Passing the Torch

Planet Texas 2050 would like to thank Paola Passalacqua (professor, Cockrell School of Engineering) for her leadership as chair of PT2050’s Theme Organizing Committee (TOC) for the past two years. She passes the torch back to Katherine Lieberknecht (associate professor, School of Architecture, who also served as the founding chair of PT2050, and to Patrick Bixler (assistant professor, LBJ School of Public Affairs).The two will serve as co-chairs for the upcoming year.

Read letters from Passalacqua, Lieberknecht and Bixler as they reflect on the previous two years and outline the program's future directions and aspirations.

From outgoing TOC Chair Paola Passalacqua:

Two years ago, I took on the role of chair of Planet Texas 2050’s Theme Organizing Committee (TOC). In my letter as incoming chair, I described what we do at PT2050 with the word “continuum” — a continuum from research to practice, from discipline to discipline, from arts to sciences, from team to team. And that is the word that represents what we have done in the last two years, with increasing connections among our PT2050 projects, activities, data, information, community members, students, postdocs and collaborators.

PT2050 has built and maintains a network of more than 125 active researchers across 27 departments. We collaborate with 29 external partners and have generated $34.5 million in external funding to date.

One example is our Southeast Texas Urban Integrated Field Laboratory (SETx-UIFL), funded by the Department of Energy, which focuses on the compounding impacts of flooding and air pollution on communities in Southeast Texas and along the Gulf Coast. UT leads the project involving many PT2050 researchers as well as those from Whole Communities–Whole Health. Through this work, we put into practice a top-down and bottom-up approach to co-design possible adaptation strategies with communities and provide them with the data and model results needed to advocate for those strategies.

Another example is the UT–City Climate CoLab, which we launched in partnership with the City of Austin to provide climate data and tools to city departments to support informed decision-making. The project is supported by PT2050, the City of Austin and a federal National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST) award facilitated by Congressman Lloyd Doggett.

We continued to grow our annual symposium, Resilience Research in Action, with presentations by more than 70 researchers and community-based partners each year. Attendance grew each year, with over 250 participating this past spring.

Recognizing that storytelling and creative methods are as important to our mission as scientific and technological advancement, we launched two new programs to catalyze and support meaningful interdisciplinary collaboration. In 2022, we launched our PT2050 artist fellowship. Six artists and one arts organization spent the academic year engaging with PT2050 researchers, building new relationships and developing collaborative project ideas. This initiative has not only fostered new collaborations but also inspired us to think differently about our work.

In 2023, in partnership with the Humanities Institute, Planet Texas 2050 awarded 16 researchers the inaugural Faculty Learning Community awards. This collaboration aims to integrate arts, design and humanities perspectives into climate resilience and adaptation research. The initiative seeks to foster interdisciplinary collaboration and broaden the approach to addressing complex issues related to climate change and population growth in Texas. Most of the fellows are continuing in FY25 and will present work from their funded projects at our 2025 symposium and other events throughout the year.

As I look at this coming year and my continued involvement as a member of the TOC, I am excited to pass the baton to Katherine Lieberknecht and Patrick Bixler, who have been at the forefront of our work with communities and will guide us towards establishing an even stronger legacy with our collaborators and community partners. I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to all for the opportunity to serve as chair for the past two years. Your trust and support have been invaluable, and I’m excited to continue with you all our journey towards a resilient Texas.

From incoming TOC Co-chairs Katherine Lieberknecht and Patrick Bixler:

Since our beginnings, the Planet Texas 2050 research network has centered storytelling and meaning making, alongside real-life application of research, scholarship and creative practice. Our work is frequently co-produced by communities, focuses on timescales ranging from the ancient world to a distant future, and extends from neighborhoods to Texas and beyond our state’s borders. In that spirit, we’d like to share a story from the first century, when a sailor bound for Italy heard a mysterious voice reaching across the water which said, “The great god Pan is dead!” As the message spread over centuries, many responded by searching for Pan, the Greek god of nature — to no avail.

Is Pan’s demise symbolic of the present-day challenges to resilience that Texas faces? We think not. From the myth of Pan, complexity science — and, more specifically, resilience scholarship — defines panarchy as an adaptive cycle with four phases: growth, conservation, release, and reorganization nested across space and time. The idea of panarchy extends the message of continuum offered by our outgoing chair. The continuum of research to practice, disciplinarity, arts to sciences, and projects progresses through small and large cycles over time.

As we enter the eighth year of this grand challenge, we find ourselves reflecting on the panarchy of Planet Texas 2050. Since our official launch in January 2018, we've seen tremendous growth, expanding from eight initial projects to 25 by May 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic brought unexpected challenges, forcing us to adapt and reorganize. Despite these obstacles, we've maintained our interdisciplinary efforts and continued to grow across the program, as evidenced by the outputs described above. As we move forward, we're committed to preserving and building upon the strong foundation we've established, ensuring the long-term sustainability of our work in resilience research bolstered by authentic and robust community engagement.

Having both been involved since the early days, we are honored to step into the role of co-chairs as Planet Texas approaches our next phase. As co-chairs we will continue to cultivate growth and nurture our existing projects. We will continue to strengthen our relationships across the Forty Acres as well as continue to foster research partnerships across Texas and beyond. We will look to the future with a focus on the maintenance and proliferation of what has been built to ensure the sustainability of PT2050’s mission of advancing interdisciplinary research on resilience and co-designing adaptative strategies with stakeholders and frontline communities in Texas. In the spirit of Pan, we look forward to advancing nature-based solutions for a healthy planet and resilient communities. If you see us, please join us and we can search for Pan together.

Paola Passalacqua is a professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering in the Cockrell School of Engineering and of earth and planetary sciences in the Jackson School of Geosciences. Her research lies at the intersection of water resources engineering, geomorphology and hydrology. She will remain on PT2050’s Theme Organizing Committee executive leadership team and co-lead of the Networks for Hazard Preparedness and Response flagship project. Dr. Passalacqua received a Ph.D. in civil engineering in 2009 from the University of Minnesota.

Katherine Lieberknecht is an associate professor in the community and regional planning program at the School of Architecture. She researches environmental planning centered around equity, with specific focus areas on climate planning, green infrastructure planning, and water resources planning. Dr. Lieberknecht was the inaugural chair of PT2050 and remains co-lead of the Equitable and Regenerative Cities in a Post-Carbon Future flagship project. She received a Ph.D. in city and regional planning from Cornell University.

R. Patrick Bixler is an assistant professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs. His current research focuses on climate and environmental governance, urban sustainability and resilience, hazard preparedness and response and network science. In addition to his role as co-lead of the Networks for Hazard Preparedness and Response flagship project, Dr. Bixler serves as a core faculty member of the RGK Center for Philanthropy and Community Service and leads the Austin Area Sustainability Indicators project, which won the 2020 Community Impact Award from the Community Indicator Consortium. He earned a Ph.D. in sociology from Colorado State University.