Profile
Krystal Tribbett is a Ph.D. candidate in the History of Science and Science Studies Program at the University of California at San Diego. She is interested in the role of scientific models in the development of environmental policy, public participation in policymaking, environmental justice, urban history, scientific consensus, and notions of risk and uncertainty. Krystal’s dissertation examines the history of California’s Regional Clean Air Incentive Market (RECLAIM), the United States’ first regional emission trading regulatory program. For her project she considers the historical underpinnings of RECLAIM’s development in terms of the simultaneous rise of market-based approaches to environmental regulation, and growing evidence of and concern for environmental justice in the early 1970s. With her dissertation, Krystal hopes to locate the voice of environmental justice populations in the development of RECLAIM, shed light on the role of science in the perpetuation of environmental injustice, and explore the importance of physical space and natural processes in the economic and social outcomes of policymaking. Prior to enrolling at UCSD, Krystal received her bachelor’s degree in Geology from Vassar College. Subsequently, she spent two years working as a director of admissions and co-coordinator of multicultural recruitment at her college alma mater. After completing her doctorate, Krystal hopes to engage in work committed to improving the justness environmental policy.
