Luddy’s Martell receives iSchools grant for climate change research

Allan Martell, assistant professor of Information and Library Science at the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, has received an iSchools grant for his collaborative research on climate change.

Titled, “Remembering the Climate Crisis: Community Memory and Future Aspirations in Climate-Affected Urban Contexts,” the project investigates how communities in urban settings affected by climate change recall and discuss their experiences, how those memories shape the communities’ future aspirations and their resilience and adaptive strategies.

“I’m excited about the opportunity to explore how memories of extreme weather events allow underserved communities to adapt and cope with climate change,” Martell said.

The project will investigate social memories among Latinx populations in Indianapolis, Indiana, and those living in urban slums in Bangladesh, with both facing disproportionate effects of climate stress. Data will be collected between January and June of 2026.

Martell said researchers will draw from the diverse theories of memory studies that explore how individuals and groups encode, store, retrieve, and forget information. They aim to address questions of information empowerment, digital inclusion, and climate justice, which are all central to the study of climate change.

“I see this project as a steppingstone in my research agenda to study social memories of violence,” Martell said. “In memory studies, social memories of violence are typically discussed exclusively in the context of political violence, like dictatorships, genocides, and armed conflicts.

“While I have done and still plan to pursue research about cases of political violence, projects like this will allow me to start bringing attention to the social violence of sociotechnical infrastructures. After all, what we call ‘natural disasters’ are actually human made.”

Martell said disasters in the aftermath of extreme weather events are the most visible expression of “salient and historically rooted violence, such as unequal infrastructural development, housing discrimination, and unregulated waste disposal.”

Collaboration includes researchers from the University of Illinois, Syracuse University and universities in Australia, Canada and China.

iSchools is an international organization of more than 130 schools united by a common interest in all aspects of research and teaching about information. They address topics such as artificial intelligence, data science and human-computer interaction.

Noriko Hara, chair of Information and Library Science and professor of Information Science, called this collaborative research “timely, impactful and deserving of this recognition.”

“I am extremely proud that Allan has received this prestigious award from the iSchools organization,” she said. “His research, which involves both domestic and international collaboration, plays a vital role in addressing global climate change issues.”