Alaina is a doctoral candidate in Northeastern’s school of Public Policy and Urban Affairs who researches the role of policy in advancing climate justice. Her dissertation research examines power, obstruction, and justice in climate policy for sites of contested energy transition, for which she is funded on an NIEHS T32 pre-doctoral training grant with Northeastern’s Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute (SSEHRI). She earned her honours B.A. in agricultural and environmental International Development Studies at McGill University, and a MSc with Distinction in Environmental Policy and Regulation from the London School of Economics. She recently completed work on a grant from the Climate and Social Science Research Network with Dr. Jennie Stephens and colleague Yutong Si to assess the political implications of interconnections between the petrochemical production, particularly the fossil fuel energy, plastic, and industrial agrichemical sectors.
Prior to the PhD program, Alaina worked as the project manager for the Clean Energy Valuation Group at the E4TheFuture. In summer 2021, she was a Civic Action Project (CAP) and Barr Foundation Climate Policy Fellow with the Office of Boston City Councilor Michelle Wu, where she published an evaluation of Councilor Wu’s Fare-Free Public Transit proposal and developed an analytical framework for the proposed Green New Deal for Boston Public Schools. Her previous work has included evaluation research for Nature-based Adaptation in Latin America and the Caribbean at the UNDP and narratives in Puerto Rican climate policy on an NSF grant with Dr. Laura Kuhl. She has also led multi-generational research teams, collaborated with colleagues, and worked independently to publish research on climate obstruction, climate justice and development through Green New Deals and Nature-based Solutions, economic analysis of clean energy resources, and climate policy collaboration.