Thursday 27 March 2014 2:58pm
The Centre has recently welcomed three international visitors - US resource economist John A. “Skip” Laitner, Research Associate in Energy and Behavioural Psychology Gesche Huebner and Fulbright Fellow Laura Ginsburg.
US resource economist John A. “Skip” Laitner, who leads the Economic and Human Dimensions Research Associates team of consultants, joined Centre staff at the Energy Conference 2014 in Wellington last week, where he delivered a keynote speech entitled The economic imperative of energy efficiency: the costs and benefits of a surprisingly large resource.
While in Dunedin, Skip spoke at the Chamber of Commerce, delivered a seminar for the Centre and was interviewed on Dunedin Television.
He has also been developing research collaborations with Director Janet Stephenson in relation to the Energy Cultures research programme.
Research Associate in Energy and Behavioural Psychology Gesche Huebner is currently visiting the Centre from the University College London Energy Institute.
“My main reason for coming to New Zealand is to strengthen our existing links with a couple of universities and institutes here," she says.
"Regarding the Centre, I hope to learn more about the Energy Cultures framework, and to see if there are opportunities for collaborative research and / or PhD supervision. I am very curious to hear whether there are ideas for turning the framework into a statistical model at some point.”
Gesche's current research involves understanding temperatures and heating patterns in homes and their links to health, energy, and socio-demographic and building variables.
She will deliver a talk on Monday, March 31, 12pm in the Centre for Innovation seminar room entitled “Temperatures in homes – what they are and why it matters”.
Fulbright Fellow Laura Ginsburg will be a visiting researcher at the Centre till October.
Laura has a Masters of Science in Environmental Studies from the University of Montana (US) and her project with CSAFE and Fulbright is broadly about dairy farmer decision making.
She is interested in the kinds of considerations dairy farmers make in their specific production location and how policy, environment, and culture can influence those decisions.
She is also focussing on production strategies (grass-based vs. confinement, breed of animal, number of milkings, equipment, seasonality, and so forth) because of the importance these decisions can make to a farming community and beyond.
Laura plans to start a dairy in Montana where she will use the milk from her pastured cows to make ice cream.