Yijun Gai IHSS May 7, 2024

Yijun Gai 蓋怡君

  • PhD Student (Admitted in 2021 – 2022)
  • Field Area: Humanities and Social Sciences

Yijun Gai

Overview

Before starting the PhD Programme at the University of Hong Kong (with the Southern University of Science and Technology), Yijun received her bachelor’s and master’s degree in environmental engineering at the University of Toronto, during which she conducted life cycle assessment on renewable energy systems to evaluate their impacts on air quality, climate change, and human health.

After receiving her master’s degree, she worked for environmental NGOs to enhance air quality and climate policies. In the meantime, she has developed an interest to find the root cause of environmental issues and how people have been involved in creating and addressing those issues, as well as the proposed ideology of ecological civilization.

Therefore, her tentative Ph.D. project tries to depict the construction of ecological civilization in China through the lens of “energy”. This research project will integrate macro- and micro- level approaches, which means to interweave the investigation of the emergence of ecological civilization ideology in China and the life of people who carry out the environmental initiatives at the ground level.

This will be an interdisciplinary study involving sociology, anthropology, history, political science, environmental philosophy, environmental ethics, environmental engineering, etc.

Research Interests

Ecological civilization; Renewable energy; Science, technology, society, and environment; Environmental sociology; Environmental ethics and philosophy; Eco-farming

Thesis Project

Depicting ecological civilization in China through the lens of “energy”

Selected Publications

Journal Papers (first author)

2020 Gai, Y., Minet, L., Posen, I. D., Smargiassi, A., Tetreault, L., & Hatzopoulou, M.* (2020). Health and climate benefits of Electric Vehicle Deployment in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, Environmental Pollution. 265, p. 114983.

2019 Gai, Y., Wang, A., Pereira, L., Hatzopoulou, M., & Posen, I. D.* (2019). Marginal greenhouse gas emissions of Ontario’s electricity system and the implications of electric vehicle charging. Environmental Science & Technology, 53(13), 7903-7912.

Journal Papers

2020 Wang, A., Tu, R., Gai, Y., Pereira, L. G., Vaughan, J., Posen, I. D., Miller, E. J., & Hatzopoulou, M.* (2020). Capturing uncertainty in emission estimates related to vehicle electrification and implications for metropolitan greenhouse gas emission inventories. Applied Energy, 265, 114798.

2020 Minet, L., Chowdhury, T., Wang, A., Gai, Y., Posen, I. D., Roorda, M., & Hatzopoulou, M.* (2020). Quantifying the air quality and health benefits of greening freight movements. Environmental Research, 183, 109193.

2020 Tu, R., Gai, Y., Farooq, B., Posen, I. D., & Hatzopoulou, M.* (2020). Electric vehicle charging optimization to minimize marginal greenhouse gas emissions from power generation. Applied Energy, 277, 115517.

2018 Wang, A., Stogios, C., Gai, Y., Vaughan, J., Ozonder, G., Lee, S., Posen, I. D., Miller, E. J. & Hatzopoulou, M.* (2018). Automated, Electric, or Both? Investigating the Effects of Transportation and Technology Scenarios on Metropolitan Greenhouse Gas Emissions. Sustainable Cities and Society, 40, 524-533

Thesis Supervisor

Primary supervisor: Professor David A. Palmer

Co-supervisor: Professor Angela Ki Che Leung

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