On Friday, April 18, Associate Professor of Government Mary Alice Haddad spoke about her current research project, Eco-Tools, which she is looking to develop into a tool to map energy usage across the world. The talk, titled “Connecting Wesleyan to the World: Environmental Politics,” was co-sponsored by the Wesleyan International Relations Association (WIRA) and Model United Nations (MUN).

Haddad works with Eco-Tools to map technology use on the University’s campus. The project began with a map of campus energy usage. Haddad and a team of students were able to measure which of the companies that the University’s IT Department works with are or are not eco-friendly, and posted this information on the Eco-Tools website.

Haddad and the University administration recently signed an agreement with Second Nature, a nonprofit organization that attempts to create a sustainable society through higher education. The agreement will provide Haddad the resources she needs to expand her mapping to other college campuses.

Haddad had the idea for the project after meeting Ma Jun, an environmentalist and 2012 Goldman Environmental Prize recipient, who used government data to create an energy map of China. The map allowed him to assess how much energy foreign technology firms were using in the country, leading to greater pollution regulation.

Haddad hopes to use her current program as proof of concept for funding from Google, with which she could start mapping energy use in different countries around the world.

Haddad also spoke about JouleBug, a social media platform she brought to campus on which participants receive points for doing environmentally friendly activities. The program turns being green into a friendly competition, allowing students to compete with their friends while saving energy. She hopes that the application will generate information to use in research about how social media can help promote sustainability.

Wesleyan Model United Nations (WesMUN) Co-Head and WIRA Member Saahil Bhargava ’16 was excited about the event.

“Both WIRA and WesMUN had been planning to hold a talk with a professor to raise interest in IR on campus,” Bhargava wrote in an email to The Argus. “Our goal was, in WIRA’s case, to get the club back up and running such that it could host multiple events each semester, and in WesMUN’s case, encourage more student participation in IR-related activities.”

WesMUN Co-Head Sadichchha Adhikari ’16 spoke about planning the lecture.

“[Bhargava] and I have Professor Haddad for Politics in China, and she’s actually one of the most interesting professors I’ve ever had,” Adhikari said. “So we got to the professor before we got to the topic.”

WIRA Co-Presidents Cole Phillips ’16 and Zachary Mintz ’15 shared their hopes for WIRA in the future.

“[WIRA] just re-formed again this year, so this is our first event for the spring, and then next year going forward we’re going to work for the rest of the spring and over the summer to come up with a list of guest speakers on a consistent rolling basis,” Mintz said. “We’re looking for speakers to come in and lecture.”