Samira Patel graduated with an anthropology degree from the University of Chicago. She is especially committed to social justice and sensitive to how policies often exclude the most vulnerable people. She has spent almost a decade learning how this is particularly acute in climate- and environment-monitoring programs, having worked at the science–policy interface both at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and at the Center for Space Policy and Strategy. She joined the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI) at the University of Cambridge as a master’s student to critically examine how the science–policy interface and digital data infrastructures impact local communities. This led her to publish a dissertation, The Rise of a Technoscientific Third Pole: Climate Science, Data, and Culture in the Himalayan Cryosphere. She has also written and spoken about various issues related to the “Asian Arctic”; the politics of data sharing and data infrastructures; remote sensing and outer space policies; and pluralistic understandings of cold and icy places. She is currently a Gates Cambridge Scholar at SPRI, where she is pursuing a PhD in geography.
As a Fulbright-Nehru Scholar, Samira is undertaking research for her PhD dissertation exploring the notions of climate futures in Ladakh. The inhabitants of Ladakh have long navigated the constraints of water in their high-altitude desert environment. Now, they must adapt to a shifting landscape due to climate change. Samira’s project is particularly focusing on the extent to which communities – local communities and communities of scientific practice – help shape and navigate these climate futures. Using ethnographic methods, she is examining how Ladakhi people leverage various scientific and/or local environmental knowledge to navigate the myriad challenges and anxieties of a warming planet.