Mission

Our mission is to understand the mechanisms undergirding inequity locally and transnationally. Our research is informed by rigorous analyses of the explicit and tacit modes of social domination (racial, class, gender, and of other systems of oppression and privilege) that continue to plague a thoroughly just and sustainable policy agenda relating to themes incorporated in climate and oceanic (including coastal) problems. Further, our research aims to unite theory and practice, meaning that we conduct research collaboratively with an international range of scholars, community organizations, and experts and to engage in dialogues with diverse publics (everyday people, social movements and their organizations, unions, politicians and their staff) towards fomenting debate and social change.

History & Funding

The SEA Lab was founded in 2017 by Brian F. O’Neill and Matthew Jerome Schneider, initially supported by funds from the Graduate College of the University of Illinois. The initiative was based on their shared concerns of lack of research on the social implications of climate related policies and the belief in the emancipatory potential of understanding the systemic nature of the problems facing society. Since 2023, the project expanded thanks to funding from the University of Washington School of Marine and Environmental Affairs, as well as the Nippon Foundation’s Ocean Nexus Program, and beginning in Fall 2024, the SEA Lab will be based at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.