Fulbright U.S. Student

Brittany Davis has over ten years of experience in environmental studies. She was on the faculty of Regis University in Denver and Allegheny College in Pennsylvania where she taught environmental studies, Black studies, and peace and justice studies, and supervised undergraduate research. In addition, her master’s research focused on urban park management in Atlanta, Georgia with a focus on how changes in the park’s management affected the park’s use and users. Her passion for the environment stems from her childhood, which was filled with summer trips to the lake, natural springs, and beach. Over time, she saw how those ecosystems were being negatively affected by people’s actions and how these impacted communities differently.

During her Fulbright grant, Brittany lived in the Bay Islands of Honduras, conducting research on fishing, tourism, and marine conservation, working to understand how these could co-exist in ways that protected both the environment and people’s livelihoods. She earned her doctorate in geography from the University of Arizona, her master’s degree in geography from the University of Georgia, and her bachelor’s degree in comparative literature from Princeton University. As an undergraduate, she studied abroad for a semester in Salamanca, Spain and lived with a host family.

Michael Donatti has five years of experience in environmental policy with a focus on the energy transition. He is currently a senior associate for the Urban Transformation program at the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI). His primary focus is supporting the City of Houston with the implementation of its Climate Action Plan, but he also supports broader efforts to help cities mitigate the impacts of the climate crisis, especially in historically disadvantaged communities.

Prior to joining RMI, Michael was an associate at the management consulting firm Oliver Wyman (OW). There, he focused on climate and sustainability topics for clients, working with companies across oil and gas, fuels, aviation, financial services, and other industries. He also helped manage the firm’s internal carbon strategy. While at OW, he held a six-month secondment on RMI’s Islands and Energy team, working to build a financial mechanism for critical facilities in low- to moderate-income communities in Puerto Rico to gain access to solar and storage backup power. Prior to OW, he held internships with the Environmental Defense Fund (focusing on reducing oil and gas sector methane emissions), BP America, and Bechtel Oil, Gas, and Chemical.

His academic background includes a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Rice University and a master’s degree in environmental policy and management from the University of Bristol, which he received thanks to funding from the US-UK Fulbright Commission.

Vaike Haas is a registered landscape architect in the state of West Virginia. Before joining West Virginia University (WVU) in 2013, she worked in practice for EDAW, one of the largest design and planning firms. At West Virginia University, her research and creative scholarship promote social equity and diversity in public greenspace. To this end, she pursues two research tracks: 1) exploring public space with sensitive histories or the potential to enhance ethnic/cultural inclusivity and 2) seeking to improve social equity with better physical access to greenspace, while simultaneously protecting and enhancing ecological resources within green corridors in West Virginia.

Vaike especially enjoys working on projects where a timely application of engaged scholarship can dramatically shift the community outcome. Her students build their understanding of course concepts through service-learning projects, often generating site analysis and design concepts to support nonprofit organizations’ grant writing and fundraising for professional design work. Her recent efforts were integral to WVU securing an International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA) Trail Accelerator Grant in 2020.

Currently, she is involved with the Youth Cycling Coalition’s Morgantown pilot city program. In addition, her engagement was recognized with several awards, including the university-wide Faculty Award for Excellence in Community Engagement and the International Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture’s Service-Learning Award - Junior Level in 2019 and 2017, respectively.

As a Fulbright alumna in 2008 and 2009, Vaike worked with city officials to examine how public spaces and city planning can better promote ethnic integration in Tallinn, Estonia.

Laura Shupp has seven years of experience in researching and advising government agencies and international governmental organizations on the adoption and use of innovation metrics across Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. She is currently a graduate teaching assistant for The Mack Institute for Innovation Management at The Wharton School, and a research assistant for the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s “Innovation Information Initiative” where she is working with a network of patent researchers to push the frontier of patent data modeling. Prior to re-entering academia, Laura spent four years establishing the Research Analytics and Decision Support Unit for Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Education, where she led a team in developing methodologies that use patent and publication data to characterize local economic development and innovation efforts towards social development and environmental sustainability.

While conducting research in the Middle East, Laura undertook several personal research projects to further explore barriers to knowledge exchange in connecting the microfoundations of innovation to macroeconomic outcomes. She served as a contributor to a joint Deloitte-Huawei White Paper analyzing digital transformation across the Middle East. Laura also presented her modeling efforts on university-industry technology transfer at the International Conference of the System Dynamics Society, as well as her current modeling focus on using patents to analyze environmental sustainability for an OECD workshop on modeling green innovation this past summer.

Laura is an alumna of the U.S. Fulbright Student Research Program. During her time at the University of Bahrain, she conducted research on small to medium-sized enterprises’ technological adoption and development within the ICT sector in relation to the country’s Vision 2030 strategy. Laura obtained her bachelor’s degrees in international politics and economics from Penn State University and her master’s degree in mathematical modeling in economics and finance from the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.