Undergraduate student Nadia Carlson, dual majoring in geography and environmental studies, was the recent recipient of a 2014 SIRE-REU Award.

The Sustainability Innovation in Research and Education-Research Experience for Undergraduates (SIRE-REU) awards, granted by the UW-Madison Office of Sustainability, support undergraduate contributions to established research projects supported by external grants. The program is intended to enhance research expertise in undergraduate students and to develop recruiting pipelines for undergraduates to pursue graduate degrees at UW–Madison in sustainability-related fields.

Nadia’s research project, “Creating successful and sustainable farmers’ markets in Wisconsin,” seeks to strengthen the reliability of measurement tools for understanding farmers’ market impacts on sustainability through estimating greenhouse gas emissions produced by vendors and consumers and by examining production practices and how distinct practices, e.g. organic production, relate to sustainability. An existing study of marketplace impacts is being conducted in three regions: Northern Appalachia, the Gulf Coast, and the Chesapeake Bay. The research outlined in this proposal seeks to expand upon this study by testing measurement techniques at markets in Wisconsin, with a goal of helping create more sustainable and successful farmers’ markets in Wisconsin.

Nadia’s faculty advisor for the project is Alfonso Morales from the Department of Urban and Regional Planning. External research funding is from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.