Cassidy-Neumiller, Martha

Martha Cassidy-Neumiller is a PhD Fellow at UNU-CRIS and a PhD Candidate at McMaster University. Affiliated with the Department of Anthropology under the supervision of Dr. Tina Moffat, she investigates the social, cultural, and behavioural drivers and barriers to climate change adaptation and mitigation policies, alongside the impact of these strategies on community and occupational identities with an emphasis on a just climate change transition.

During her fellowship at UNU-CRIS, Martha will work under the supervision of Dr. Nidhi Nagabhatla within the Nature, Climate, and Health Cluster. Martha will primarily work on the Climate Adaptation and Resilience Strategies (CLARS) Project (Principal Investigator: Dr. Gail Krantzberg, McMaster University) multi-national project funded by the New Frontiers in Research Fund in Canada, with funding partners in the USA, UK, and Germany and research partners in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. Her work will draw on her previous research on climate change refugees and migrants, with the CLARS project incorporating climate migrants’ socioeconomic vulnerabilities (in relation to gender, race, religion, ethnicity, culture, age and sexual orientation) to examine how experiences in the Lake Victoria Basin (LVB) and Great Lakes Region (GLR) can inform each other’s adaptive practices. Primarily, CLARS will explore, design, and recommend co-produced adaptation strategies for reducing socioeconomic vulnerabilities and building resilience for vulnerable climate migrants and host communities across five LVB and GLR urban settings in Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, USA, and Canada. Under the guidance of Dr. Nidhi Nagabhatla (UNU-CRIS), Martha will also continue to explore the complex loop of water stress, migration, conflict, and climate change, in the Congo and Lake Chad Basins (LCB). This work helps to inform her work on a just climate change transition within a global context and further her work with CLARS.

Her doctoral research, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC 753-2023-1175) also compliments the CLARS Project, with its geographical focus on the Great Lakes Region (GLR) and the efforts in Hamilton, ON, Canada to transition to green steel production and the accompanying local community adaptations occurring in response to this industrial transition.

Martha holds a degree in classics, anthropology, and archaeology (BA Hons. Carleton University, Canada) as well as a Masters degree in Globalization and the Human Condition (McMaster University, Canada). She also teaches within the Department of Anthropology as a Teaching Assistant on issues of Race and Social Justice, alongside being an instructor in the Health Sciences Program, focusing on Praxis, Community and Climate Change, and One Health.