Tsunami Sharmba

Tsunami Sharmba joined the Hadjimichael Research Group at Penn State as a PhD student in Fall 2024, where her research sits at the intersection of climate science, water governance, and environmental ethics. She holds a BSc in Environmental Systems Engineering, a BSc in Philosophy, and an MSc in Energy and Mineral Engineering from Penn State, where she also completed a minor in Watersheds and Water Resources. Her research investigates how climate-driven water scarcity propagates through the Colorado River Basin’s prior appropriation system by mapping the network of interdependencies created by administrative calls between water rights holders.

Currently, Tsunami is interested in how the moral assumptions embedded in resource allocation systems produce structural injustice that becomes visible under stress. This ties into how users impact each other and how decision-makers navigate deeply uncertain futures where the consequences of today’s choices fall unevenly across communities and generations. Her work engages questions of climate justice, intergenerational equity, and the moral ecology of institutions that were built for a stable climate that no longer exists.