Kirwan Spring 2025 Forum Series Events

Drs. Chris Benner and Manuel Pastor will talk about their new book, Charging Forward: Lithium Valley, Electric Vehicles, and a Just Future. The volume starts and ends in the Salton Sea region of Southern California, a place that has been considered an environmental disaster zone, a site of labor exploitation, and a problematic example of grinding poverty and racial exclusion. But while it has long been on the periphery, it is now a new center of political and economic attention – because it is sitting on enough lithium to electrify the entire US auto fleet and have 100 million batteries left over! 

The proposed method of extraction promises to be the cleanest and greenest on the planet, a prospect that is exciting environmentalists as well as state official and corporations.  Meanwhile, frontline communities that have all too frequently been left behind and kept behind are worried about just how clean the process will be, labor is seeking assurances about good permanent employment, and public officials are trying to maximize benefits without scaring away investors.  

 And while the book is deeply rooted in place, the authors make a key point: what happens in Lithium Valley will not stay in Lithium Valley. For that reason, the book telescopes from a broad consideration of the clean energy transition to an in-depth exploration of the 2023 strikes in the auto industry to a deep dive into the Salton Sea region and then a zoom out to national-level lessons for what we call “green justice.” 

Dr. Manuel Pastor is a Distinguished Professor of Sociology and American Studies & Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. He currently directs the Equity Research Institute at USC. Pastor holds an economics Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and is the inaugural holder of the Turpanjian Chair in Civil Society and Social Change at USC. 

Pastor’s research has generally focused on issues of the economic, environmental and social conditions facing low-income urban communities – and the social movements seeking to change those realities. 

Rob Barry, Jr. is an educator, cultural critic, and theorist from the Westside of Chicago, IL. As a PhD Candidate and Graduate Teaching Associate in the Department of Comparative Studies at The Ohio State University, Rob's research employs Black critical theory, Black feminisms, Black masculinities, and Black visual culture & media to examine historical processes of Black un/gendering in the afterlife of slavery. Specifically, Rob's research is concerned with the ways in which embodiments and performances of Black genders function as affective remnants of chattel slavery, animating and haunting those traditionally and non/traditionally rendered masculine across diasporic spaces a/temporally.  

Rob earned a BA in Black Studies and Educational Studies from Denison University and an MA in Critical Ethnic Studies from DePaul University. He currently serves as the Graduate Professional Research Associate at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, collaborating with Dr. Jordan Lynton Cox, the Associate Director of Research, on research and projects focusing on Black memory and death in the afterlife of slavery. 

Ramakrishnan’s proven approach of “DNA: Data, Narrative, Action” gives a distinctive depth of understanding of how researchers and community organizations alike can help ensure that public narratives and institutional actions are informed by timely and accurate evidence. Ramakrishnan developed the DNA framework while directing AAPI Data and the Center for Social Innovation at UC Riverside.  

The DNA framework relies on three fundamental insights that help to maximize public impact: we need data for the work to be credible, narrative investments for the work to be meaningful and memorable, and a strategic action-oriented framework for the work to be impactful. 

Karthick Ramakrishnan has served in leadership roles that span academia, government, public policy, and philanthropy. He is founder and director of AAPI Data, a nationally recognized publisher of demographic data and policy research on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and Researcher at UC Berkeley. He is also Strategy Lead for the Americas at School of International Futures, and Senior Advisor at States for the Future. 

Ramakrishnan previously served as Executive Director of California 100, a transformative statewide initiative focused on California’s next century, and as president of the Association of Princeton Graduate Alumni. He also served for 4 years as associate dean of UC Riverside’s School of Public Policy and for 19 years as a professor. He also serves on the Boards of The California Endowment, the U.S. Census Bureau’s National Advisory Committee (NAC), and the Asian American Alumni Association of Princeton (A4P). Ramakrishnan also served as chair of the California Commission on APIA Affairs for 6 years, founded and led the Center for Social Innovation at UC Riverside for 6 years,  and founded and led for 3 years the Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics, an official section journal of the American Political Science Association. 

Ramakrishnan has published many articles and 7 books, including most recently, Citizenship Reimagined (Cambridge, 2020) and Framing Immigrants (Russell Sage, 2016), and has written dozens of opeds and has appeared in nearly 3,000 news stories. Ramakrishnan was  named to the Frederick Douglass 200 and is currently working on projects related to equitable futures and innovative governance. He holds a BA in international relations from Brown University and a PhD in politics from Princeton. 

Dr. Keeley Pratt is an Associate Professor in the Human Development and Family Science Program, Couple and Family Therapy Specialization in the Department of Human Sciences at The Ohio State University (OSU). She also has appointments with the OSU Departments of Surgery and Pediatrics, in which she collaborates with the Comprehensive Center for Adult Weight Management, Metabolic, and Bariatric surgery and Nationwide Children’s Hospital Center for Healthy Weight and Nutrition. She also has a 15% appointment with the Ohio Agriculture Research and Development Center (OARDC) to develop community and healthcare extensions for child and adult weight management interventions. Dr. Pratt works in all these capacities to research family-based treatment methods and family factors that predict/associate with behavior change and weight loss over time. 

Dr. Pratt completed her doctorate in Medical Family Therapy at East Carolina University, where she worked in a variety of weight management, healthcare, and community settings with rural, low-income racial/ethnic minority families. She completed a post-doctoral research fellowship at Research Triangle Institute International (RTI) in an Obesity Signature Program. Dr. Pratt is an Independently Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and AAMFT Approved Supervisor. She is currently an Associate Editor for two journals: Families, Systems, & Health and Bariatric Surgical Practice and Patient Care, and is a Special Topics Editor for the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (IJERPH). 

For over a decade, Dr. Pratt has worked with pediatric weight management programs and clinics, residential healthy lifestyle camps, adult outpatient weight management and bariatric surgery, and school-based settings as a researcher, clinician, and trainer/supervisor. She has received funding for her work and has conducted over 200 presentations at local, national, and international conferences and has produced over 60 peer-reviewed works. As a Family Scientist, licensed Couple and Family Therapist, and trained Medical Family Therapist she uses the Scientist-Practitioner Model- in which her clinical work informs her research, and her research informs her clinical work. Thus, all her research has direct implications for patients and families in weight management.