Caela O’Connell is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology and the Environment, Ecology, and Energy Program. Dr. O’Connell runs the Socio-Ecological Change Research Lab (SECR Lab) at UNC investigating different aspects of sustainability, agriculture, inequality, water, disasters, adaptation, crisis and environmental conservation and partnering with community organizations for engaged scholarship. Her work is primarily in the Caribbean and the Americas, and she’s currently working on a new project that considers human resource use and conceptions in research and development for outer space exploration. When not thinking about the future for farming and our global environment, she enjoys baking for friends, hiking (nothing too steep), taekwondo, tracking hurricanes, reading Sci-Fi and mysteries, and traveling with her family.