The College of Social Science Dean’s Institutional Access Fellows Program attracts SSC faculty to build leadership skills, provides professional development opportunities around institutional access and prepares the fellows to lead internally and externally.
Fellows are expected to participate in weekly meetings with other members of the Dean’s Institutional Access Fellows Program, and collaborate with the Associate Dean for Access during their fellowship year. Fellows will be appointed for a one-year term that may be extended to a second-year dependent upon resources and agreement of all parties.
2024-2025 Dean’s Institutional Access Fellows
Dr. Jennifer Carrera
Jennifer Carrera is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Michigan State University. She has a joint appointment between the Department of Sociology and the Environmental Science and Policy Program.
Dr. Carrera’s research uses an environmental justice perspective, grounded in Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) methods, to examine the differential impacts of access to environmental resources on distributions of power in marginalized communities. Her area of research focuses on environmental justice issues of access to clean water and sanitation in low-income communities.
As part of MSU’s Global Water Initiative, Dr. Carrera was lead PI for a WaterCube research team which conducted a CBPR citizen science study investigating water quality associated with water shutoffs in Detroit. This work was featured in MSU’s The Engaged Scholar Magazine.
Dr. Erin L. Bunting
Born in Florida and raised a die-hard Gator fan, Dr. Erin Bunting came into the geographic discipline by a happy accident, having been required to take an Extreme Weather course as an undergraduate at the University of Florida. After seeing how the field of geography brought together her interests in travel, climate, ecology, and environmental science Dr. Bunting changed her major and never looked back. Throughout her career, she has diversified her roles and employment to develop a broad research network, gain multi-faceted teaching experience, manage and mentor both academic staff and students, and conduct interdisciplinary research. As such she has worked in academia, government organizations, and private companies using advanced spatial analysis, particularly big data remote sensing and Geographic Information Systems (GIS), to answer applied interdisciplinary questions on global environmental change, climate change, landscape resilience, and coupled natural human systems.