Researching For Positive Change
Applied Economist & Doctor of Philosophy in Integrated Studies in Land and Food Systems
Growing up in small-town Minnesota might seem like an unlikely backstory for a future of immersive fieldwork in Mexico, Uganda and beyond. But for applied economist Erin Litzow (PhD ISLFS 2024)—a recently appointed University of Texas at Dallas Assistant Professor of Sustainability—one factor focused her young mind on thinking deeply about the world far away from her Midwestern home.
“My parents had lived in the Sudan before I was born and they continually told me about it when I was a child, instilling an interest and excitement about other cultures,” she says. That interest sharpened and intensified over the years, eventually leading to a Georgetown University undergraduate thesis project that included a pivotal field trip studying fisheries management on Lake Victoria in Uganda.
“Looking back, I think that’s where the ideas I’m working with now really began to emerge,” says Litzow. “I was travelling alone, talking to people directly and learning what research involved and what it could achieve. That’s when I started to believe that I could really do this kind of work as a career.”
That career, she adds, has been fueled by an intense desire to effect positive change. “I’m a policy-relevant researcher who’s never wanted to be behind a desk all day,” she says. “Rather than concentrating on theory or history, I’m much more concerned about application. That’s what gets me out of bed— knowing my research could help change people’s lives for the better.”
In broad terms, Litzow divides her research into two areas. The first investigates and charts the impacts of environmental change on people’s lives, from health to gender to the labour market and beyond. This includes, for example, an ongoing study—first launched at UBC—into the effects of lead pollution on students in Mexico. The project, she says, has been complicated by the fact that very little relevant data exists.
But the second area—designing policies to effect positive change—comes with its own complications. This includes
a current project on traditional energy in Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia, where using open fires to prepare food is commonplace but replete with health and environmental downsides. “The Kenyan government aims to have 500,000 households cooking with electricity within three years. We’re examining the viability and efficiency of this plus the health and environmental benefits.”
Dealing with governments and other agencies, Litzow adds, is an area she was initially unprepared for. “One of the biggest challenges of my work is engaging with policymakers. It’s not something many academics are trained in and I am learning a lot about how to do it,” she says, noting that her ongoing collaboration with Environment for Development, a supportive network of 200 international environmental economists, has taught her much about navigating the choppy waters of real-world action.
She also credits her PhD program where she focused on Food and Resource Economics (FRE) as an essential driver in her burgeoning career. “LFS is a great school. And since the FRE group was quite small, we all received lots of extra focus and attention from the faculty,” she recalls. “The biggest issue I had was imposter syndrome and the idea that I wasn’t good enough. But my advisors as well as my family were so incredibly supportive all the time.”
UBC also equipped her in some unexpected ways. “I was constantly meeting people from different countries and different perspectives and learning how to connect and communicate with them. And even though it’s a big university, there were no barriers between departments and disciplines and everyone was so welcoming. I’m now working in a very interdisciplinary department at the University of Texas at Dallas and UBC really helped prepare me for that.”
While she also met her future husband at UBC—“That was another big plus of the program,” she says, laughing—Litzow predicts her career will continue to synthesize research, real-world action and international study visits. “I definitely need to be out in the field,” she says. “And I would like to keep working in the energy space. At the same time, the effects of climate change are becoming even bigger. But the bottom line is that I’m just genuinely curious about problems and trying to continually find ways to solve them.”
