NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Dr. Chien-fei Chen, director of education and diversity and research associate professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, will give a talk titled "Factors that Influence Household Adoption of Energy Efficient Appliances" as part of MCLA's Green Living Seminar Series at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 7, 2021. 

 

Green Living Seminar Series webinars are free and open to the public; community members can register for each lecture at mcla.edu/greenliving. All seminars take place weekly on Wednesdays at 5:30 p.m. through April 14. 

 

Dr. Chen is a research associate professor and director of education and diversity program at the National Science Foundation funded engineering research center, Center for Ultra-wide-area Resilient Electric Energy Transmission Networks (CURENT), Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK). She is also an adjunct faculty member in the department of sociology at the UTK. 

 

Dr. Chen's research centers in the areas of environmental sociology, pro-environmental behavior, renewable energy adoption, and energy justice. Her recent publications appear in Building and Environment, Energy, Energy and Buildings, Energy Policy, Energy Research and SocialScience (ERSS), Journal of Environmental Psychology, IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, Electric Power Systems Research, and more. Since 2018, Dr. Chen serves as an editorial board member of ERSS. 

 

She also leads the research projects of public acceptance of power grid and renewable technologies and demand response at CURNET based on social-psychological theories and concepts. She has received several research awards from the National Science Foundation and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to conduct interdisciplinary research regarding wireless communication technology and social-psychological factors as well as remand response, micro-grid resilience and grid technologies. In 2019, Dr. Chen received the Fulbright U.S. Global Scholar Award. 

 

Every semester, MCLA's Green Living Seminar Series hosts lectures by local, regional, and national experts organized around a central theme related to the environment and sustainability. The 2021 series theme is "Individual Actions and Environmental Sustainability." The series is a presentation of the MCLA Environmental Studies Department and MCLA's Berkshire Environmental Resource Center. 

 

For more information, go to www.mcla.edu/greenliving or contact Elena Traister at (413) 662-5303.