Show Graduate Assistantship Community and Economic Wellbeing

UH Mānoaʻs NREM Department site to advertise positions & opportunities.

Starting annual salary of $28,026 USD with 3% COLA

3 Years

Location: University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa

The Hawaii Climate-Smart Partnership is an ambitious 5-year project that envisions transformation within Hawaiʻi’s agroecosystems, guided by innovative, contemporary science from both Western and Indigenous ways of knowing to address multiple, pressing challenges posed by climate change. The UH-based science and innovation team of the Partnership is building capacity in data-driven, relational fields that interweave soils, agroecosystems, ʻāina momona, and indigenous genealogy and wellbeing into more just climate-assessment frameworks for an abundant future.

This position offers a unique opportunity to contribute to innovative research and projects that focus on exploring community wellbeing as a key metric for evaluation of successful climate-smart agricultural systems in Hawaiʻi.

This poistion will explore the question “What metrics of community wellbeing should be included when assessing success of climate-smart agricultural systems in Hawaiʻi?“ Assist in conducting interdisciplinary research focused on community and/or indigenous wellbeing as connected to climate-smart agricultural systems. Conduct a literature review of community wellbeing metrics and apply them to various climate-smart agricultural systems. Support the development of a climate-smart metric that encompass values, knowledges, and needs of local communities and connect those to community well being Explore overlaps and significant gaps between regional (Pacific) conceptions of well-being and the globally-derived Sustainable Development Goals, with explicit focus on connections between and across people and place and Indigenous and local knowledge. Support the development and implementation of objectives, metrics, and models to evaluate community benefits, including biophysical, cultural, economic and social models that integrate quantitative and qualitative data. Develop methods to collect data related to community and/or indigenous well being and engage in primary data collection via the HiCSC partnership and in collaboration with the Equity, Innovation and Indigenous knowledge team and those working on circular economy, Indigenous genealogy and functional nutrition. Develop biocultural indicators, particularly those focused on “Connectedness to People and Place” and “Indigenous and local Knowledge, skills, practices, values, and worldviews” as identified in Pacific Island communities. Use a biocultural approach to identify local definitions of resilience, integrating both ecological and sociocultural factors into climate-smart resource management frameworks. Prepare reports, presentations, and educational materials for various stakeholders such as agricultural producers, researchers, Indigenous practitioners. Contribute to publications in journals.

For more information contact Danica Castillo danica8@hawaii.edu