, Development, and Climate Change Fellowship. The fellowship provides support to a University of Michigan student conducting research on a topic that combines research into population, development and climate issues. It is co-managed by SNRE and the Population Studies Center within U-M’s Institute for Social Research.

Meerow is studying how to improve urban resilience to climate change. She chose the Philippines, and Manila in particular, to conduct her work. The nation has been identified by multiple studies as one of the world’s most vulnerable areas to climate change, Meerow says. The city already is struggling to cope with natural disasters, such as floods in 2012; and the incidence and intensity of extreme events is expected to increase with climate change. “Thus, it is critical that Manila develops its resilience by striving for mitigation while taking precautionary adaptive measures,” she wrote in her proposal to the Weinberg Fellowship committee.

She plans to explore the city’s electricity infrastructure as well as the institutions and policies governing its energy sector and how the combination of those forces shape sustainable development. She also will study how the power system serves the needs of the city’s population and impacts their own resilience to climate change.

The Fellowship provides financial aid, which Meerow is using to fund her summer in Manila, where she is currently conducting fieldwork. Her adviser is Joshua Newell, an assistant professor at SNRE. With her data collected, Meerow plans to work with Newell on possible journal articles and to use the information as the preliminary basis for her dissertation.

The other 2013 recipient is Ellen Compernolle, a doctoral candidate in sociology.

For more on the Weinberg Population, Development, and Climate Change Fellowship. visit snre.umich.edu/assets/weinberg/index.php