Grace Wang ’26

Major

Undeclared

Project Title

Mining for the Climate

I worked with the Blue Lab’s Mining for the Climate team to research lithium mining in the United States and produce a public-facing podcast series about a proposed lithium mine in Gaston County, North Carolina. Following preliminary research, our team undertook 10-days of fieldwork in North Carolina, California and Nevada. We traveled to proposed mine sites and interviewed mining company executives, local activists and government officials. During our fieldwork, we reckoned with the challenges posed by the renewable energy transition and the consequences of the extractive processes necessary for it. After returning, we workshopped our podcast’s first season and began writing the episodes. I spearheaded production on the fourth episode in the series, which delves into the narratives of local residents in Gaston County. During this internship, I gained valuable fieldwork research and audio production skills, as well as expansive knowledge of the complex issues surrounding energy transition and extraction.



Internship Year

2023

Project Category

Environment and Society and Urban Sustainability

Organization(s)

Blue Lab, Effron Center for the Study of America, Princeton University - Pasadena, California; Thacker Pass, Nevada; Princeton, New Jersey; Gaston County, North Carolina

Mentor(s)

Allison Carruth, Professor of American Studies and the High Meadows Environmental Institute, Princeton University; Nate Otjen, Postdoctoral Research Associate, High Meadows Environmental Institute, Princeton University; Juan Manuel Rubio, UC President’s and Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Global Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara