Shelley Leads Union of Concerned Scientists Workshop
Barry Shelley, Senior Lecturer at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, recently co-led a two-day workshop for a significant internal initiative of the Union of Concerned Scientists focused on prioritizing equity concerns into their program and project planning.
The objective of the workshop was to enhance the capacity of the UCS Scientists and Analysts Force for Equity (SAFE) project team to develop and apply an equity lens in their program planning and project design, and thereby, to serve as equity-advancing agents of change within UCS and in the world in which it works.
Shelley led the workshop with Greg Watson, Director of Policy and Systems Design at the Schumacher Center for a New Economics. Watson served as Massachusetts commissioner of agriculture under three governors and was the first executive director of the Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust. He has focused his efforts on finding ways to reconcile environmental quality and economic equality and equity.
UCS develops and implements innovative, practical solutions to the planet’s most pressing problems—from combating global warming and developing sustainable ways to feed, power, and transport ourselves, to fighting misinformation, advancing racial equity, and reducing the threat of nuclear war.
Shelley has three decades of experience as a practitioner, teacher, and researcher focusing on the political economy of international development and the environment, particularly in rural areas of the Global South. Most recently, he served as Global Advisor for Agriculture and Climate Change for Oxfam America where he contributed to organization-wide strategy and research and traveled often to support national teams in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
A central focus of Shelley’s work has been the economic behavior of men and women whose primary livelihood is smallholder farming. Of particular interest are risks and incentives related to strategies to simultaneously increase productivity and improve sustainable agricultural practices. Learn more about him here.