Jacob Weinshank
Anthropology and Environmental Policy PhD Program – A2C2 IGERT Graduate Fellow
Jacob graduated Summa Cum Laude from Salve Regina University with a bachelor’s in Anthropology and Sociology. He was a member of the Pell Honors Program and studied abroad for a semester in Fiji, taking Anthropology courses at the University of the South Pacific. Jacob will focus on climate change perceptions in Polynesia and Micronesia. He will concentrate on the human dimension of climate change and how local ideological conceptualizations of climate change alter governmental and international policy development and implementation in response to ACC. He will also study traditional environmental knowledge (TEK) in Polynesia and Micronesia with the goal of cultivating adaptation and mitigation policy solutions through a synthesis of local TEK and modern climate science. His studies will illuminate the unique environmental perspective of indigenous people, thus enhancing global climate change knowledge, giving policy makers the ability to alter ACC responses.