I am a human-environment geographer, political ecologist, and the director of the Climate Futures Lab. My research focuses on the benefits and burdens of adaptation and decarbonization for those on the frontlines of climate change. I use a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods, including spatial analysis, surveys, archival research, and interviews. I collaborate closely with communities and practitioners to improve the design, implementation, and outcomes of adaptation and energy transition initiatives that promote inclusion and equity. Regionally, I am working with communities and partners across the Arid Americas, including the Andes (Ecuador) and Great Basin (U.S.).

Prior to joining UBC, I was an assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley, jointly appointed to the Energy and Resources Group and the Department of Environmental Science, Management, and Policy. I completed my PhD in the School of Geography, Development, and the Environment at the University of Arizona. Before graduate school, I worked for nearly a decade as a climate change adaptation researcher and practitioner, first as a Fulbright Fellow studying climate change impacts on Chilean vineyards and then as a Luce Scholar placed with the Centre for Rural Development in northern Vietnam.

If you are interested in working with me as a postdoc or graduate student, please visit the Climate Futures Lab’s website for application resources and information regarding current advising capacity.

My research group, the Climate Futures Lab (CFL), is a hub for social science on the climate crisis. Within CFL, I am currently leading three research clusters. Please check out CFL’s website for more information related to all current and concluded projects.

1) After Adaptation: Climate change adaptation projects seek to protect frontline communities against escalating changes both during the project and into the uncertain future. But scholars and practitioners know very little about what happens after such projects end. This unexamined legacy allows projects that fail, deepen inequality, and compound vulnerability to be replicated and scaled up globally, with potentially devastating impacts for frontline communities. This research examines how concluded climate change adaptation projects in Ecuador continue to shape local livelihoods and national adaptation governance years after project closure. By looking at how adaptation projects endure, to what ends, and for whom, we can understand the possibilities and limitations of adaptation for building climate justice. I am currently writing a book related to this research, which is under contract with MIT University Press and scheduled for publication in 2028.

2) Energy and Water in Transition: Over the past decade, hundreds of renewable energy projects—including utility-scale solar, geothermal, and pumped-storage hydropower plants—have been proposed across the arid Great Basin in the Western United States, alongside a surge in lithium and other critical mineral extraction. These developments are unfolding in a region shaped by longstanding struggles over water scarcity and environmental injustice, as well as a strong legacy of regional coalition-building. With funding from the Sloan Foundation, my co-PI Dr. Sophia Borgias (CU Boulder) and I are leading a community-based research project through which we are building a comprehensive map of current and proposed energy and critical mineral projects in the Great Basin and conducting an extensive water rights analysis of water rights transfers related to energy transition development in case study hydrographic basins as well as interviews with local residents, county commissioners, agency staff, and activists, as well as Tribal leaders and Tribal members where authorized.

3) Decarbonizing Adaptation & Adapting Decarbonization: How can the great imperatives of decarbonization and adaptation be more productively combined to deliver holistic climate action at the needed speed and scale? How can conjoined green investments to transform the built environment tackle climate vulnerabilities exacerbated by racial inequality and enduring colonialism? This project is a partnership between Climate Futures Lab and Dr. Daniel Aldana Cohen’s Socio-Spatial Climate Collaborative. Together, we are examining the varied conceptualizations that have animated the interconnections of climate change adaptation and decarbonization.

Paprocki, K., Camargo A., Taylor, M., Bhasme S., and Mills-Novoa, M. (2025) How is Climate Change Changing Agrarian Studies? Journal of Agrarian Change 25(3)
DOI: 10.1111/joac.70018

Mikulewicz, M., Thomas, K, and Mills-Novoa, M. 2025. Why projects cannot deliver transformative climate change adaptation. Climate Policy 1-5.
DOI: 10.1080/14693062.2025.2591881

Siegel, K., Mills-Novoa. M., Kinnebrew, E., Ochoa, J., and Shoffner, E. 2025. Understanding deforestation dynamics in Amazonian protected areas through land-use change models informed by conservation discourses. Biological Conservation 313
DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2025.111585

Mills-Novoa, M. and S. Borgias. (2025) The New Era of Contested Hydropower Development: A Systematic Review from 2000-2022. World Development.
DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.107162

Mills-Novoa, M., Thomas, K., Mikulewicz, M. (2025) Moving beyond projects to achieve transformative adaptation. Nature Climate Change
DOI: 10.1038/s41558-025-02414-x.

Mills-Novoa, M. and M. Mikulewicz. (2025) The Promise of Resistance: A New Lens for Climate Change Adaptation Research and Practice. ClimateWIRES 16(1)
DOI: 10.1002/wcc.922

Shah, S., Haverkamp, J.A., Guzmán, C.B., Mills-Novoa, M., and M. Carmack. (2025) Beyond Unintentionality: Considering Climate Maladaptation as Cyclical. Climatic Change 178(77)
DOI: 10.1007/s10584-025-03922-7

Mills-Novoa, M. (2023) What happens after climate change adaptation projects end: A community-based approach to ex-post assessment of adaptation projects. Global Environmental Change 80
DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2023.102655.

Johnson, L., Mikulewicz, M., Bigger, P., Chakraborty, R., Cunniff, A., Griffin, P.J., Guermond, V., Lambrou, N., Mills-Novoa, M., Neimark, B., Nelson, S., Rampini, C., Pasang Sherpa, P., and Simon, G. (2023) Intervention: The Invisible Labor of Climate Change Adaptation. Global Environmental Change 83
DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2023.102769

Mills-Novoa, M., Boelens, R., Hoogesteger, J., and Vos, J. (2022) Resisting, Leveraging, and Reworking Climate Change Adaptation Projects from Below: Placing Adaptation in Ecuador’s Agrarian Struggles. Journal of Peasant Studies 6, 2283-2311
DOI: 10.1080/03066150.2022.2144252

Eriksen, S., Schipper, L.F., Scoville-Simonds, M., Vincent, K., Lenaerts, L., Nicolai Adam, H., Brooks, N., Harding, B., Khatri, D., Liverman, D., Mills-Novoa, M., Mosberg, M., Muok, B., Nightingale, A., Ojha, H., Sygna, L., Taylor, M., Vogel, C., West, J.J. (2021) Climate change adaptation interventions in developing countries: Help, Hindrance, or Irrelevant? World Development 141: 105383
DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105383