India 2023
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Tour Leader Tabitha M. Benney

Dr. Tabitha Benney, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science

Prof. Tabitha M. Benney, PhD is the U’s Distinguished Teaching Professor for 2022-2023. She is also an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and affiliated faculty in the Environmental and Sustainability Studies Program, Center on Global Change and Sustainability, Public Policy Program, Asian Studies, Latin American Studies, International Studies, and the Center for Genomic Medicine at the University of Utah. Dr. Benney is also a Research Fellow for the Earth Research Governance Network, and an Affiliated Researcher with the Evolving Securities Initiative (ESI) at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. She received her BSFS (2001) and MA in International Affairs (2007) from Georgetown University and her PhD in Political Science, in the subfields of International Relations/ International Political Economy, Environmental Governance, and Research Methods, from the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB, 2013). From 2001-2007, she was also a Junior Program Officer in the Policy and Global Affairs Section of the US National Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Benney’s interdisciplinary research focuses on mapping interactions within complex coupled systems to develop research-based policy applications that address a range of technical governance issues with an emphasis on inequality. Her current research agenda is focused on health disparities and inequality related to the impacts of energy, climate/heat, and air quality, which she studies with a talented group of researchers at the U. Dr. Benney traveled to all corners of India over the past 15 years and never tires of the adventure there. She has studied energy and air quality policy, climate adaptation and resiliency, and the diffusion of international climate change programs in South East Asia for over fifteen years now.