EnviroLab 2026 Graduate Conference: (Un)Doing Catastrophe

On April 10–11, we hosted the EnviroLab 2026 Graduate Conference, (Un)Doing Catastrophe. The program brought together a vibrant community of scholars and practitioners, featuring four panels, sixteen panelists, and a keynote address by Professor of Anthropology Anand Pandian (Johns Hopkins University).

In addition to the panels, the conference included a screening of six films produced by graduate students, a multimodal workshop led by Professor Alissa Jordan (Center for Experimental Ethnography, UPenn), and a conversation on catastrophe with Professors of Anthropology Gastón Gordillo (University of British Columbia) and Munira Khayyat (NYU Abu Dhabi).

The conference concluded with closing remarks by Professor Adriana Petryna (University of Pennsylvania), which will be shared below.

We are grateful to the organizing committee—Austin Miles, Adwaita Banerjee, Noa Mori Machover, Grace Bristow, Gustavo Valenzuela (University of Pennsylvania), and Adam Fertig (New York University)—for making this conference possible. We also extend our thanks to EnviroLab Director Nikhil Anand for his support throughout the organization of the event.

Finally, we gratefully acknowledge the generous support of the McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology, the Center for the Advanced Study of India, the Andrea Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy, the Center for Latin American and Latinx Studies, the Center for Experimental Ethnography, the Wolf Humanities Center, Graduate and Professional Student Assembly (GAPSA), the Weitzman School of Design, and the Anthropology Department.