Nancy Tuana recognized with 2016 Visionary Award from Pennsylvania Interfaith Power & Light
In recognition of her leadership in furthering inter-disciplinary public and academic conversations about climate ethics, Pennsylvania Interfaith Power & Light presents its 2016 Visionary Award to Dr. Nancy Tuana.
As the founding director of the Rock Ethics Institute at the Pennsylvania State University, Dr. Tuana was instrumental in identifying Climate Change Ethics as one of the core initiatives of the Institute, creating a space where leading scholars in science, philosophy, and ethics can join in rich conversation for collaborative and co-informed research about climate change across disciplines—which is all too rare.
By making K-12 and public ethics education key initiatives of the Institute as well, Dr. Tuana prepared the ground for climate ethics education and conversation in the wider community, beyond the University’s gates. The 2009 conference, Stewardship or Sacrifice? Religion and the Ethics of Climate Change that led to the formation of PA Interfaith Power & Light, was
an initiative of the Rock Ethics Institute under Dr. Tuana’s direction.
Dr. Tuana is a philosopher of science and a feminist science studies theorist who specializes in issues of ethics and science. She is a member of an interdisciplinary research team at Penn State that has developed a more robust model of research ethics to better reflect the impacts of ethical issues in scientific practice, including in climate contexts.
As part of her research in joined ethical and knowledge-building issues in the field of climate science, Dr. Tuana is currently co-principle investigator (co-PI) of the National Science Foundation’s Sustainability Research Network on Sustainable Climate Risk Management. Here, she looks at how best to develop climate risk management strategies that are ethically
defensible and sustainable, scientifically sound, technologically feasible, and economically efficient. She is also engaged in research on justice issues in the context of climate change and is author of a number of articles on the topic of gender and climate change.
With this award, PA IPL recognizes the ways in which Dr. Tuana has created space for many, many more researchers to do the work that needs to be done in the inter-disciplinary field of climate ethics, and we honor her for the work she herself continues to do.
