Emma Fox: From Researching Maine’s Mudflats to Shaping Environmental Policy
Emma Fox regularly juggles eight projects during a typical work week as a senior associate at Industrial Economics, Inc. (IEc). IEc is a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based environmental economic consulting firm whose clients include federal and state agencies, private firms, Tribes, and non-governmental agencies. In the morning, she might be analyzing interviews from community members regarding their attitudes towards energy assistance programs. A few hours later, she is crunching data to model the costs associated with improving recycling infrastructure across the U.S.
“My work is focused on program evaluation and policy analysis, mostly for state and federal agency clients. My day-to-day work is pretty varied, which I love,” Fox said.
Fox’s fascination with researching complex, real-world problems developed while serving as an AmeriCorps volunteer with the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory. She moved to Maine for the position in 2012 having recently graduated with a bachelor’s in biology. Fox immersed herself in the coastal community of Frenchman Bay which was working to re-open hundreds of acres of mudflats to clamming. State officials frequently had to close the mudflats due to impaired water quality. Fox quickly learned that the problem was complicated, involving not just clams and bacterial contamination but people and their behaviors.
One of the researchers on the mudflats project was Bridie McGreavy, who was pursuing her doctorate and is now an associate professor in the UMaine Department of Communication and Journalism and a member of the Mitchell Center’s Leadership Council. That connection led to Fox’s decision to enroll at UMaine, where Mitchell Center faculty fellows Caroline Noblet and Sharon Klein served as the advisors for her master’s and doctoral degrees in ecology and environmental science.
Fox was again drawn to multifaceted projects focused on complex connections between people and nature during her six years at UMaine, first with the Safe Beaches & Shellfish project and then the Future of Dams project. These research projects were co-led by the Mitchell Center and supported by major grants from the National Science Foundation. Because of the Mitchell Center’s leadership role, the center and its resources became the nucleus of Fox’s graduate experience.
Both projects involved understanding the economic, environmental, social, and political tradeoffs that come with managing natural resources and the people and wildlife that depend on them. They were highly collaborative, involving interdisciplinary teams of faculty and students from colleges and universities across Maine, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. The goal of the Safe Beaches & Shellfish project was to improve strategies for managing coastal water quality impairment, whereas The Future of Dams project focused on helping governments, communities, and other stakeholders improve the process of making decisions about New England’s aging dam infrastructure.
According to Fox, these real-world, team-based research projects trained her well for her work at IEc.
One of her IEc team’s recent projects was a contract with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to assess what it would take to modernize the country’s recycling system. The assessment, which took about a year to complete, was written in response to a request from Congress as they work to shape policy around recycling and waste management.
Fox’s recent portfolio also includes a report for the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). They contracted with IEc for a market characterization and program evaluation of their Community Energy Engagement Program (now called the Regional Clean Energy Hubs initiative) designed to connect customers to clean energy services.
“The big thing I learned at the Mitchell Center was how to engage stakeholders in my work and the importance of bringing together a range of perspectives into not only decision-making but shaping the research so that your methods are right for the specific problem that you’re trying to solve,” Fox said.
Projects like these involve not only research and analysis but also communication.
Fox attributes her ability to convey scientific information to colleagues and clients in part to her Mitchell Center training. The opportunity to listen to seasoned faculty, project partners, and other professionals give presentations at the weekly Sustainability Talks series helped her grasp what it looks like to share scientific information effectively with the public. She then began to dip her toes into public speaking during student-focused lightning talks and at the Maine Sustainability & Water Conference.
Fox said, “Through the Mitchell Center, there were a range of opportunities to test our communication skillset and get feedback. It helped me get over my fear of presenting to people. I feel like today when I am giving client presentations, I am much more comfortable sharing information and answering questions.”
During her time at UMaine, Fox always envisioned using her expertise in a role that helps inform government and policy decision-making. At IEc, she has found just that. She brings the same systems thinking to IEc that she first learned on the mudflats of Frenchman Bay — finding solutions to complex problems requires the ability to work with diverse partners and to connect the economic, social, and environmental pieces of the puzzle.