March 2022 | Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment | Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation

Environmental Leadership: A Q&A with Paul Gharzouzi

Paul Gharzouzi, iSEE’s Graduate Educational Research Intern, played a pivotal role in developing the institute’s new Environmental Leadership Program (ELP).

Originally from Lebanon, Gharzouzi attended the American University in Beirut to study civil engineering with a minor in applied energy. After receiving his bachelor’s degree, Gharzouzi chose to pursue his interest in sustainability and continue his education at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, receiving a master’s degree in Civil Engineering with a focus on energy, water, and environmental sustainability.

In this Q&A with iSEE Communications Intern Grace Izzo, Gharzouzi discusses the mission behind the Environmental Leadership Program, his hopes for its future, and his own plans for a career in sustainability.

I understand you are currently a Ph.D. student here at Illinois. What program are you in, and what motivated you to further your education?

I am currently working toward a Ph.D.in civil engineering with Professor Paolo Gardoni, focusing on sustainable and resilient infrastructure systems. I was mainly motivated to continue my studies to further understand the science and concepts behind sustainability and sustainable solutions. In my Ph.D. program, I had the opportunity to explore how sustainability is linked to concepts such as resilience, risk, reliability, and natural and manmade hazards. I was very excited to dive deeper into this field and learn more about all the entities that make up sustainability.

As the Graduate Educational Research Intern for iSEE, what have been a few of your favorite research projects to work on and why?

I’ve been fortunate to work on many interesting projects, but in terms of my favorite, I think it’s the Environmental Leadership Program. It’s a project that I’ve been involved in since I joined iSEE, and the project has been a great experience since I was a part of starting it from the ground up. I’m excited to see where it will go in the coming years.

You were a crucial part of creating the ELP. Why was this important for you and what do you hope for the future of the program?

Gharzouzi, at right, joins ELP students and iSEE staff during their trip to Springfield in March 2022. Credit: Mark Herman/iSEE Communications

Throughout my studies, I came to realize that sustainability is an interdisciplinary challenge. Finding the solution to such a challenge requires getting the perspective and input of multiple disciplines, which is why the Environmental Leadership Program is important. The program aims to prepare undergraduate students from all backgrounds and academic disciplines for sustainable leadership roles in both the private and public sectors. The current version of the Environmental Leadership Program focuses on environmental policy and advocacy at the local and state level. For future versions of the program, we hope to incorporate additional aspects of environmental leadership by providing exposure to corporate sustainability, sustainability efforts in the private sector, and environmental non-profits. We want to give a bigger picture of what environmental leadership really is.

Starting a program from the ground up is difficult and dedicated work. What advice would you give to someone interested in starting their own program?

First off, developing the Environmental Leadership Program would not have been possible without the support of iSEE Associate Director for Education Luis Rodriguez, former Associate Director Gillen Wood, Academic Program Instructor Eric Green, and all of iSEE Management. Starting this program has definitely been a unique and very enriching experience. Besides the actual content development, I got to learn about the details and logistics involved in running such an endeavor. My advice is to ask for regular feedback and be willing to tweak and edit pieces of the program as needed. Since this was a new program, continuous feedback throughout the development process was essential to steer it in the right direction. It is also important to keep in mind that it’s a work in progress. So as the ELP or any new program continues to grow, there will always be new additions to incorporate and more to expand upon.

An integral part of the ELP is the “four days of intensive experiential learning.” Could you explain more about this and how it benefits students long term?

The four days of intensive experiential learning during spring break were the culmination of the current version of the program, with trips to the city councils of Urbana and Champaign, as well as the state Capitol in Springfield. During these trips, students got the chance to present the environmental policy they had been developing throughout the semester and make their voices heard. More importantly, students were able to interact and network with lawmakers at the local and state level, which gave them the opportunity to experience policy-building firsthand and explore potential career pathways. I was very pleased with the policies that our current cohort developed and how they advocated for their environmental issues of interest. In fact, after listening to our students’ presentations, a few lawmakers reached out to a couple of groups to ask for more details and support their bills!

Reflecting on your educational and personal experiences, was there a defining moment that led you to where you are now? Who or what inspires you toward sustainable action?

There really was no specific defining moment for me, as I’ve always been interested in sustainability and sustainable action. I will say that while working toward my bachelor’s degree, there were a few professors who inspired me to pursue graduate studies in the sustainability field. At UIUC, I met so many people both at iSEE and in the Champaign-Urbana community who are working toward sustainable action, which has been a great inspiration for me.

Gharzouzi, right, talks with students during a session of the Environmental Leadership Program. Credit: Julie Wurth/iSEE Communications

Why do you think preserving the environment is important? How did you get involved in this field in the first place?

From taking environmentally focused courses in college, preserving the environment was a topic I encountered a lot. These courses made me realize I am interested in this field of study and want to be more involved. It’s more important now than it ever has been to find solutions to preserve the environment. With the rising global population, I think it’s essential that we plan future economic growth in a sustainable and equitable manner. This is a global issue with very particular local implications, which makes it so challenging, but interesting at the same time. I think preserving the environment and our resources is also tied to many other critical issues like food security and population displacement, which further highlights the need for urgent action on that front.

Tell me a little about yourself outside of Illinois. What’s something most people don’t know about you?

My family is from Lebanon, which is where I spent most of my childhood. It is also where I completed my undergraduate studies. My family is my biggest support system. They supported me in pursuing my education outside of my home country and helped me get where I am today. As for my hobbies, I enjoy sports, mainly soccer and basketball. I also enjoy watching movies and traveling. As for something most people don’t know about me, I’m known as the food critic amongst my friends. For example, whenever my friends and I go out to eat, my friends have me choose a place (my favorites in town are Sakanaya and Pizzeria Antica), and they ask me for recommendations on what to order. That is a trait I got from my grandfather. My grandfather, Adel, was a poet and an avid reader from Amsheet, a small town in Lebanon. I remember when I was a kid, my grandfather would always introduce me to new Lebanese food, and he would always ask for my opinion on the dishes.

As you look toward your future, after receiving your Ph.D., what are some goals you hope to accomplish in the next five to 10 years?

Firstly, working at iSEE has been essential in shaping my Ph.D. experience. I have a greater understanding of sustainability, and I was able to work on sustainability from an educational standpoint. As for my future, I would like to continue working and contributing to this field through research, education, and potentially a new endeavor!

— Article by iSEE Communications Intern Grace Izzo

The Sustainable Student Farm: Educating Farmers of the Future

I was welcomed to the Sustainable Student Farm (SSF) team at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign a mere seven months ago. I quickly became obsessed with the site, finding solace in tedious weeding, happiness in good company, and a sense of purpose working toward a more sustainable, equitable, and healthy community.

The SSF was founded by the Crop Sciences Department in 2009 with a grant from the Student Sustainability Committee. The farm, located just south of the Arboretum, began as an infrastructure-less 2 acres but has since expanded to include three high tunnel greenhouses, several sheds full of tools, and walk-in coolers. It has provided sustainable agriculture opportunities to countless students the past 13 years. Between 2017 and 2019 alone, the farm supplied 150,000 pounds of produce to University Dining and the SSF farm stand. Starting in 2021, some of this produce has also been designated for local food pantries.

The farm’s formative years were endowed in interdisciplinary collaboration, consulting students from Architecture, Art & Design, and Engineering to lay a strong foundation.

Did you know that kale, cabbage, broccoli, and Brussel sprouts are all the same species of plant? Their scientific name is *Brassica oleracea*, and their appearances differ because humans selectively bred them for eating different parts of the plant. See here the *Brassica* plot at the SSF. Credits: Maria Maring

“We wanted to be a hub for multidisciplinary parts of the university to converge and work on various projects here,” SSF Manager Matt Turino said.

In addition to fostering cross-disciplinary relationships, one of the farm’s original goals was to financially support itself via sales, especially focusing on a robust relationship with University Dining.

The SSF’s most obvious service is the human and environmental health benefits of providing local, sustainably produced, healthy vegetables to Urbana-Champaign’s campus and communities. To cite just a few perks: Locally-produced food typically spends less time traveling from farm to plate, and the nutritional quality of fruits and vegetables is highest immediately after harvest. Local food travels less distance to its final destination, which is associated with lower greenhouse gas emissions. And local farms typically do not practice excessive monocropping or synthetic pesticide and fertilizer use, which are known to have negative environmental impacts.

“Compared to large farms, small-scale agriculture does a better job of preserving biodiversity and protecting the environment,” said former SSF student employee Susie Lin, who graduated with a degree in Food Science and Human Nutrition (FSHN) in December 2021. “At the SSF, we practice crop rotation, intercropping, and minimal pesticide usage.”

As it attempts to address the environmental woes of agriculture, the SSF also sparks a long-needed reconnection with our food systems and land.

“I have found it very interesting to learn what goes into growing food — all the planning and labor,” Lin said.

“In high school, I participated in Gardening Club. When I got to the U of I, I missed working with soil,” said Bob Rogge, an English major graduating in May 2022 and a four-year SSF employee. “That is, until I learned about the SSF!”

Small-scale agriculture is especially noteworthy in central Illinois, a land dominated by huge agricultural operations and well-established markets.

Bob Rogge and Maria Maring prepare to transport bins of potatoes to be washed. Credit: Joana Bordalo

“I grew up here in the Midwest where there’s tons of farming, but it always felt inaccessible to me because it was always really large scale,” Turino said. “I think that when you’re from a very agriculturally focused place and (farming) is done in a very specific way, it’s hard to consider other methods of agriculture.”

The SSF, therefore, aims to open the doors to unique and innovative agriculture and to force us to re-evaluate the norm.

“The student farm at my college in North Carolina allowed me to get that first taste of what agriculture can be like — how compelling and powerful and exciting it is,” Turino said. “The SSF is that same entry point for (Illinois) students to see what agriculture really is” — and for students from disciplines all across campus to dabble in ag.

“Farming is deeply dignified work,” Rogge said. “I grew up in the city. That did not give me many opportunities for this kind of labor, so it wasn’t until I worked on the farm that I realized that it was for me. Everyone should take opportunities to see what kinds of things they enjoy doing.”

So how do you get involved at the SSF? Starting in late spring, the SSF accepts applications for a summer internship. Interns learn not only how to physically plant, cultivate, and harvest crops, but also how to plan and establish plots, collect data, and market the farm stand. This opportunity is 25 hours a week and can count for course credit or hourly pay. Alternatively, you can apply to be a student employee for the fall season. And volunteer work is always highly appreciated. Inquiries for all these avenues should be directed to Turino (turino@illinois.edu).

“Working at the farm throughout my college career has been a very rewarding experience. It was great working alongside other students to better our community and environment,” said Lin. “I particularly enjoyed getting to take home culled (aesthetically not fit for market) produce, simultaneously reducing food waste and helping me save money on groceries.”

As the SSF has garnered more and more support over the last decade, it became clear to Turino that continuing to grow as an educational hub while also keeping up with production levels was not a feasible model. Presently, the farm is undergoing a shift to emphasize education over high levels of production.

The lettuce is growing! The plastic sides of the high tunnel can be rolled up during the warm parts of the day as to not overheat the plants inside. Credit: Maria Maring

“I’m trying to make the SSF experience more about learning the nuts and bolts of the farm, not just being a field worker,” Turino said. “That’s my main priority for this next era: pushing the farm to be less production-oriented and more focused on teaching the background work. We want students to come away with knowledge enough to be able to garden for themselves, work on farms. Giving as many people as possible skills to grow food is a beneficial thing.”

Despite the evolving focus on the educational element, the SSF will still reap the fruits of students’ labor. The weekly Thursday farm stand on the Main Quad returns May 26, 2022. The farm will also host a CSA (community-supported agriculture) program, running June 16-Aug. 18, 2022. In a CSA, customers pay an initial fee at the beginning of the season and then receive weekly deliveries of seasonal produce. FAR’s famous Monday and Wednesday “FAR Out” pizza nights are also fueled in part by the SSF. Tomatoes are one of the SSF’s most prized products, sending bins upon bins to the Pilot Processing Plant, where they’re cooked down into the freshest marinara sauce you can get!

“There probably isn’t a student on campus who hasn’t consumed something that was grown locally at the SSF!” Lin said.

So what has everyone taken away from time spent at the farm?

Said Turino, who is in his 10th season there: “You learn that you can improve endlessly. Trying to find that balance of making it doable for you while doing things responsibly for the ecosystem, for your workers, for the customers is not straightforward. That challenge gives you endless problem-solving opportunities. It’s exciting to constantly push towards trying to be more sustainable for the environment and for your workers.”

“Working together with a team can make any work go by faster,” Lin said. “Not just because you have more hands, but because having good company makes a big difference. I’ve met fantastic people during my time at the farm, and I hope that others can find some time to volunteer at the SSF.”

— Article by iSEE Communications Intern Maria Maring

New estimation strategy improves soil carbon sampling in agricultural fields

Research Technician Michael Douglass and Postdoctoral Researcher Nan Li conducting deep soil coring for quantifying soil organic carbon stocks on a farm in Piatt County, Ill. Credit: Dan Schaefer

There is much more carbon stored in Earth’s soil than in its atmosphere. A significant portion of this soil carbon is in organic form (carbon bound to carbon), called soil organic carbon (SOC). Notably, unlike the inorganic carbon in soils, the amount of SOC, and how quickly it is built up or lost, can be influenced by humans. Since its advent about 10,000 years ago, agriculture has caused a significant amount of SOC to be released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, contributing to climate change.

Quantifying the amount of SOC in agricultural fields is therefore essential for monitoring the carbon cycle and developing sustainable management practices that minimize carbon emissions and sequester carbon from the atmosphere to the soil to reduce or reverse the climate effects of agriculture.

“Accurate and efficient SOC estimation is essential,” said Eric Potash, a Research Scientist in the Agroecosystem Sustainability Center (ASC) and Department of Natural Resource & Environmental Sciences (NRES) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. “Governments need to estimate SOC in order to implement policies to minimize climate change. Researchers need to estimate SOC to develop sustainable management practices. And farmers need to estimate SOC to participate in emerging carbon credit markets.”

The traditional and most reliable way to quantify SOC is by soil sampling, with analyses in the lab (“wet chemical” measurement). But which locations in the field should be sampled? And how many samples should be taken for an accurate estimate? Each additional soil core adds significant labor and expense — and uncertainties in how to optimize sampling can lead to substantial extra costs.

In a new publication from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) SMARTFARM Project, Potash and other SMARTFARM researchers evaluated strategies for estimating SOC. Their goal was to develop an estimation strategy that maximizes accuracy while minimizing the number of soil cores sampled.

The SMARTFARM Project, a program led by co-author and Blue Waters Professor in NRES Kaiyu Guan and funded by the DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), endeavors to develop a precise solution for measuring and quantifying greenhouse gas emissions and SOC change during the production of crops.

Research technician Michael Douglass operates a hydraulic probe for sampling soils for soil organic carbon stock assessment. Credit: Andrew Margenot

“We aim to collect gold-standard ground truth data and also to develop new technology to quantify field-level carbon outcomes for bioenergy crops, improving yield and also improving environmental sustainability,” said Guan, ASC Founding Director.

This work is made possible with unprecedented data collection effort.

“We have collected 225 soil samples at 3 samples per acre at one of the SMARTFARM sites. The samples were collected up to 1 meter deep using a Giddings probe. This level of dense sampling has never been done before,” said co-author DoKyoung Lee, a Professor of Crop Sciences, a co-PI of the SMARTFARM project, and also an ASC founding faculty member.

In this work, the researchers approached the problem by evaluating the two steps involved in estimating SOC: (1) deciding where in a field to take soil samples; and (2) deciding on a statistical rule for calculating an estimate (called an estimator). By using a commercial field in central Illinois that had been intensively sampled to measure SOC, a variety of strategies could be evaluated for their performance in estimating SOC in the field.

The researchers found that in a typical Midwestern agricultural field, they can leverage publicly available soil surveys and satellite imagery to efficiently select sample locations. This should reduce the number of samples needed to achieve a given accuracy of SOC quantification by about 28% compared to selecting sampling locations at random.

“For researchers and agencies monitoring SOC stocks, this study offers a strategy to increase accuracy, supporting cost optimization of sampling methods,” said co-author Andrew Margenot, Crop Sciences Assistant Professor and ASC Associate Director.

“Future studies can use these findings both as a benchmark against which to compare new SOC stock estimation strategies and as a demonstration of how to evaluate those strategies,” Potash said.

The research team is currently collecting data from many more fields to test the ability to generalize their findings — as well as to develop further improvements to SOC estimation strategies. Team members are also developing a software tool to make their improved sampling methods available to farmers and researchers.

In addition to Potash, Guan, Lee, and Margenot, co-authors on this publication include Evan DeLucia, ASC and Professor Emeritus of Plant Biology; Sheng Wang, ASC and NRES Research Assistant Professor; and Chunhwa Jang, Crop Sciences Postdoctoral Researcher. Read the full article in Geoderma >>>

ASC was jointly established by the Institute for Sustainability, Energy and Environment (iSEE), the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES), and the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. NRES and Crop Sciences are in the College of ACES, and Plant Biology is in the School of Integrative Biology, part of the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences at Illinois.

— News release by April Wendling, iSEE Communications Specialist