Living Climate Futures
Symposium
2026
SAVE THE DATE!
April 23-25, 2026,
MIT Campus
Thursday, April 23 | 5:30–8:30 PM Friday | 9:00 AM–8:30 PM Saturday | 9:00 AM–6:00 PM
Join us for our second symposium! The symposium brings together community environmental organizations with MIT researchers and students to explore how climate change – and responses to it – are playing out in locations from New England to the Pacific Northwest to Mongolia. Topics include localized health and ecological effects, food systems, energy transitions, and how to further collaborative and interdisciplinary climate research.
Featuring speakers from: GreenRoots, Haley House, Se’Si’Le, Children of the Setting Sun, TapRoot Earth, The Center for Coalfield Justice, The Food Project, The Urban Farming Institute, UMass Extension, and the National University of Mongolia.
Volunteer farming as part of the MIT-Hannan Healthy Foods pilot, Fall 2025. Photo credit: Heather Paxson
SYMPOSIUM PROGRAM
Full speaker list coming soon. Please sign up below to be notified when registration opens.
Thursday April 23
5:00 pm Writing to Inspire Change: Strategies for Public Engagement
(Op-ed workshop led by public anthropologist Ieva Jusionyte, Brown University; Moderator Amy Moran-Thomas) Location: E51-095
6:30 pm Film screening and Q&A, If Only I Could Hibernate
(Fiction film about youth in Mongolia facing environmental and economic obstacles; Cannes Film Festival 2023. Q&A with Temuulen Enkhbat and Manduhai Buyandelger) Location: 45-230
Friday April 24
9:00-9:30 am Welcome
Location: 45-230
9:30-10:45 am Taking Stock in Contentious Times
(Discussion with participants from the 2022 Living Climate Futures symposium about how changing political times are affecting community-oriented environmental organizations). Moderators: Heather Paxson and Briana Meier) Location: 45-230
11:00 am - 12:30 pm Data Centers, Energy Concerns, and Community Health
(with presenters from Center for Coalfield Justice, Boston University Department of Epidemiology, and Harvard Data Science Initiative; Moderator: Amy Moran-Thomas.) Location: 45-230
2:00 - 4:00 pm Advancing Urban Agriculture in a Changing Climate: Voices from Greater Boston’s Growing Spaces
(with speakers from GreenRoots, Haley House, UMass Extension, and the Urban Farming Institute. Moderator: Kate Brown) Location: E51-325
4:15 - 5:45 pm The Work of Repair: Global Perspectives and Methodologies
(with contributions from Taproot Earth; Moderator: Amy Moran Thomas) Location: E51-325
6:30 - 8:30 pm Climate Change as Place-Based Phenomena: Perspectives on Mongolian grasslands pastoralism, Diné desert ecologies, and post-industrial wetland environments in Chicago
(Moderators: Chris Walley and Manduhai Buyandelger) Location: E51-325
Saturday April 25
9:30 am - 1:30 pm Field trips:
The Food Project (Roxbury)
Stone Living Lab Tour (Boston Harbor)
Degrowth & Energy Metabolism of MIT campus (on campus)
2:30 - 4:00 pm Xa xah Xechnging: A Sacred Obligation in a Time of Climate Chaos
(Perspectives from Se’Si’Le & Children of the Setting Sun, Indigenous-led environmental organizations from the Pacific Northwest, US). Location: 32-141
4:15 - 5:45 pm Experiential Learning, “Anthro-Engineering,” and Learning to Do Community-Oriented Research
(Conversations with community organizations, students, and faculty) Moderators: Iselle Barrios & Laura Frye-Levine. Location: 32-141
5:45-6:45 pm Wrap-up Conversation
Location: 32-141
7:00 - 8:30 pm Film screening Climate Voices and Q&A with dir. Leslie Jonas
(Perspectives from Native experts and climate scientists working on the frontlines). Location: 45-230
About us:
Living Climate Futures complements MIT’s other climate efforts by focusing on everyday life and long-term partnerships with community groups. Our work highlights the importance of getting community partnerships “right” by developing relationships of trust and implementing strong codes for ethical research conduct. Through the suite of experiential learning classes we are developing, we are training the next generation of researchers, modeling for MIT graduate and undergraduate students how to engage in ethical, mutually beneficial partnerships with community actors and across STEM and SHASS disciplines.
Learn more about our activities here.
MIT students and community partners from Friends of the San Juans during a research trip to an eel grass meadow (tidal zone) on San Juan Island, WA.
MITHIC-funded "From Lab to Land" Summer Field School for Climate Justice in the Pacific Northwest, organized by Bettina Stoetzer and Briana Meier, in partnership with Washington-based Indigenous-led environmental justice organization, Se'Si'Le.
Photo credit: Bettina Stoetzer