Incubator Grants
Incubator Grants are twelve-month awards that provide up to $10,000 to University of Washington faculty/staff/research scientists eligible to serve as Principal Investigators (PIs). EarthLab Incubator Grants are designed to nurture ideas and launch partnerships for climate change or environmental justice research and action. Emphasizing interdisciplinary, community-based, and cross-sectoral collaboration, EarthLab Incubator Grants bring together diverse stakeholders around a shared research agenda or concept.
2026 Awarded Projects & Recipients
- Symposium on Climate Change, Preparedness, and Health in Carceral Settings | Rachel Sklar, Assistant Professor, Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences
People who are incarcerated face some of the most severe climate-related health risks in the country — extreme heat, poor air quality, limited access to care — and yet they remain largely absent from climate preparedness policy and research. This project brings together scholars, clinicians, formerly incarcerated people, state agencies, community groups, and litigators to take stock of what is already happening in Washington and identify what needs to come next. By connecting work on hazard mitigation plans, indoor air quality standards, and advocacy around conditions of confinement, the symposium aims to turn scattered momentum into a shared agenda for research, policy, and practice.
- Developing an Indigenous Data Sovereignty Agreement User Guide | Jamie Donatuto, Clinical Associate Professor, Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences
Research partnerships between Indigenous communities and outside institutions have both real potential and a complicated history. How those partnerships are structured from the start often determines whether they generate trust or erode it. This project reviews existing Indigenous data sharing agreements to draw out what works, with attention to sovereignty, governance, consent, and cultural protocols. The result will be a practical user guide to help both communities and their research partners build agreements that are transparent, accountable, and grounded in community priorities.
- Building a Heat Mitigation Retrofit Framework for Public K-12 Schools in Washington State | Amos Darko, John E. Schaufelberger Endowed Assistant Professor in Construction Management, College of Built Environments
Children spend a large portion of their days in school buildings that were designed for a different climate than the one Washington State now experiences. Many public K-12 schools lack air conditioning, reflective roofing, or other basic measures to manage extreme heat, and the events that make those gaps dangerous are becoming more frequent. This project will develop a practical retrofit framework to help schools identify, prioritize, and prepare the upgrades needed to keep students and staff safe. When the next heat event comes, schools will have a plan.
- Leveraging Regional Expertise to Address Youth Mental Health, Climate Change, and Environmental Justice | Jennifer Atkinson, Teaching Professor, School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences
Research consistently shows that young people are experiencing real mental distress about climate change. What’s harder to find is guidance on what to do about it in specific places, with specific community needs. This project brings together professionals across Washington, Oregon, and California to share expertise, examine new statewide data, and build research agendas that are grounded in regional conditions and centered on youth well-being and environmental justice. The aim is to close the distance between what national studies document and what practitioners can act on.
- Pursuing Collaborative Adaptation in Coastal Washington | Celina Balderas Guzmán, Assistant Professor in Landscape Architecture, College of Built Environments
Four early-career faculty from three departments and two colleges at UW are in the process of building the Center for Collaborative Adaptation, a research center designed to co-produce science and solutions with rural coastal communities across Washington State. This grant supports the foundational work of establishing that center by developing partnerships in the Willapa and Padilla Bay areas, connecting with communities that are already navigating the realities of a changing coast, and laying the groundwork for research that is genuinely responsive to what communities are already facing.
- Rooted Knowledge: Land Stewardship, Storytelling, and Social Justice | Matthew Randolph, Assistant Professor, American Ethnic Studies
Rooted Knowledge is a collective grounded in the Sankofa tradition of Africana philosophy: the understanding that moving forward means also looking back, honoring what ancestors already knew about living well with the earth. Through writing workshops, cross-disciplinary reading groups, and open symposia, the project brings together university faculty, students, and community members to study and share Afro-indigenous knowledge and ecological practices. The work treats land stewardship as both a serious scholarly inquiry and a living community practice.
- Expanding the Innovation and Impact of Engagement Methods with Overburdened Communities | Cory Struthers, Assistant Professor, Evans School of Public Policy & Governance
Washington State has been experimenting with “community assemblies” — a form of civic engagement that brings together members of frontline communities to shape policy decisions that affect their lives. The method is promising, but translating community voice into government action remains a persistent challenge. This project converts research findings on how assemblies work into concrete, practical strategies for improving their design, with a specific focus on what it takes to move from community engagement to real policy change.
- The Natural Start Alliance Research Network: Building Research Infrastructure for Early Childhood Climate Resilience and Environmental Justice | Gail Joseph, Professor, College of Education
Children in their earliest years are largely missing from climate resilience and environmental justice research, even though early childhood is one of the most formative periods for how people come to understand and relate to the natural world. This project launches the Natural Start Alliance Research Network – a national effort to connect researchers, practitioners, and community partners who see early learning environments as essential to climate and environmental justice work. The network will build the research infrastructure to help that work take root.
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