Researchers

Adrienne Cachelin, Environmental & Sustainability Studies
—SPARC EJ LAB Director

"The SPARC lab has provided me the opportunity to collaborate with community researchers collecting data to inform environmental justice locally while creating educational pathways for students. Working with community partners and students to pursue research projects that shape graduate and undergraduate experiences while shaping local systems is the best part of my job."

Brett Clark , Sociology
—Qualitative Methods Research Advisor

"The community research projects being pursued within the SPARC EJ Lab consistently inspire me, given the transformative insights and the pragmatic actions generated through the work. Additionally, it has been wonderful to learn so much from the students and colleagues within the lab."

Brian Codding, Anthropology
—Applied Quantitative Research Advisor

"SPARC EJ provides an incredible framework to integrate student scholars, community partners, and university researchers on an even field where everyone can work together to solve common problems. This model elevates everyone involved as we all learn from one another in the process of conducting applied research around environmental justice."

Danielle Endres, Communication
—Energy Sovereignty Projects Research Advisor

"I’ve engaged with environmental justice as a guiding framework in my research for years and have worked informally with community organizers and practitioners in projects on nuclear decolonization on Indigenous lands, climate activism, and energy democracy. As I embark on a new project that seeks to engage in more formalized community engagement methods and bring more undergraduate students into the research project, I am grateful for the SPARC EJ Lab’s networks, models, and collaborations that will deepen the centrality of tangible environmental justice outcomes from my project."

Matt Fry, Geography

—Extractive Industries and urban Environment Research Advisor

"I really like how the SPARC Lab forefronts environmental justice as a framework for collaborative research. As a geographer, I often use justice to frame social science research projects on extractive industries, oil and natural gas production, and urban environmental issues. I’m particularly interested in finding ways to demonstrate injustices with empirical evidence. Likewise, I think it’s important to explore new ways to conceptualize justice. While the spatial distributional aspects are good first steps to examining justice issues, what’s exciting about the SPARC collective is that it brings multiple perspectives and participants together to explore new ways to conceptualize and examine environmental justice issues."

Sierra Govett
—IRC Community Garden Specialist,
International Rescue Committee

"The IRC partnered with the SPARC EJ Lab in 2019 to launch the New Roots Foodways for Health Equity Project, a collaborative photovoice research project developed by students and community members. Throughout 2020, several New Roots program members participated as co-researchers by taking photographs documenting food and its role in their lives to respond to the question: “What role does food play in your life?” The group used cameras to answer these questions, combining photos with words sharing their own individual stories. Co-researchers discussed the messages and themes they wanted to present and made a final selection of pictures representing their answer to the research question. In this way, the results of the photovoice project represent the group’s message about how food builds both identity and community. This exhibit is currently on display at the Glendale-Mountainview Community Learning Center."

Gilberto "Juan" Rejón Magana
—Coach and Executive Director,
Hartland Partnership for Youth and Families

"Hartland Community for Youth and Families (HC4YF) is a community development organization that addresses the needs of Salt Lake County’s underserved, at-risk and underrepresented population, including people who have refugee and immigrant backgrounds or identify as Latino/a. We are excited to partner with the SPARC EJ Lab on the Growing Educational Pathways for Food Sovereignty program because this program supports HC4YF's mission to provide a pathway to college for Salt Lake County’s at-risk and underserved youth."

Kate Magargal, Honors College
— Energy Sovereignty Projects Lead

"I am a researcher and educator who works with communities and land management agencies on issues of land tenure and energy sovereignty. I started working with students on community engaged research projects in 2017. By synthesizing diverse perspectives, my goal is to identify appropriate questions and methods for research in support of community-lead solutions to inequality in the production and distribution of energy. The unique curiosity and perspective of students enhances community relationships, adding depth to the connections made throughout the research process. The SPARC EJ lab facilitates such important relationships between students, communities, and researchers."

Jarred Martinez
—Education Partnership Manager,
University Neighborhood Partners(UNP)

"University Neighborhood Partners has been working with the SPARC EJ Lab and ENVST students for several years on education pathways projects, and we are now excited to co-launch the Growing Educational Pathways for Food Sovereignty program. This multi-faceted course will be co-taught by community residents and SPARC members, taking place in various learning and community garden spaces both in our local school community and at the university. We look forward bringing together high-school youth, with local and university knowledge-holders, to explore and enhance how place, food-justice and belonging at the U of U campus are connected."

Jeff Rose, Parks, Recreation & Tourism
—Unsheltered Homelessness Research Projects Advisor

"Working with students, faculty, and community collaborators through the SPARC EJ Lab has really heightened existing environmental justice projects, and also catalyzed new ones. The students are insightful and critical, and they are eager to dive in experientially to these projects. I have also learned a bunch about the other projects that are going on in the lab, broadening my understanding of environmental justice."

Jennifer Shah, Geography & Environmental & Sustainability Studies
—Water Quality Research Projects Advisor

"As an ecosystem ecologist and freshwater scientist who dabbles in urban design, EJ is a newer dimension of my research. I recognize its importance through observations of people using urban rivers in a variety of ways, including the provisioning of basic necessities.  I also have been inspired by students who are passionate about building better cities for all residents – whether home is a building or simply the place and the community of people with whom one resides. Working with the SPARC EJ lab, I have been able to solidify community connections and create pathways for students engaging in community-based research."

Søren Simonsen
—Executive Director, Jordan River Commission

"The Jordan River Commission collaborates with the University of Utah’s Environmental Justice Lab and other community partners to better understand and respond to the situations of people experiencing homelessness, especially those who are drawn to Jordan River as a place of refuge. We work with local, state and national partners to find long-term solutions for permanent housing and supportive services to improve their lives and living conditions. We are currently supporting student researchers as they survey, interview, and engage with this hard-to-reach population so that we can collectively envision sustainable relationships for both people, and the sensitive and heavily impacted environment surrounding the Jordan River."

Keri Taddie
—Coordinator,Glendale Mt. View Community Learning Center
—Member,Education Collective SLC

"The Glendale Mt. View Community Learning Center has been working with the University of Utah’s Environmental Justice program to promote educational equity and food justice in the Glendale community for 8 years. Through the SPARC EJ Lab, we have partnered with students at the University of Utah to better understand the role that community centers play in advancing equity, how our residents experience community centers, and how the CLC can be a partner in garden based education for food justice."

Salt Lake City Dept. of Sustainability

"Our office is currently working with students on two projects related to food equity in SLC. In one project, students are ground truthing data that will be used to help improve tools for public administrators and policymakers better to understand the various factors influencing food security across the city, identify areas with the highest risk for food insecurity, and inform policy and program interventions to support equitable food security and access for all residents. Students will also be working with us to research how food policy councils across the country can support urban agriculture, while protecting from unintended consequences such as gentrification."

University of Utah Edible Campus Gardens

"The Edible Campus Gardens have been working with students from the University of Utah’s Environmental Justice Lab for the past several years to explore how we can continue to implement an increasingly inclusive landscape and crop variety that is welcoming to a diversity of students. Through the SPARC EJ Lab our garden stewards have been able to connect their work to the visions of our community partners and we are looking forward to co-launching the Growing Gardens Growing Communities program."

Wood Hauling and Native Livelihoods Research Collective

"On some parts of tribal lands in the US four-corners region, up to 80% of people depend on wood harvested from nearby forested tribal and federal public lands for their daily needs. Our research collaborative works with community partners such as Utah Diné Bikeyah and the Bureau of Land Management to better understand aspects of the cultural and economic importance of this access to wood, and how we can plan for future access. Since 2018 we have engaged with students from the SPARC EJ Lab in fieldwork, data collection and analysis, and through community outreach and presentation of findings."

Sarah Tabak , Northern Arizona University

"As an ENVST Alumni I initially worked with the SPARC Lab as a student and then as a Community Engaged Learning TA where I helped students in their SPARC Research projects. I graduated with a B.S. in ENVST and Geography, then got an M.A. in Sustainable Communities from Northern Arizona University. I returned to ENVST as the CEL Coordinator and now help place students in SPARC projects and support students, partners, and researchers in their collaborative research to ensure a smooth and supportive experience.”

Talula Pontuti, Geography
—Food Projects Researcher

"Currently, I am a PhD student in the Department of Geography studying food justice, agriculture, and climate change with goals of focusing on mixed methods community-driven research. I have worked on food-related projects at the city level, worked for nonprofits doing urban agriculture, and have been involved with other community-based programs. The SPARC Lab has given me the opportunity to be the Graduate Student Lead on their Corner Store project—focusing on food access and supply chains for corner stores in Ogden, Utah. This project is in partnership with the Ogden Food Council and the United Way of Northern Utah. I look forward to the continuation of relationship building with our community and students."

Jessie Chaplain, Communications
—Ethnobotany Project Lead

"I am a Communication PhD student doing fieldwork on climate justice activism at United Nations climate conferences to better understand how climate justice advocates seek to intervene within international climate policy and how global climate policy intersects with local climate action. I joined the SPARC Lab in Fall 2023 and have been working with Danielle Endres and undergraduate students on an archive community-based project with the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone nation that gathers archival resources on their history and ethnobotany information. I am immensely grateful to the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone and SPARC lab for the opportunities to work with undergraduate students on a project that provides tangible environmental justice support and solutions.