Kieren is a doctoral student in the Society & Environment Division of ESPM. Their research interests lie at the intersection of climate justice, critical race theory, and decolonization studies. Before coming to UC Berkeley, Kieren researched climate policy, planning, and discourse across various geographies within the continental United States, as well as in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Currently, they are focused on analyzing how systems of climate change adaptation may reproduce military colonial power structures and environmental injustice in Pacific Islands. In particular, they are studying how these systems are impacting communities in the territory of Guåhan and the state of Hawai’i when considering how political status impacts self-determination of Indigenous peoples with regard to climate action.