Holly Caggiano

Dr. Holly Caggiano received her PhD in Planning & Public Policy from Rutgers’ Bloustein School, after which she was a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton’s Andlinger Center for Energy & Environment in the Behavioral Science for Policy Lab.

Dr. Caggiano has previously taught classes on consumerism and sustainability, as well as on population, resources, and the environment.

In her life and work, she aims to center joy, care, and mutuality.

Caggiano’s research explores social dimensions of the renewable energy transition in the US and Canada. She is interested in how diverse stakeholder groups form coalitions to advocate for environmental change. This work connects patterns across decision-making scales, exploring the ways individual decision-making influences collective action and how collective action disrupts existing relations of power. 

Drawing from her interdisciplinary social science background, Caggiano’s work critically evaluates both top-down and bottom-up approaches that aim to advance equitable climate change mitigation & adaptation efforts.

Her dissertation research explored social-behavioral drivers of household resource consumption at the food-energy-water nexus.