What happens when humans and the environment interact?
To find the answer to that question, the National Science Foundation NSF has awarded Yale and five other research centers a total of $16.8 million.
Yale's share of the grant is $985,000 which will be used to organize conferences and workshops to encourage both domestic and international research on the human dimensions of global change.
William D. Nordhaus, the A. Whitney Griswold Professor of Economics, will oversee the five-year project at the Yale Center for Global Change, in cooperation with the National Bureau of Economic Research and Austria's International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis.
"Population growth, environmental changes, natural resources, public health, technological advances, social organizations, and political and economic shifts are among critical factors," says Cheryl Eavey, who coordinates NSF's Human Dimensions of Global Change research program. "By combining research in the natural and the social sciences, we hope to discover ways to better predict the impact of changes on populations and their environment."
The other NSF Global Change awards will go to Carnegie Mellon, Harvard, Indiana and Pennsylvania State universities, and the University of Arizona.