Skye Niles joined Western Water Assessment as a postdoctoral social science researcher in 2024. Her work focuses on reducing risk and building resilience to climate hazards in Colorado’s mobile home park communities. Niles has an undergraduate degree in Social Welfare from UC Berkeley, and she has a Master’s and PhD in Sociology from CU Boulder. She specializes in qualitative research methods and environmental and climate justice concerns.

Humans of CIRES Q&A

Q: What do you work on at CIRES?
I am a social scientist postdoc at Western Water Assessment, working on how to build climate resilience in Colorado's mobile/manufactured home park communities.

Q: What are you most passionate about professionally?
I just really enjoy learning new things about the world, and if I can also find ways to make the world a better and more equitable place while doing so, then that is pretty wonderful. There are so many wonderful resources and opportunities through CIRES and at the university, I really enjoy trying to find ways to share those with others and make a positive impact inside and outside of the university.

Q: Dogs or cats?
All animals are special, but I have to say that I really love dogs! I have two little ones right now: one chihuahua mix and one mystery mix puppy.

Q: Best advice someone’s given you?
I had the pleasure of getting to compete in an amateur charity boxing match last year called Unite to Fight, where each participant got to raise money for a cause of their choice. As part of the training for the event, I had to train with a group of other amateur boxers almost every morning, going through pretty grueling workouts. To get us motivated when things got particularly tough, the coach would ask us, “What are you fighting for?” That simple question has stuck with me – it helps me to think through what is not worth fighting about; and what is in my life that I really do want to fight for and dedicate myself to.