Abstract
At first thought, the University of Virginia and the Sahel region of Africa might not seem to have much in common; however, both settings today face increasing vulnerability to emergency threats. Through a technical systems engineering capstone project, I worked in a team of four to leverage student feedback for the advancement of UVA Emergency Management (EM)’s alert system: “UVA Alerts.” This project stemmed from a series of seemingly disorganized alerts sent across two back-to-back active attacks in spring 2025, after which our team wanted to improve alert effectiveness with regard to student safety and anxiety. My STS research paper explores strategies for effective climate adaptation in conflict-stricken regions. Using the Sahel region of Africa as a case study, I applied the responsible research and innovation (RRI) framework to determine who is responsible for mobilizing emerging technologies for adaptation. These two investigations connect to one another through their focus on crisis management and response. While UVA and the Sahel are very different settings, and active attacks and climate change are very different threats, one can draw parallels between strategy development for both of these challenges.
The UVA Alerts project began with an initial scoping process in fall 2025. Our team first met with EM to define their role, capabilities, and goals for the project. We then met with our advisors who bring expertise in human factors, decision modeling, and optimization research methods. We conducted a literature review, exploring crisis management across other universities and psychology-based emergency response trends. Finally, we met with an expert who guided us toward our ultimate strategy of hosting a smaller focus group study to inform a larger, more quantitative study spanning across the university. This overall methodology served to give us an exhaustive view about what students think about the current state of UVA Alerts, as well as hear opinions on our proposed solutions for advancing the future state of the system.
We learned that students prefer the capitalization of key words, detailed messaging including even minimal updates when possible, and inclusion of a map feature, timestamp, and when to expect a next update. Students appreciate an intentional hierarchy of message components, where the main event appears first, followed by the event location, details, and a directive. Lag time before the first alert is the biggest threat to student trust, followed by a lack of new information and seemingly random update cadence. Students agreed that UVA Alerts should encompass both on- and off-Grounds housing areas. When using other information sources, students claimed their main reasons for doing so are to obtain faster or more detailed information.
The research question I aim to answer in my STS research paper is: How can conflict-stricken regions utilize emerging technologies to realistically adapt to our changing climate, and who is responsible for driving that effort? This question holds significance through analyzing a known problem, that of which surrounds enhanced vulnerability to climate change in already vulnerable regions through a new lens: responsibility. The methods used to explore this question included a case study paired with a literature review, on content buckets ranging from the interaction of climate change and conflict to emerging technological adaptation strategies.
Literature evidence across a wide range of authors shows that the combination of climate change and conflict can make each individual problem more challenging to tackle. However, different parties have already proposed technological adaptation strategies for conflicted regions, so the issue seems to be less about knowledge sharing and more about mobilizing the finance and resources for implementation. Common threads for strategies and responsibility here include incorporating indigenous knowledge into decision making, leaning into cultural pillars like religious leaders for humanitarianism, fostering co-creation and mutual learning, and involving a mix of sectors and government levels for optimal adaptation in conflicted communities.
