Nic Jekill

I currently hold two undergraduate degrees, a Bachelors of Fine Arts from the Alberta College of Art + Design and a Bachelor of Arts with Distinction and Honours in Geography with a Major Environmental Studies. My past academic and research experience spans a broad array of topics including environmental economics, sustainability, climate change, and a number of project in collaboration with First Nations on Indigenous led environmental governance and climate resiliency in British Columbia. 

 

Currently, my masters degree is in conjunction with the CANSTOREnergy project, a University of Toronto lead national research project focused on achieving equitable, long-term storage and utilization of renewable energy systems by applying an interdisciplinary lens to guide the discovery and development of carbon conversion technology. As a part of this larger project, the goal of my research is to understand based on the given the range of communities that the projects might be embedded into, what are the range of models that communities could be engaged with? By empowering communities to make informed and contextually appropriate decisions, specific to the needs and capacity of the community, justice then becomes a central tenant of a renewable energy transitions. My objectives here are to review case studies of emerging energy systems and their diffusion into communities in a holistic manner, including supply, demand, the stages of the development cycle, feedbacks, processes, actors, institutions, and networks as this is critical to developing an understanding of the energy pathways communities might choose to adopt in the future.