Kieren Rudge is a doctoral student in the Society & Environment Division of the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at UC Berkeley. Their research interests lie at the intersection of climate justice, critical race theory, and decolonization studies. Before coming to UC Berkeley, Kieren researched climate policy, planning, and discourse across various geographies within the continental United States, as well as in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Currently, they are focused on analyzing how systems of climate change adaptation may reproduce military colonial power structures and environmental injustice in Pacific Islands. In particular, they are studying how these systems are impacting communities in the territory of Guåhan (Guam) considering how political status impacts self-determination of Indigenous peoples with regard to climate action. Kieren has a Master in Environmental Science from Yale, and a Bachelor’s in Environmental Sicence from Johns Hopkins University. Their research has been published in Nature Climate Change, Urban Climate, and Climate Risk Management, among other journals.
