Social-Ecological Systems Resilience Framework
Collaborator: Kyla Fullenwider, PhD Candidate, Carnegie Mellon School of Design
Role: Research Assistant, Systems Resilience & Transition Design
Dates: May 2025 – Present
Status: Ongoing
Quick Project Overview
Working alongside Kyla Fullenwider at Carnegie Mellon’s School of Design, I am contributing to a Social-Ecological Systems Resilience Framework designed to understand the reciprocal relationship between human wellbeing and ecological health. Using systems thinking, MLP transition theory, and rural health and agricultural data (including USDA datasets), our work maps how community health, land stewardship, and adaptive capacity are intertwined. We are developing methodology and visual tools to help policy and community partners assess resilience across social and ecological layers — especially in rural contexts where climate stress, agricultural transitions, infrastructure change, and community vitality intersect. This research advances a simple truth: healthy people create healthy ecosystems, and healthy ecosystems sustain healthy people.
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As climate disruption, social fragmentation, and institutional mistrust rise, resilience frameworks must extend beyond infrastructure and emergency response. This project explores resilience as a civic, emotional, ecological, and relational practice — one rooted in belonging, agency, and interdependence.
The work draws from social ecology, transition design, trauma-informed systems, and community health models to reimagine how societies adapt in ways that strengthen people and place.
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Supported the development of a Social-Ecological Resilience Framework, translating MLP theory into actionable tools for policy + academic settings
Conducted literature + landscape analysis on wellbeing, social fabric, adaptation, climate transitions, and public sector resilience
Applied multilevel perspective mapping to national civic data, including USDA agricultural and rural community datasets to understand rural wellbeing transitions
Co-designed learning scaffolds + visual models to support systems literacy for cross-sector leaders
Supported workshop content for climate, democracy, and wellbeing convenings
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MLP (Multi-Level Perspective) transition theory
Systems mapping + leverage point analysis
Social-ecological resilience models
Qualitative landscape research
USDA & federal rural wellbeing datasets
Visual systems modeling
Impact & Learning
This work has deepened my understanding of resilience as a co-emergent property of people and place — not a solely individual or environmental metric. It has sharpened my ability to translate complex transition theory into practical evaluation tools, and reinforced the importance of designing systems that nourish both human capacity and ecological regeneration. More than adaptation, this framework invites us to imagine proactive, life-affirming pathways where communities and ecosystems heal and grow together.
