My interests and activities are broad, but all revolve around the theme of making the world (universe(s)?) a better place. I conduct research that combines science, engineering, and ethics to assess what, given present circumstances and particular ethical frameworks, might be the best thing(s) for us to be doing. I also develop teaching materials and approaches to help others in their efforts.
I am currently a PhD candidate in Pennsylvania State University's Geography Department, a visiting scholar at Columbia University's Center for Research on Environmental Decisions, and Co-Founder (with Tony Barrett) and Executive Director of the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute. My dissertation research, with advisor Bill Easterling, is on the ethics and moral psychology of discounting in the context of climate change assessment. My primary ongoing project is on reducing global catastrophic risk, which is anything that could end human civilization or even cause human extinction.
CV: pdf
Contact info: sbaum [at] psu.edu
Networking: Facebook * LinkedIn * Twitter * Association of American Geographers * Society for Risk Analysis * United States Society for Ecological Economics
At present I am particularly interested in networking with people who are or would like to be working on any aspect of global catastrophic risk.
Photos: html
Updates: Old Updates
13 Dec 2011: I am working on a launching new organization for global catastrophic risk, called the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute. GCRI will lead research, education, and professional networking on global catastrophic risk. Also, a new paper has been accepted for publication. "Public scholarship student projects for introductory environment courses" will appear in Journal of Geography in Higher Education. The paper was written with Destiny Aman
and Andrei Israel, both fellow PhD students at Penn State Geography.
Upcoming Conferences:
Association of American Geographers, 24-28 February
CUNY Nature, Ecology and Society Colloquium, 2 March 2012, New York City.
2012, New York City.
World Congress on Risk, 18-20 July 2012, Sydney.
Society for Risk Analysis, 9-12 December 2012, San Francisco.
About this site: This site is kindly hosted by Knightsbridge Online. The formatting of this site was adapted from W3C's Starting with HTML + CSS page.
Created 15 Jun 2007 * Updated 3 Feb 2012