Meg Mills-Novoa

Meg Mills-Novoa is the director of the Climate Futures Lab and an assistant professor with a joint appointment to the Division of Society and Environment and the Energy and Resources Group. As a human-environment geographer, her research focuses on the political ecology of climate change adaptation and decarbonization. She uses a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods, from spatial analysis and quantitative surveys to archival research and interviews. She collaborates closely with communities and practitioners to improve the design, implementation, and outcomes of adaptation and energy transition initiatives that promote inclusion and equity. Regionally, Meg is working with communities across the Arid Americas, including the Andes (Ecuador) and Great Basin (U.S.).

Reflecting her interest in human dimensions of global change across the Americas, she also has a parallel research project on environmental change in the Amazon. Currently, she is the co-PI of an interdisciplinary research team that is funded by the National Center for Socio-Environmental Synthesis. Their project merges critical discourse analysis, remote sensing, and predictive land use modeling to understand the diverse drivers and proposed solutions to deforestation in the Amazon.

Prior to joining Berkeley, Dr. Mills-Novoa worked for over a decade as an adaptation researcher and practitioner, first as a Fulbright Fellow studying climate change impacts on Chilean vineyards and then as a Luce Scholar placed with the Centre for Rural Development in northern Vietnam. Most recently, she served as the outreach coordinator for the Climate Impacts Research Consortium at Oregon State University.

Education

PhD, Geography, University of Arizona, 2021

MA, Geography, University of Arizona, 2016

BA, Environmental Studies and Conservation Biology, Lewis & Clark College, 2009

Research Interests / Specializations:

climate change adaptation, energy transitions, political ecology of global change, water justice, participatory mixed methods, Latin America, American West

Selected Publications

Mills-Novoa, M. and M. Mikulewicz. The Promise of Resistance: A New Lens for Climate Change Adaptation Research and Practice. ClimateWIRES. In Press.

Mills-Novoa, M. (2023) What happens after climate change adaptation projects end: A community-based approach to ex-post assessment of adaptation projects. Global Environmental Change 80. DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2023.102655.

Johnson, L., Mikulewicz, M., Bigger, P., Chakraborty, R., Cunniff, A., Griffin, P.J., Guermond, V., Lambrou, N., Mills-Novoa, M., Neimark, B., Nelson, S., Rampini, C., Pasang Sherpa, P., and Simon, G. (2023) Intervention: The Invisible Labor of Climate Change Adaptation. Global Environmental Change 83. DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2023.102769

Mills-Novoa, M., Boelens, R., Hoogesteger, J., and Vos, J. (2022) Resisting, Leveraging, and Reworking Climate Change Adaptation Projects from Below: Placing Adaptation in Ecuador’s Agrarian Struggles. Journal of Peasant Studies. DOI: 10.1080/03066150.2022.2144252

Mills-Novoa, M., Boelens, R., Hoogesteger, J., and Vos, J. (2020) Governmentality, Hydrosocial Territories & Recognition Politics: The making of subjects and objects for climate change adaptation in Ecuador. Geoforum 115: 90-101. DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2020.06.024

Eriksen, S., Schipper, L.F., Scoville-Simonds, M., Vincent, K., Lenaerts, L., Nicolai Adam, H., Brooks, N., Harding, B., Khatri, D., Liverman, D., Mills-Novoa, M., Mosberg, M., Muok, B., Nightingale, A., Ojha, H., Sygna, L., Taylor, M., Vogel, C., West, J.J. (2021) Climate change adaptation interventions in developing countries: Help, Hindrance, or Irrelevant? World Development 141: 105383. DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105383

Kinnebrew, E., Shoffner, E., Farah, A., Mills-Novoa, M., and Siegel, K. (2020) Approaches to interdisciplinary mixed methods research in land change science and environmental management. Conservation Biology. DOI: 10.1111/cobi.13642

Mills-Novoa, M. (2019) Making agro-export entrepreneurs out of campesinos: The role of water policy reform, agricultural development initiatives, and the specter of climate change in reshaping agricultural systems in Piura, Peru. Agriculture and Human Values 37: 667-682. DOI: 10.1007/s10460-019-10008-5

Mills-Novoa, M. and Liverman, D. (2019) Nationally Determined Contributions: Material and discursive climate commitments in the NDCs. WIRES Climate Change 10(5). DOI: 10.1002/wcc.589