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Tim Downs is a specialist in environmental science and engineering with over 28 years field experience designing and managing collaborative projects in the UK, the United States, Latin America and Africa. His research focus is on how humans change the environment, and how those changes impact their health, wellbeing, and the ecosystems they inhabit. He is especially interested in issues of environmental and climate justice: the uneven distribution of positive and negative impacts across populations and landscapes. Downs works with diverse social actors to innovate through collaboration, both socially via new networks, and technically via new applications of science and technology. He applies risk science and systems thinking to identify priority problems with stakeholders, GIS and analytics to understand inequities in existing social systems, vulnerabilities in technological systems, then innovation theory and collaborative capacity building practice to design, implement and monitor more sustainable solutions. In a diversity of settings—New England, Mexico, East and West Africa—he works with affected communities, NGOs, governmental agencies, public sector providers, the media, the private sector and donors, applying multi-stakeholder, interdisciplinary approaches within and across multiple sectors: health, energy, water supply & sanitation, food & agriculture, land-use, transportation, urban planning, climate-change adaptation & mitigation, biodiversity conservation & ecosystem stewardship.
Downs’s teaching and research are creatively combined. Half of his portfolio is foundational environmental science classes, and half team-based practicums. As examples of practicums, in his Spring 2021 “Sustainable Development Assessment & Planning” class (IDCE332/EN242) student teams critically evaluated the assessment and planning process for 7 cases including a copper mining project, dams and reservoirs (3), a women’s empowerment project, a coastal climate resilience effort and a regional greenway project. In Spring 2021, team practicums in his “Cities, Regions, Climate Change & Health” class (IDCE365) included Hong Kong, Jakarta, Uttarakhand (Hindu Kush Himalaya), and New Orleans. Student teams constructively critique key operational stages (ethos & concept; integrated assessment; planning; implementation & management, monitoring & evaluation; capacity building), producing work of publishable quality (e.g. Downs et al. 2020b, 2020c below). This enhances their team research skills and their ability to design and deploy transformational integrated collaborative projects as professionals.
Since 2019, Downs has led the integrative collaborative project “Climate Change Impacts, Justice & Resilience in the Mexico City-Toluca Social-Hydroecological Region”, involving fellow IDCE faculty Morgan Ruelle and Yelena Ogneva-Himmelberger, and faculty from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), National Polytechnic Institute of Mexico (IPN), Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), UMass Amherst, and George Washington University. The Clark Team currently includes 3 undergraduate and 6 graduate students.
In summer 2018, Prof. Downs rode his motorcycle 6000 miles to join the Grannies Respond Caravan in protest of draconian family separation policy at the U.S.-Mexico Border. He then raised money to send 7 IDCE students to volunteer helping heroic immigrant and asylum-seeker relief efforts in McAllen, TX. He and Profs. Anita Fábos and Sarah Mitchell, together with veteran social justice activist and student mentor Megan Martínez, co-authored a paper chronicling this impactful field research-meets-activism student experience (Glier et al., 2020a).
Since 2015, Downs has been collaborating with colleagues at Boston University and local residents to explore the vulnerability of the shallow aquifer system in Holliston, Mass. to contamination by natural Manganese and industrial chemicals. They are also looking into potential health risks to young children that may be the result of early life-stage exposures, including in-utero.
Exemplifying engaged collaborative research in partnership with affected communities, and co-authored with 9 IDCE students, the paper: "Integrated Assessment of Shallow-Aquifer Vulnerability to Multiple Contaminants and Drinking-Water Exposure Pathways in Holliston, Massachusetts" was published 2018 in open-access journal Water and is available online at: http://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/10/1/23/html
Downs was a Co-Investigator with UMass Medical School on the Phase 1 (2008-2012) National Children's Study (NCS) project for Worcester County, funded by the National Institutes of Health.
Degrees
- Doctor of Environmental Science in Environmental Science and Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, 1998
- M.S. in Ocean Engineering, University of Hawaii, Manoa, 1990
- B.S. in Civil Engineering, Loughborough University, 1984
Affiliated Department(s)
- IDCE
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Scholarly and Creative Works
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Manganese Concentrations in Residential Tap Water Samples from a Community-Initiated Case Study in Massachusetts
Published in J. of Exposure Sci. & Environ. Epidem.
May
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2023
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Development Engineering in Practice: Case Studies from Around the World
Chapter: Illustrating Climate-Change Resilience Engineering: Conceptual Design of Water Supply & Wastewater/Stormwater System for the Mexico City-Toluca Social-Hydrological RegionPublished by De Gruyter
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2023
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Land-use/cover change in the México-Lerma-Cutzamala Hydrological Region 1993-2018
Published in J. Applied Geography
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2022
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Vol. 147
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An Integrative Collaborative Project Approach to Climate-Change Resilience and Urban/Regional Sustainability for the Mexico City Region
Published in Open Journal of Civil Engineering
Spring
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2022
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Understanding Environmental Racism in North Carolina Hog Farming Communities: A Political and Geospatial Analysis to Inform Restorative Justice
Published in J. Environ Studies & Sciences
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2022
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Development Engineering in Practice: Case Studies from Around the World
Chapter: Integrative Collaborative Design of Research-Based Climate-Change Resilience Engineering Education: Insights from Mexico City-Toluca Social-Hydroecological Region●
2022
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Handbook of Human and Planetary Health
Chapter: Health as a Socio-Technical Enterprise Anchored in Social-Ecological Justice & Stakeholder Collaboration: Insights from Mexico City-Toluca RegionPublished by Springer
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2022
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Chasing Integrative Power: Why it matters, what it involves, what promotes/inhibits it? 20 years of the International Development, Community & Environment (IDCE) Department at Clark University
Published in J. Higher Education
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2022
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An Integrative Collaborative Project Approach to Climate-Change Resilience and Urban/Regional Sustainability for the Mexico City Region
Published in Open Journal of Civil Engineering
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2022
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Characterizing metals exposure during critical periods of development using deciduous teeth in a community-initiated pilot study
Published in J. Exposure Sci. & Environ. Epidem.
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2022
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Climate Change Impacts and Adaption for the Mexico City-Toluca Social-Hydroecological Region
IDCE Research Forum
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01
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2021
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Climate Change Impacts and Adaption for the Mexico City-Toluca Social-Hydroecological Region
IDCE Masterclass Online
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03
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2021
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Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation for the Mexico City Region: An Integrative Collaborative Approach
17th International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic and Social Sustainability
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Netherlands
24 - 26 Feb 2021
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2021
Sponsored by Society of Environmental, Cultural, Economic and Social Sustainability (SECESS)
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Understanding stakeholder positionalities and relationships to reimagine asylum at the US–Mexico border: Observations from McAllen, TX
Published in J. Human Geography
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2020
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“Metals exposure in a community-initiated pilot study of drinking water.”
International Society of Environmental Epidemiology (ISEE). Annual Conference 2020.
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virtual
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2020
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“Metals exposure in a community-initiated pilot study of drinking water.”
August
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2020
ISEE
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virtual meeting
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“Designing integrative collaborative academic programs in environmental science and health”.
Research Seminar Series
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Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute, Northeastern University, Boston, MA
Feb 04
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2020
Sponsored by Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute
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The Case for Integrative Sustainable Development Practice Based on the Minas Conga Gold-Mining Experience in Peru
Published in Journal of Geoscience and Environment Protection
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2020
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Vol. 8
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Issue #5
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Published in J. Sustainable Development
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2020
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Vol. 13
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Issue #1
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Land-use/cover change in the México-Lerma-Cutzamala Hydrological Region 1993-2018
Published in Applied Geography
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Awards & Grants
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Co-creating Research and Education Capacities to Understand, Visualize and Mitigate Climate-Change Impact Cascades and Inequities in Central Mexico
NSF/Partnerships for International Research & Education (PIRE)
Apr. 1, 2023 - May. 1, 2026
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“Building Transdisciplinary Research Capacity to Solve ‘Wicked’ Problems: Graduate Student Field Training in Ghana and Mexico”
National Science Foundation’s International Research Experiences for Students (IRES) Program.
Jun. 30, 2020 - May. 31, 2023
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“Planning Grant: Engineering Research Center for Climate Resilience & Development”
National Science Foundation’s Engineering Research Center (ERC) Planning Program
Jan. 1, 2020 - Dec. 31, 2020
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Mexico City Field Visit to Build Academic Research & Learning Partnership with UNAM.
Leir Foundation
May. 21, 2019 - Jun. 12, 2019
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Co-creating Research and Education Capacities to Understand, Visualize and Mitigate Climate-Change Impact Cascades and Inequities in Central Mexico
NSF/Partnerships for International Research & Education (PIRE)
Oct. 1, 2022
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Research Dean's Faculty Research Award
2020
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