Ryan Katz-Rosene

Ryan Katz-Rosene in an Assistant Professor at the University of Ottawa’s School of Political Studies, where he researches and teaches a range of topics relating to global environmental politics, international political economy, and Canada’s role in the world. At the university Ryan helps coordinate the International Political Economy Network (IPEN), while off campus he serves as Vice President of the Environmental Studies Association of Canada. In 2017 Ryan completed a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Ottawa, examining ongoing debates about the role of nuclear energy in climate change mitigation efforts. He obtained his Ph.D. at Carleton University in 2014, writing his dissertation about the environmental political economy of high-speed rail development. He lives on (and helps to manage) a small organic family farm in Cantley, Québec.

His interdisciplinary research interests come together under the theme of Global Ecological Political Economy. He is particularly fascinated by the complex interactions between political economic structures and the environment, and aims to research this relationship both at a theoretical level and through critical qualitative analyses and empirical case studies. His research thus wades into a diverse set of thematic areas (sustainable transportation, energy, and agriculture, notably), all unified by an underlying interest in helping to understand and foster a transition to a more just and sustainable world.

He will hire research assistants on occasion to help with the research and production of articles and other ongoing research projects. He is open to both collaborative work arrangements as a supervisor, as well as more arms-length advisory arrangements (for those students pursuing independent projects).

1. What are the limits to ‘green growth’? Is there such a thing as ‘sustainable capitalism’?
2. How are various corporations, industries, governments and/or other institutions responding to social pressures to become more “sustainable” (both in word and in practice)?
3. To what extent (or under what circumstances) will the adoption of certain infrastructures or technologies (in transport, energy, etc.) help us mitigate or adapt to climate change?
4. What does sustainability mean in a given context or industry?
5. How can we confront and overcome socio-economic challenges which sometimes arise as a result of pro- environmental regulations, policies or decisions (for instance the closure, cancellation or rejection of various fossil fuel projects).
6. What would a ‘gold star’ national policy on energy, or agriculture, or transportation look like for Canada (in terms modeling sustainability internationally)?
7. How would taking climate change seriously change how we study International Political Economy?
8. What role will animal protein play in feeding the world sustainably in the future?