Ingrid K. Shockey

Ingrid Shockey is an environmental sociologist whose work concerns natural literacy and the interplay of human-wilderness relationships. These domains include topics in biodiversity loss, climate change perceptions, and our sense of place and identity with respect to the landscape. Her work has focused most recently on mountain ecologies and economies in the western Himalaya.

She manages and curates two undergraduate student Project Centers, serving as co-director for the Wellington Project Center in New Zealand (since 2012) and directing the WPI-IIT Mandi India Project Center at the Indian Institute of Technology at Mandi (since 2013). This collaborative site brings IIT and WPI students and faculty together to share learning and innovation strategies in communities. The scope includes working closely with project teams to teach STEM students the art of stakeholder engagement in complex contexts. She teaches fieldwork methodologies at project centers, with an emphasis on cross-cultural perspective-taking and fostering community collaboration skills for IQP students. In affiliation with Environmental and Sustainability Studies, she teaches Case studies in Environmental Governance and Innovation, as well as design strategies for accessibility and affordability.

In 2018, Ingrid was the inaugural Global Fellow-in-residence at the Global Lab in the Foisie Innovation Studio. She is currently working on a project derived from this Fellowship to film and feature climate change stories shared through student interviews with residents in communities at WPI project centers around the world.