BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Sanya Carley, professor and director of the Master of Public Affairs program at the Indiana University O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, will be awarded the World Citizen Prize in Environmental Performance by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM). The award, granted by David and Joy K. Peyton, honors research that focuses on “pathways to achieve measurable but as-yet unrealized gains in overall environmental performance, in particular to reduce consumption and waste,” according to the APPAM website.
“Writings about global climate disruption concentrate on what needs to be done,” observed donor and prize committee member David Peyton. “Dr. Carley has called attention to the who and the how, as a supplement to the what. What we can scarcely afford,” he continued, “is a division between objective analysis of our current conditions and needed remediation, on the one hand, and advocacy for disadvantaged people on the other. People, that is, who bear either an unfair share of today’s pollution, or the costs of transition to a clean-energy economy.”
Carley’s research focuses on policy and other efforts aimed at advancing the innovation of low-carbon and efficient energy technologies in both the electricity and transportation sectors. Her recent projects focus on the U.S. energy transition, including a study of vulnerable populations to the transition and a study of public acceptance of energy infrastructure. She and a team of O’Neill colleagues and students are currently analyzing the results of a first-of-its-kind survey of low-income households to study the effects of COVID-19 on energy insecurity, which has revealed that many U.S. households are being forced to reduce or forgo basic household needs, like medicine or food, to pay an energy bill.
“Sanya Carley has taken a lead in addressing justice and equity considerations using a serious academic lens,” added committee member and O’Neill School alumnus Daniel Matisoff of the Georgia Institute of Technology. “Her research has become highly influential in this literature.”
O’Neill School Dean Sian Mooney offered her congratulations to Carley, who becomes the second-ever recipient of the award.
“This honor highlights the importance and timeliness of Sanya’s research, and we could not be more proud of her for this major achievement,” Mooney said.
The award will be presented virtually at APPAM’s annual research conference in November, which will take place entirely online.
More of Carley’s recent work can be found on her research team’s Energy Justice website.
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