The Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE) is pleased to announce the hiring of Jennifer Fraterrigo as its new Associate Director for Campus Sustainability.
Fraterrigo, who was promoted in May 2022 to full Professor of Natural Resources & Environmental Sciences, was named to the new role effective Jan. 15, 2022. Her research expertise is in the effects of environmental change and disturbance on vegetation patterns and ecosystem functioning. A member of the International Association for Landscape Ecology, the Ecological Society of America, and the American Geophysical Union, Fraterrigo is also an iSEE Water Scholar and Global Climate Change Scholar.
Additionally, she has supported campus sustainability efforts for years — including service on a Sustainability Working Advisory Team (SWATeam) that addressed land and water issues on campus.
“Jennifer is an outstanding researcher with a passion for environmental sustainability,” iSEE Interim Director Madhu Khanna said. “She will bring her experience and expertise to provide strategic leadership for our efforts toward achieving Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP) goals — including making this campus carbon neutral as soon as possible.”
“I also want to thank Ximing Cai for his nearly five years of leadership as Associate Director and contributions to iCAP 2020. Ximing helped streamline the iCAP process, and he was instrumental in establishing mechanisms for closing the circle between campus sustainability and iSEE’s other important missions of research and education. Under his direction, we created a Campus as a Living Lab program that supports efforts by researchers to use campus as a test bed for research that can be scaled up to address larger sustainability challenges. Ximing leaves a strong foundation for campus sustainability programs that we continue to build upon.”
Fraterrigo, who holds an M.S. in Ecology from Colorado State University and a Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of Wisconsin, does research that supports decision-making to promote ecosystem and landscape resilience.
Her primary responsibility at iSEE will be to shepherd the iCAP process, making recommendations that will further the plan’s objectives. She will co-chair the iCAP Working Group, facilitate recommendations from teams of students, staff, and faculty, and guide campus strategy to achieve goals laid out in the plan.
“I am excited to get started at iSEE — and to work with all the students, faculty, staff, administrators, and community members who are devoted to making our campus a model of sustainability,” Fraterrigo said. “We have made a lot of progress over the past several years, and the iCAP gives us even more lofty expectations now and in the near future. I’m proud to take on this important role.”
— iSEE Communications and Public Affairs Director Tony Mancuso
Here, she chronicles her environmental leadership journey through a series of posts highlighting the ELP immersive experience.
She offers highlights from ELP class sessions, insights from various visiting experts, the team projects the students have taken on, the travel experience to local and state government sites, and other events and lessons she and her cohort encountered throughout the first half of the Spring 2024 semester.
Jan. 23, 2024
Champaign City Council member Alicia Beck presents to Environmental Leadership Program students during intensive training Jan. 12
While many groups in this year’s ELP cohort will be lobbying for pieces of environmental legislation at the Illinois State Legislature like in years past, those working on local issues will have a new opportunity to take a more hands-on approach to the policy creation process.
Urbana City Council Ward 6 Representative Grace Wilkin visited on the first day the ELP met to discuss the legislative process on a local level, and she came with ideas for environmental policy she would like to see enacted in Urbana. Usually, city staffers employed by the mayor drive policy-making, and the policies that are brought to the council for approval are limited by the time those employees have to create and flesh them out. So, while council members have the final say on which policies are enacted, they generally are not the ones proposing policies themselves.
This year, instead of working on their own to advocate a legislative issue to the city councils, ELP students who are taking on local environmental policy issues will connect with staff in the city government to help create a policy that will be brought to the council for approval.
ELP groups will work on two local projects proposed by Wilkin: revamping the City of Urbana’s Climate Action Plan (and possibly helping the City of Champaign enact its own); and helping with the creation of a plastic bag tax in Urbana.
Urbana’s Climate Action Plan was last updated for 2015-20, and new goals and plans have not been set since then. This group working on that plan will assess how the city is doing on reaching the goals previously set and updating them to reduce the city’s greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change impacts.
Students working on a plastic bag tax proposal will talk to stakeholders in the community, such as grocery store managers, to receive feedback on concerns that this policy may bring up. The group will also consider how this tax may impact low-income individuals in the community. A large part of the work will include researching plastic bag taxes already enacted in other places, like Washington, D.C., to assess what works and doesn’t work.
Wilkin came to speak to us as a part of the two-day intensive that kicked off the program on Jan. 12-13. Other guests speakers included: Alicia Beck, Champaign City Council District 2; Jeff Hamilton, Communications Manager for the Champaign City Manager’s Office; and Jennifer Walling, Executive Director of the Illinois Environmental Council.
Feb. 6, 2024
WALLING
LaFAVE
One of the groups in the ELP this year will work on a bill that was in part created by cohort member Rudy LaFave. Working in coordination with the Illinois Environmental Council (IEC), the bill he helped create would divest University of Illinois System funds from fossil fuel companies, one of the goals outlined in the Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP).
LaFave had the idea to create a piece of legislation to accomplish this goal in 2022 but decided to act on it this past summer. So he got in contact with University of Illinois alumna Jen Walling, Executive Director of the IEC. Using that connection, she was happy to help implement his ideas, and after a few Zoom meetings over the summer, the IEC drafted a piece of legislation. It was inspired by HB 3037, which would divest the Illinois pension system from fossil fuels and is co-sponsored by state Rep. Carol Ammons, D-Urbana.
Walling also visited the ELP during the January intensive to walk students through the Illinois legislative process. LaFave says being in the program has given him a better view of all the parts of submitting a piece of legislation, which the IEC handled behind the scenes last summer.
“The IEC was integral to getting it to the LRB (Legislative Review Board) and sending the paperwork to cosponsors,” LaFave said.
However, he and a few fellow students were the ones contacting Illinois representatives to garner support and cosponsors for the bill. This is where he sees the strength in the ELP.
“One thing the ELP can be very good at is reaching out to legislators,” he said. “Being able to identify, contact, and get a meeting with legislators, I think is the goal of the ELP team.”
Feb. 20, 2024
CROWE-HOUSTON
MEADE
Meet Sophie Meade, a freshman majoring in Earth, Society, and Environmental Sustainability. She and I are partnering on an ELP project to promote HB 4319, which amends the Illinois school code to require public schools to include curriculum about climate change.
For Meade, the main draw to the ELP was the opportunity to work directly with legislators about environmental issues.
“I loved the idea of speaking to representatives; I think that’s really exciting,” she said. “I had the opportunity to do that in high school and really enjoyed the feeling of interacting with reps and trying to create change.”
So far, Meade has enjoyed learning from our weekly guest speakers as well as researching a bill that she feels passionate about. One speaker who really made an impression was Jasmine Crowe-Houston, who visited Feb. 9. Crowe founded Goodr, a company that reduces food waste by collecting extra food from businesses and taking them to local food banks.
“I think it was cool because even if it wasn’t directly related to environmental policy, her story of finding an important issue and tackling it is applicable to anyone in the environmental field,” Meade said.
She said her work on HB 4319 stems from a personal experience.
“I specifically remember being in middle school and feeling confused why they weren’t talking about climate change,” Meade said. “I think it’s really important that it is highlighted in state curriculum.
“I had a lot of climate anxiety about the future when I was young, and I think learning about it early on in a way geared toward solutions and hope — rather than the fear that’s really prevalent in the media — would help young people.”
Mar. 5, 2024
Harriet Hentges talks about career paths with the ELP students.
This week, ELP students are preparing for their visit to Springfield next week during spring break! Preparations include setting up appointments to meet with representatives at the State Capitol, putting final touches on policy research, and developing presentations to pitch legislative issues to representatives. My team has a few meetings set up, including one with Rep. La Shawn K. Ford, D-Chicago, to discuss climate education. The groups working on local issues will present to the Urbana and Champaign City Councils when they meet after spring break on March 25-26.
In the past two weeks, the ELP has continued hosting guests to speak to students about sustainability careers, something of particular interest to several of us.
On Feb. 23, we were grateful for an in-person visit with Harriet Hentges, who is CEO of Hentges Associates, an advising firm working to promote sustainability in retail. Hentges spoke to the cohort about corporate responsibility, her experience working on Walmart’s first sustainability team, and careers in sustainability.
Students with an interest in sustainability in the private sector were also invited to a breakfast with Hentges as well one-on-one meetings to learn more.
Last week, on March 1, the ELP welcomed Sustainability Manager Madison Rudolph from Motorola Solutions. Students will visit Motorola Solutions and other companies with sustainability projects while in Chicago at the end of next week.
Mar. 19, 2024
Spring Break brought the tail end of this year’s ELP and a very busy week for the cohort! Monday was our prep day: putting final touches on fact sheets; preparing our elevator pitches about our bills; confirming scheduled meetings with representatives; and meeting with Jen Walling from the Illinois Environmental Council (IEC) to get feedback on our pitches and advice about the best way to communicate with legislators.
From left, University of Illinois President Tim Killeen, state Rep. Barbara Hernandez, D-Aurora, Rep. Sue Scherer, D-Decatur, Sophie Meade, Erin Minor, and Rep. La Shawn Ford, D-Chicago.
Tuesday and Wednesday were spent in Springfield at the Capitol talking to representatives, sitting in on committee hearings, and visiting agencies. It was thrilling to be at the Capitol when the general assembly was in session — there were so many people there and it felt special to be see how the sausage gets made, so to speak.
My personal highlight was the very first meeting my partner and I had with state Rep. La Shawn K. Ford, D-Chicago, on Tuesday afternoon. It was a great first meeting because he was so friendly and excited to talk to us. The first few minutes of our conversation were spent with him asking questions about ourselves before we even got to a discussion of the climate education bill we are advocating for. After pitching our bill to him, not only did he agree to support it when it came to the floor, but he even asked to be a chief co-sponsor of the bill. And realizing we were students from the University of Illinois, he graciously invite us to a reception he was attending that night with the University of Illinois System, where he introduced us to many administrators for the University, including President Tim Killeen.
Site visits in Springfield included: the IEC offices, where Walling guided us around the Capitol and introduced us to legislators who might be interested in supporting our bills; the Illinois EPA, where Director John Kim spoke to us about the all-encompassing work there; and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, which was one of my favorite visits of the trip. It was our last stop in Springfield before heading to Chicago, and we met many of IDNR department directors. As a senior thinking about career paths after graduation, I was really interested in learning about what they all do for IDNR and to realize what a wide scope the department encompasses.
We spent about 24 hours in Chicago, and every moment was packed, with four different site visits during that time. Our first stop was the Environmental Law and Policy Center (ELPC), where a few attorneys spoke about their areas of environmental law and what they did for the ELPC. Many ELP students are either planning to or thinking about going to law school or pursuing environmental law in some capacity, and this was an exciting opportunity to ask questions and learn about careers they might pursue with a law degree.
The 2024 ELP cohort was the first to visit Chicago, learning firsthand about corporate sustainability in the big city.
On Friday morning, we visited a few companies including Motorola Solutions, inc., to discuss corporate sustainability. This was something I had very little background information about before my ELP experience, and these visits offered a great real-world application of the things we learned from earlier classroom visitors about their work in corporate sustainability. Our last stop in Chicago was Resource Environmental Solutions (RES), an ecological restoration company that focuses in the Midwest on wetlands. I was familiar with the company as I spoke to representatives at the Green Career Fair on campus a few weeks back, but enjoyed hearing from a wider variety of employees in more detail about their work. Some of these topics included environmental engineering, the work that goes into project management, and how environmental policy impacts their work (many of their clients are land developers who are required by federal or state policy to restore other ecosystems when projects damage existing natural ecosystems).
Overall, I am so thrilled to have had this experience. It gave me some insight into career paths that I was unsure whether I wanted to pursue (like policy work) as well as opening my eyes to new careers in environmental sustainability. The most important thing I gained from the ELP was the experience talking to representatives and the opportunity to network and build a foundation of relationships in environmental issues that I may very well be able to use in the future.
Now that I have had this hands-on experience, I feel more confident in my ability to apply my skills and knowledge once I leave the university.
Apr. 30, 2024
Erin Minor, left, and Sophie Meade advocate for a House bill on climate education with Rep. Matt Hanson, D-Batavia, during a spring break visit to Illinois legislative offices in Springfield. Hanson voted for the bill, which passed the House in April.
The Environmental Leadership Program may have ended the week after spring break, but the pieces of legislation that students worked on are still working their way through the Illinois General Assembly.
On April 18, the Illinois House of Representatives passed HB 4895, the bill my partner and I worked on for all of the ELP! It was passed 70-37, and many of its co-sponsors were legislators that Sophie Meade and I spoke to in Springfield, including Reps. La Shawn K. Ford, D-Chicago, and Will Guzzardi, D-Chicago.
The bill was amended in the month and a half since our work on it through the ELP. As it stands now, starting with the 2026-27 school year, the bill will require all Illinois public high schools to provide instruction on climate change. This instruction includes the impacts of climate change on individuals and communities as well as evaluating solutions and mitigations for those impacts. The State Board of Education will provide instructional resources and professional development opportunities for teachers to meet these requirements.
The bill now has to be passed by the Senate, where it is being sponsored by Sen. Laura Ellman, D-Naperville. It is currently in committee, which must pass it to bring it to vote in front of the entire Senate. If any amendments are made in the Senate, it will return to the House to repeat the whole process with the new amendments.
Sophie and I were excited to see this pass the first hurdle, and we hope to someday soon report that Gov. J.B. Pritzker has signed it into law!
A look back at 2023 …
iSEE Communications Intern Lucy Nifong was a member of the 2023 ELP cohort.
Here, she offers highlights from ELP class sessions, insights from various visiting experts, the team projects the students have taken on, the travel experience to local and state government sites, and other events and lessons she and her cohort encountered throughout the first half of the Spring 2023 semester.
Jan. 17, 2023
A year after the launch of iSEE’s Environmental Leadership Program, a new cohort kicked off the second year of the program on campus. Students from a variety of majors and backgrounds met for two full days Jan. 12-13 to learn about the policy-making process from local and state leaders. And this year, students were able to gather in person rather than online.
During the two-day intensive, we explored the specific legislative process each bill must go through in the Illinois General Assembly before it becomes law. The intensive focused on strengthening our advocacy and negotiation skills and preparing the cohort to read and track bills during the spring legislative session.
Guest speakers discussed their unique responsibilities as political staffers, lobbyists, legal advisors, and city council members. They highlighted the educational backgrounds and work experience that led them to those positions, giving us insight into different public policy career paths. Hearing their stories was eye-opening and inspiring, and ELP students were eager to ask questions and learn more.
In the coming weeks, the cohort will split into teams to advocate for a specific local or state policy. The policy may be an existing bill or a bill the students design themselves.
Speakers during the two-day intensive included Harriet Hentges, President and CEO, Hentges Associates; Grace Wilkin, Ward 6 representative on the Urbana City Council and member of the Urbana Sustainability Advisory Committee; Andrea Porter, Chief of Staff for state Rep. Carol Ammons, D-Urbana, and Madam Secretary of AALSCC; Jennifer Walling, Executive Director, Illinois Environmental Council; Mary Hanahan, Deputy Chief Legal Counsel, Office of Illinois Senate President Don Harmon; and Alicia Beck, a member of the Champaign City Council.
Jan. 31, 2023
The Environmental Leadership Program is in full swing! On Friday, Jan. 20, the cohort met at the National Soybean Research Lab for our first of eight weekly meetings. This initial session was perhaps our most important of the semester: We determined the policies we will advocate for over spring break.
The process took longer than anticipated because almost every student was attached to multiple policies, even though we can only join one policy team. We really struggled to let some of them go. In fact, a few pity votes were strategically given to keep policies from getting cut from the final list. I guess environmentalists are sentimental.
If anything, the difficulty of choosing a single policy focus speaks to the vast room for improvement in our state and local environmental regulations. There’s always more work to be done! After multiple rounds of re-reading the policies, debating, and voting, the list of policies we plan to tackle was finalized. From now until spring break, teams of two to four students will research their policy in-depth and develop a fact sheet in support of or against the proposed action.
My group will be advocating for “Right to Recreate” legislation, a bill that would ensure public access to all navigable waterways in Illinois. This legislation would prevent private landowners from restricting access to bodies of water (lakes, rivers, streams) that are capable of supporting commercial or recreational watercraft. I’m excited to support the Right to Recreate bill because it advances both human rights and environmental justice.
Last Friday, Jan. 27, guest speaker Eban Goodstein, Director of the Center for Environmental Policy at Bard College, discussed the skills and techniques for successful environmental communication. He emphasized the power of storytelling and the importance of practice, practice, practice. These communication tips will be especially handy when we meet legislators and city council members in March.
Feb. 15, 2023
RUDOLPH
On Feb. 3, the ELP cohort welcomed Madison Rudolph, the Sustainability Manager at Motorola Solutions in Chicago. She outlined the complicated environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) frameworks that companies use to monitor internal progress toward ethical, transparency, and sustainability goals and report their performance to the public.
Rudolph is responsible for Motorola Solution’s annual ESG reporting. Public companies like Motorola Solutions voluntarily select and rank their most important goals (ex. reducing emissions, creating diversity in the company board, regulatory compliance, and countless others) and publish metrics that reveal their progress toward the prioritized goals. Although many ESG reporting frameworks exist, Rudolph focused on the popular Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), which specifically accounts for materiality: how does ESG information affect investors’ judgement of the company? Companies’ environmental and social behaviors may harm or bolster their reputation, which has tangible financial impacts, so SASB accounts for material information that is not incorporated into normal financial accounting.
Public demand for comprehensive ESG reporting is growing, and most public companies participate in this voluntary practice. Investors, policy makers, agencies, non-governmental organizations, and other firms consider ESG data when interacting with a company. Individuals rely on ESG data to act as informed and conscientious consumers, or in other words, to vote with their dollar.
The following Friday, ELP teams began to research their selected local or state policies and determine who to contact to begin the advocacy process. My group, “Right to Recreate,” will contact our bill’s sponsor to voice our support, discuss the potential impacts of the bill, and learn why some groups may be opposed to it. Next, each group member will individually reach out to the state representative from our own district to advocate for the Right to Recreate legislation. After all, politics is all about making personal connections.
Feb. 28, 2023
HAMILTON
On Friday, Feb. 17, the ELP cohort met Jeff Hamilton, the Communications Manager of the City of Champaign Mayor’s Office, who revealed the surprising complexity and diversity of local governments. He compared the two primary forms of local government found in the United States: council-manager form and mayor-council form.
Champaign follows the council-manager form, meaning the day-to-day operations of city government are run by the city manager, an individual professionally trained in government administration. The city council elects the city manager, while the mayor of Champaign serves as one of the nine council members.
Urbana follows the mayor-council form of government, sometimes referred to as strong-mayor form. In this structure, the mayor effectively serves as the city manager and is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the city. This style closely resembles the three-branch structure of government: the mayor is the executive branch, and the city council is the legislative branch.
On Feb. 24, the ELP cohort met Marissa Brewer, the Director of Advocacy for the University of Illinois Office of External Relations and Communications. She provided us with excellent tips for political advocacy, echoing the messages of previous ELP guests like Jennifer Walling and Alicia Beck. Brewer says the most effective part of advocacy is your personal story: How are you connected to this legislation?
Brewer also highlighted the Student Advocacy Coalition, which like ELP, allows students to learn about the legislative process in-depth and advocate at all levels of government. This organization extends across the University of Illinois system and promotes policies that positively impact university students.
With the advice of our expert speakers in mind, the ELP cohort is revving up to visit the city council and the state capitol. My team met with a staffer for Democratic Rep. Janet Yang Rohr of the 41st District (and our bill’s sponsor) and a lobbyist from the Illinois Environmental Council to examine the nitty gritty details of the bill. We hope to finalize our fact sheet this week and schedule meetings with our local representatives and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.
Mar. 20, 2023
Stefan Iliev and Claire Sullivan discuss food insecurity at the March 13, 2023, Urbana City Council meeting.
Visiting Urbana City Council
On Monday, March 13, the ELP students spent the day with our respective teams finalizing our advocacy message to Illinois representatives. To summarize the background, benefits, and potential challenges of each bill, we created one-page fact sheets to hand out. Check out my group’s fact sheet — we emphasized a 2022 Illinois Supreme Court case in which a Justice called for the modernization of Illinois’ water law.
Later that evening, we headed to Urbana City Council to support our cohort members Claire Sullivan and Stefan Iliev, who focused on policies to reduce local food insecurity. They proposed numerous solutions, including changing local bus routes to increase accessibility to grocery stores, and were met with many questions and comments from the council members.
On Tuesday, each team met with Jennifer Walling, Director of the Illinois Environmental Council (IEC), to create a game plan for meeting with representatives at the Capitol. We discussed the most crucial part of our advocacy message and tips for effective communication. My group also met with legislative liaisons for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources to discuss why they oppose our chosen bill, HB 1568. I found that understanding why people oppose a policy is just as important as understanding why people support a policy.
The 2023 ELP cohort in Springfield.
Visiting the Capitol
Shortly after arriving in Springfield on Wednesday morning, we walked to the IEC office to eat lunch with Jennifer Walling and her team. They escorted us to the capitol and explained that representatives would be in session until 2 p.m. and committee meetings begin immediately afterward, so our scheduled meetings with representatives would likely be moved or canceled. This turned out to be the case, but luckily the IEC team managed to call representatives from session to briefly meet with our teams.
IEC’s State Programs Director, Eliot Clay, who previously advised our group on legal challenges to HB 1568, called the bill sponsor, Rep. Janet Yang-Rohr, from the House floor to meet with us. Although HB 1568 is unlikely to succeed this year, she was excited that we were spreading awareness of the policy for future sessions. For the next hour, we caught representatives walking through the hall and gave quick pitches on our bill.
After the legislative session ended, we took a tunnel from the Capitol to the Stratton Building to deliver our fact sheet to various representatives’ offices. Our group had an impromptu meeting with the Chief of Staff for Rep. Mike Coffey to discuss why increasing the accessibility of outdoor recreation and supporting the local recreation industry is vital. Over the course of the day, we spoke to a roughly equal number of Republicans and Democrats, which ultimately made us better advocates for our policy.
After our whirlwind of meetings at the Capitol, we had the chance to relax and learn about policy implementation throughout Illinois. On Thursday, we met with IDNR in the morning and learned about each division within the agency. IDNR offices include Water Resources, Mines and Minerals, Law Enforcement, Land Management, and many more. Agency leaders highlighted their unique backgrounds and the opposing goals of rural economic development and environmental protection.
At IEPA, we spoke with Director John Kim and the Bureau of Land Sustainable Materials Management and Compliance Manger James Jennings about the scope and authority of the agency. We learned about IEPA’s relationship to advocacy groups like the Illinois Environmental Council and the Illinois Manufactures Association, and discussed how the agency considers policy feasibility more directly than other groups.
Kim invited the ELP teams to shout out our bill numbers so he could briefly describe IEPA’s stance on each piece of legislation. This exercise was super insightful because we learned about the agency’s day-to-day legislative work through specific scenarios that we had spent weeks researching. He emphasized how IEPA and other state agencies are great places to enter the workforce after graduating because you receive meaningful work right away. Students interested in working at state agencies should consider the Graduate Public Service Internship at U of I Springfield!
I highly recommend the Environmental Leadership Program to any student interested in environmental sustainability and protection, even if you dislike public policy, politics, or law. Policy impacts everyone — whether you work as an engineer or an artist — so people should strive to learn as much as they can, good and bad, about the legislative process.
A look back at 2022 …
iSEE Communications Intern Kratika Tandon was a member of the 2022 ELP cohort.
Here, she offers highlights from ELP class sessions, insights from various visiting experts, the team projects the students have taken on, the travel experience to local and state government sites, and other events and lessons she and her cohort encountered throughout the first half of the Spring 2022 semester.
Jan. 28, 2022
The Environmental Leadership Program has just begun, and it’s off to a great start! At the end of winter break, our class met over Zoom to get to know each other and discuss potential policy proposal ideas.
During these first two days of intensive training, we received a crash-course on the basics of environmental advocacy and a comprehensive explanation of what is expected from this program.
We also had the opportunity to hear from guest speakers from a variety of legal, political, and advocacy-based backgrounds at local, state, and even international levels.
The presentation by Illinois Environmental Council Executive Director Jennifer Walling was especially insightful. She explained her duties of administering the strategic direction and management of the council. The organization works to draft, lobby, and pass bills that focus on implementing environmentally responsible legislation within the state. Her real-life experience was particularly interesting because Walling is involved in policy advocacy in Springfield, which is exactly what we will be working on this semester.
Other speakers during our two-day intensive: Grace Wilkin, Ward 6 Representative on the Urbana City Council; Andrea Porter, Legislative Assistant for state Rep. Carol Ammons, D-Urbana; Clara Feng, Senior Fellow at Citizens’ Climate International; and Ashley Stead and Mary Hanahan, Senior Legal Counsels at the Office of Illinois Senate President Don Harmon.
Stay tuned for more posts documenting the ELP experience first-hand!
Feb. 11, 2022
We are now in Week 3 of our meetings for the Environmental Leadership Program. So far, the students have been meeting in smaller groups to organize ideas for our policy proposals. We have also had the opportunity to hear from more guest speakers from different professional backgrounds.
During our first weekly meeting, we heard from the University of Illinois at Springfield’s Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Brandon Derman, who discussed the struggles for climate justice and how uneven geographies and the politics of connection play a big role. Last week, we heard from Eban Goodstein, Director of the Center of Environmental Policy and the MBA in Sustainability at Bard College. He gave us insights on solutions to environmental issues from communications and economic standpoints. Both of these presentations were incredibly insightful and beneficial to us as we continue with our policy work.
The general objective of this program is for students to select a piece of legislation on the local or state level that we wish to pursue. After our bill is determined, we spend the rest of our time conducting extensive research and formulating a short presentation. Once we head to the government buildings in Urbana-Champaign and Springfield, we will be able to present our proposals to local and state government decision-makers.
The group I’m in is working on a state-level EPA Environmental Justice bill that focuses on defining environmental justice communities and providing these groups with the ability to access resources. That’s all I can disclose so far — to hear more about what we’ve been working on, don’t forget to check back in for my next posts on this blog!
Feb. 25, 2022
City of Urbana Sustainability Manager & Resilience Officer Scott Tess, right, visits with ELP students in the iSEE Collaboratory. Credit: Mark Herman, iSEE
We’ve just completed Week 5 of the Environmental Leadership Program! Groups have been working diligently to formulate their policy proposals. As previously mentioned, my group is working on an EPA Environmental Justice bill and the main thing on our agenda is completing our research. We also plan to reach out to political leaders at Springfield ahead of our visit to the Capitol in hopes of getting more professional advice as we continue with our progress.
These past couple weeks, students also had the opportunity to meet with two individuals from local governments who have taught us a lot about how the policymaking process works at this level. Last week, Scott Tess, the Sustainability Manager & Resilience Officer for the City of Urbana and also a member of the Resilience SWATeam made up of campus and community members, came in to work with the groups that are working on local policy proposals. Tess helped them gain a basic understanding of what goes on behind the scenes and answered any questions that they may have had.
The following week, we heard from Jeff Hamilton, the Communications Manager in the Champaign City Manager’s office. Hamilton discussed mayor-council dynamics at local government levels and provided us real-time examples from the city of Champaign. Needless to say, we’ve had a busy couple of weeks!
Mar. 11, 2022
It’s the last week of the Environmental Leadership Program, and our trip to the Urbana and Champaign City Councils and the State Capitol in Springfield will kick off in a few days. The past couple of weeks kept us very busy: Our groups have put the final touches on our policy proposals. The bill that my group is working on is known as HB4093, or the EPA-Environmental Justice Bill. This legislation was passed by the Illinois House of Representatives after a series of readings and is now making its way through the Senate. In Springfield, we will meet with legislators to discuss supporting the bill.
We’ve also been busy meeting new speakers as well. This past Friday, we heard from Marissa Brewer, Director of Advocacy at the University of Illinois’ Office of Governmental Relations. Her presentation was especially insightful because she gave advice on what to expect when we have our short meetings with our legislators. Brewer gave us basic tips on how to speak with them and what we need to have prepared.
Overall, it’s been a great few weeks — and we look forward to wrapping up this experience. Thursday, March 17, will be our final day of presentations, and we plan to conclude the program with a banquet for students and staff to celebrate the launch of the very first version of the ELP.
Stay tuned for a final post within the next week or so!
Mar. 30, 2022
Our cohort of 21 students spent Spring Break at the ever-popular vacation destination of Springfield, Ill., for what was easily the most gratifying professional experience I’ve ever had. Allow me to start at the beginning of the week.
As I had mentioned in previous posts, my group was working on HB4093, which is known as the EPA Environmental Justice Bill. However, the bill actually got passed by the House of Representatives just a few days before our trip to Springfield. This meant it would move on to the Senate. But unfortunately for us, the Senate would not be in session while we were in Springfield. We realized that the only thing we could do was find a new bill and somehow manage to get three months’ worth of work completed in less than 48 hours — so that’s exactly what we did.
My group adopted SB3073, referred to as the EPA Great Lakes CCR Protection Bill, which has been a contentious piece of legislation. This bill amends the state Environmental Protection Act such that all coal combustion residuals (CCRs) generated by the electric industry bordering Lake Michigan shall be removed from the site. This bill is referring to the NRG coal plant located in Waukegan, which has been polluting the area since the 1920s. We did extensive research about this bill so we could develop a solid elevator pitch and ensure that we were well-informed. My group also reached out to more than 30 House members from both parties to schedule conversations about this piece of legislation.
Two of the groups in our cohort had local bills, so they delivered their presentations to the Urbana and Champaign city councils on Monday and Tuesday evenings. It was interesting to observe what the legislative decision-making process looks like close to home.
For me, however, the excitement came once we reached Springfield. Being at the Capitol and getting to speak with the people in power, knowing we could make an actual difference, was a crazy feeling. We got to meet with four Republican representatives and four Democratic representatives, including our bill’s chief sponsor: Rep. Rita Mayfield. We had different experiences and conversations with each one of these legislators, but they were all incredibly receptive to everything we had to say. Please view the accompanying video to see how things went with Rep. Marcus Evans.
In addition to being at the Capitol, our cohort also was able to meet with the Illinois Environmental Council (IEC), the Department of Natural Resources, and the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. I personally found it so cool that we got to speak directly with IEPA Director John Kim.
Something else that I am so grateful for is how close the cohort was able to become after our time together this week. After our first day of lobbying, we went out for dinner and did a couple of bonding exercises, and everyone’s energy and excitement was just infectious. I really enjoyed spending time with my group as well, and I think that we worked very seamlessly together as a team.
Of course, this program would be nowhere without our instructors Eric Green and Paul Gharzouzi, and our resident media specialist Mark Herman, who always did their absolute best to ensure that everything ran smoothly. And all of us students are all grateful to the Alvin H. Baum Family Fund for sponsoring the ELP trip to Springfield.
I would also like to shout out IEC Executive Director Jen Walling, who helped organize all of the meetings and guided us around the Capitol. This was truly an unforgettable experience, and I am beyond grateful that I got to be a part of the very first program.
The Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment is pleased to announce the hiring of Elizabeth Murphy as its new Managing Director, effective Jan. 1, 2022.
Murphy was serving as a Deputy Director of the Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation (CABBI), and she will retain a management position in the Center as well. She replaces Jenny Kokini, who had served as Managing Director since the Institute’s inception in 2013. Murphy will oversee iSEE’s research project managers, financial managers, proposal developers, communications team, and campus sustainability and educational personnel.
“We are going to miss Jenny, who was instrumental in iSEE’s formation and establishing a strong foundational structure, especially in the early years of building our research portfolio,” iSEE Interim Director Madhu Khanna said. “But we are delighted that she left us in good hands with an outstanding leader like Elizabeth. At CABBI, Elizabeth has efficiently and effectively managed 23 partner institutions, 60 faculty researchers, and 300 personnel. We know that will translate well to iSEE and its three main missions. I look forward to her skilled leadership in helping us continue to expand our Institute’s impact across campus and with partner institutions.”
Before her CABBI Project Manager role, which started in 2018, Murphy was a Research Coordinator at the Center. Prior to that, she served 17 years as a Hydrologist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Urbana. Murphy received both a B.S. in Civil Engineering and an M.S. in Environmental Engineering from the U of I.
LATAWIEC
Additionally, in December iSEE expanded its team by hiring Research Project Coordinator Basia Latawiec. Her primary duties will be providing support for iSEE research team proposal development and to the multidisciplinary, multi-institutional Sustainably Colocating Agricultural and Photovoltaic Electricity Systems (SCAPES) project, an “agrivoltaics” study supported by a four-year, $10M grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA NIFA).
— Tony Mancuso, Communications and Public Affairs Director
The Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE) is providing seed funding for two new research projects at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign — one addressing health disparities in neighborhoods afflicted by hazardous waste, the other developing a sophisticated urban modeling framework to advance global urban sustainability science.
An urban modeling project.
The urban modeling project is funded through iSEE’s 2022 interdisciplinary research initiative, and the health disparities grant is part of the Campus as a Living Laboratory (CALL) program. The projects focus on collecting preliminary data and enhancing researchers’ capacity to address critical knowledge gaps and ultimately secure future funding from major external granting agencies in the federal, foundation, and private sectors.
“The University of Illinois continues to leverage its resources to combat environmental challenges and build a more sustainable society,” said Jeremy Guest, iSEE Acting Associate Director for Research. “Through these grants, our scientists, engineers, and community health experts will use their skills to address climate change and environmental justice — at our doorstep and around the world.”
Many climate-driven threats such as heat stress, water scarcity, and energy insecurity are rooted in or exacerbated by urban environments. Rising global urbanization, coupled with climate change, will only increase these risks. The project selected for interdisciplinary seed funding seeks to develop a new urban modeling framework to help scientists understand the interactions between complex urban dynamics and climate change and chart a course toward more sustainable urban environments.
The framework will address a missing component in current Earth system models — representation of complex urban forms and urban-scale processes — by combining process-based modeling and cutting edge deep learning networks. The project will be led by Lei Zhao, Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE).
ABOVE: The Fifth and Hill plant site remains fenced off. Credit: iSEE.
The new CALL project addresses health disparities in communities that once housed manufactured gas plants (MPGs), focusing on Champaign’s 5th and Hill neighborhood a few blocks from the U of I campus. MGPs converted coal and oil to gaseous fuel used for cooking and lighting in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but they also generated large quantities of coal tar and toxic wastewater that eventually seeped into groundwater. Further, MGPs commonly emitted harmful gases into the homes of nearby residents.
Led by CEE Assistant Professor Vishal Verma, the research team will develop low-cost sampling devices to monitor ambient and indoor air, water, and soil quality, build the capacity in those communities to use them, and develop a model to crowdsource the environmental monitoring data that could be implemented at the national level. The project will support local environmental justice efforts and promote long-term community health benefits while establishing a blueprint for successful community-academic partnerships to address environmental racism.
All seed-funded project teams are expected to submit proposals for external funding of at least $1M.
“We are excited to see these projects and teams come together over the coming year — and even more enthusiastic to see them blossom into full-grown research programs,” Guest said.
— Article by Julie Wurth, iSEE Communications Specialist
For the fourth year running, the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE) is providing seed funding to faculty and instructors at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who wish to incorporate sustainability into the classroom.
The 2022 Levenick Teaching Sustainability Fellowship provides funding to integrate sustainability components into an existing course ($1,000) or to develop an entirely new course with a sustainability focus ($2,000). The new or revamped courses would be taught during the 2022-23 academic year. To maximize the number of students reached, iSEE especially encourages applications from instructors teaching courses at the 100 and 200 level.
In addition to the stipend, members of the 2022 Cohort will receive access to iSEE’s multipronged program, including: a Teaching Sustainability Retreat early in Spring 2022; and access to a network of U of I instructors experienced in syllabus and curriculum development in the sustainability domain. During the Retreat, current and prior fellows will describe their experiences teaching and assessing sustainability-related themes.
“This funding allows teachers from across our campus to blend sustainability and environmental themes with virtually any subject matter,” said Luis Rodríguez, iSEE Associate Director for Education and Outreach. “As we incorporate this mindfulness into more of our university’s curriculum, it helps us shape the next generation of sustainability leaders and practitioners at work and home.”
The deadline for applications is Jan. 31, 2022; applicants will be notified of their status no later than March 1. This program was funded by a generous gift from Stuart J. and Nancy L. Levenick.
Rodríguez, an Associate Professor of Agricultural & Biological Engineering, has been associated with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign since 2005. Before he was appointed at iSEE he worked to establish strategies and resources for people to work effectively in interdisciplinary environments. This is exactly what iSEE hopes to expand, making it a perfect fit for Rodríguez.
In this Q&A with iSEE Communications Intern Grace Izzo, Rodríguez discusses some of his goals at iSEE — and what made him so passionate about sustainability.
How did you become part of iSEE? What made you want to take this position?
In my case, I was honored to be asked to apply and was excited by what I learned about the opportunity! I have always looked at sustainability as a collaborative challenge. I consider this one of the biggest and most essential problems to solve, and no one can do it by themselves. Not only do we have to collaborate in order to create solutions, but we also have to analyze those problems from so many different perspectives. We need to analyze from disciplinary perspectives and cultural perspectives in order to generate not only an effective solution, but one that is also compatible with all the people who will be working together. iSEE was interested in seeing more interdisciplinary work, and it’s my strong belief that this is the type of training many of us need to engage in if we want to attack these big problems.
What’s been the most interesting part of your new job so far?
With any new job, you are always learning where people were before you arrived, so you can try to find a way to run with the pack and hopefully have some influence. I am learning a lot about existing programs and how many of these things came about before I arrived. I am hoping to find ways to make some of my own ideas fit into what already exists. Something iSEE hasn’t addressed until now is the graduate-level experiences in sustainability. I think it’s one that the campus will see as a great opportunity, so I am looking forward to that!
What do you look forward to most in the next year, five years, and 10 years at iSEE?
There is an opportunity for iSEE to express itself in other ways throughout the campus. Sustainability is not currently a stand-alone independent entity when it comes to academic programs. There is potentially a way we can develop that type of programming in the future such that people could get a degree in sustainability. Not too many of our peer institutions have done that yet. Sustainability is still the adjective in front of other things like sustainability law or sustainability policy, and it needs to be its own thing soon.
Near term, I would like to see iSEE create some new opportunities for graduate education, and I would like to see the Environmental Leadership Program be a successful second-year program. If we can get a nice cohort of students in front of policymakers on a few different scales, both municipal and state, we can see how that will impact iSEE’s future. Hopefully the pandemic continues to cooperate with us, and we can do more of these things face-to-face, which would represent a great success.
You oversee several important iSEE educational programs. What are some of your primary responsibilities?
Our biggest new program is the Environmental Leadership Program; right now, we are updating and expanding on our pilot programs that were introduced last spring. The Environmental Leadership Program will expose students and help them prepare to seek policy-based solutions, particularly those related to the environmental sector. Students who participate in the program are going to have the chance to develop and pitch ideas to policymakers all over Illinois for a real hands-on experience. These students will learn how to catalyze the development of new policies that are going to influence our sustainability as a society. The biggest problem in these grand challenges is implementing our effective policy. This is something that I even need more training in.
Why is the ELP important, and how do you hope to expand it?
Policy greases the wheels. As for how we hope to expand it, I do think that there are policy-related opportunities in the corporate sector. While our governments can help set the rules for how we interact and behave with one another, it’s the corporate entities that have a lot of influence on how they are implemented. We would like to expose the program to those corporate entities and show them how corporations can be dynamic and creative in identifying strategies and implementing them in a compatible way. I think that is one key area where growth is not just interesting, but it is in demand.
Do you have any specific plans for iSEE Congresses in the coming years? What are you looking forward to?
In the Fall 2021 Congress, Circular Foods is something I have been working on, so I was very excited for it! The manner in which we recycle and bring what would otherwise be residues in our food and agricultural systems back in as inputs for various parts of our agricultural systems is very interesting for me. That being said, as I look forward to future Congresses, we want to find something the entire campus and the local communities would find interesting. We do occasionally look at some of the past Congresses to see if there’s a cycle of topics we could expand on and continue to grow while keeping them relevant to our audience. Currently, we have lots of ideas that are adding up, and I see them in the context of things that are disaster-related, or potentially pandemic-related. The truth is we are in discussions regarding how to frame the topics, so all these ideas are on the negotiation table. Thankfully, we have a very active faculty population on our campus, and a lot of ideas are boiling up.
You’ve done previous work on disaster resilience, including in Puerto Rico. What drew you to that research?
Puerto Rico is my home. That makes it very easy for me to be motivated about anything happening there. As a Ph.D. student, my research was in the reliable delivery of resources like food, energy, and water, but it was applied in a very different context. We were working on Martian life support systems at that time, meaning we were trying to find a way to build an ecosystem on Mars and make that ecosystem function. To do so, you need to provide food, energy, and water for the astronauts and be able to recycle all the waste produced. We ended up shifting our research focus to reliable delivery of food, energy, and water.
It turns out that immediately after a disaster resources like food, energy, and water are also at great risk. My hope right now is to provide strategies to communities so they can prepare themselves with higher success before these types of events occur. In Puerto Rico, as is true for many island nations, they are at greater risk to the quality of disaster aid, relative to what you might see on the east coast of the United States, which also sees many hurricanes. This is particularly concerning when we see the effects of climate change potentially increasing the intensity and frequency of these storms. It is easy to be passionate, but it is much harder to find viable solutions that communities will accept.
What excites you about sustainability work? What frustrates you about it?
It is one of the biggest challenges out there. It is also one that we just cannot ignore. The frustration that comes with sustainability work is that we see solutions that seem obvious if they were adopted, but it’s not easy to change behaviors — we can’t easily mandate adoption in many cases. That comes back to the reason why I am motivated to see an increase in interdisciplinary practice among our students. While I am an engineer and that has its benefits, it is also an Achilles’ heel because we (engineers) often feel we see obvious solutions. The value and merit of collaborating broadly to bring solutions to fruition is an essential skill for those who seek to improve societal sustainability. Problem solvers need to work closely with their stakeholders to co-design solutions, thus improving the likelihood of long-term implementation. That is what I hope to help people achieve as they interact with our programs here in iSEE.
Urbana, Ill. — The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has announced funding for a new project led by iSEE Interim Director Madhu Khanna to optimize design for “agrivoltaic” systems — fields with both crops and solar panels — that will maintain crop production, produce renewable energy, and increase farm profitability.
This $10 million, four-year project, funded through the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) Sustainable Agriculture Systems program with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as the lead institution, will study agrivoltaics in a variety of land types and climate scenarios (Illinois, Colorado, Arizona).
“For centuries, humans have used the benefits of the sun to produce food and energy — and only in recent decades has humanity turned to harvesting solar for renewable energy,” said Khanna, the ACES Distinguished Professor of Agricultural & Consumer Economics at Illinois. “But to produce solar energy at the utility scale is land intensive, and cropland is often the most suitable for this purpose.”
While solar has become more profitable for land use, concerns have arisen that it could cut into food production. And some counties have now prohibited large-scale photovoltaic arrays from replacing agricultural land.
“Agrivoltaics — co-locating energy and food production — has the potential to reduce this competition for land,” Khanna said. “Our proposed project for Sustainably Colocating Agricultural and Photovoltaic Electricity Systems (SCAPES) will provide a comprehensive analysis of the transformative potential of agrivoltaics. Our goal is to maintain or even increase crop yield, increase the combined (food and electricity) productivity of land, and diversify and increase farmers’ profits with row crops, forage, and specialty crops across a range of environments.”
Illinois agrivoltaics investigators include Khanna; Carl Bernacchi, USDA Agricultural Research Service Plant Physiologist; Bruce Branham, Professor of Crop Sciences; Evan H. DeLucia, Arends Professor Emeritus of Plant Biology; D.K. Lee, Professor of Crop Sciences; Kaiyu Guan, Associate Professor of Natural Resources & Environmental Sciences; H. Chad Lane, Associate Professor of Educational Psychology and Computer Science; Nenad Miljkovic, Associate Professor of Mechanical Science & Engineering; Samantha Lindgren, Assistant Professor of Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership; Nuria Gomez-Casanovas, Visiting Research Specialist at iSEE; and Bin Peng, Postdoctoral Research Associate at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications.
The Illinois team will partner with Dennis Bowman at the U of I Extension for agrivoltaics outreach activities. Additionally, the grant features a combination of research, education, and extension subawards for the University of Arizona, Colorado State University, Auburn University, the University of Illinois Chicago, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
iSEE and the Illinois Regenerative Agriculture Initiative helped U of I researchers become part of a $10M project that seeks to make Midwestern agriculture more resilient by diversifying farms, marketing, and the agricultural landscape.
NIFA selected the Purdue University-led project titled “#DiverseCornBelt: Resilient Intensification through Diversity in Midwestern Agriculture,” which has a multidisciplinary team that spans the life, physical and social sciences.
Assistant Professor Andrew Margenot and Professor Emily Heaton, both in the Department of Crop Sciences, will use their $1.7M subaward to supervise students conducting biophysical measurements of cropping system function over a range of diverse crop practices. “We are excited to be working on this high-impact, regional project that is directly aligned with ISEE and IRAI,” Heaton said. “This project will let us identify ways to diversify the corn belt ecosystem that also increase rural prosperity.”
Other partner institutions on the project include the American Society of Agronomy, Conservation Technology Information Center, USDA Economic Research Service, USDA Forest Service, Illinois State University, Iowa State University, Montana State University, The Nature Conservancy, Practical Farmers of Iowa, University of Iowa, University of Minnesota, University of Wisconsin Madison, and UW Platteville.
“The Midwest has unmatched biophysical potential when it comes to agriculture: inherently fertile soils, ample rainfall and growing season,” Margenot said. “These natural resources can be used in multiple ways to meet rural communities’ and larger U.S. society’s needs: What are the trade-offs among these, from agronomic to environmental to socioeconomic outcomes? What are barriers and opportunities? In this work, a team of researchers across multiple Midwestern states will tackle these interdisciplinary questions. At the University of Illinois, we’re proud to spearhead the biophysical evaluation of agroecosystem sustainability.”
Update from Oct. 20, 2021: iSEE brings in total of $34.7M
$15M NSF Grant Creates I-GUIDE Geospatial Center. iSEE has helped facilitate funding to enable geospatial data-driven scientific discovery at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and the resulting research will lead to better understanding of the risks and impacts of climate change and disasters. The $15 million Institute for Geospatial Understanding through an Integrative Discovery Environment (I-GUIDE) will receive the funding over five years as part of the National Science Foundation’s Harnessing the Data Revolution, which establishes five institutes across the United States to explore questions at the frontiers of science and engineering. Shaowen Wang, Professor and Head of Geography and Geographic Information Science and Founding Director of the CyberGIS Center for Advanced Digital and Spatial Studies, will lead the institute. Collaborating scientists and institutions will work with the CyberGIS Center in partnership with iSEE and the U of I’s Discovery Partners Institute.
$2.1M in additional five-year funding from the Leverhulme Centre for Climate Change Mitigation for U of I researchers, led by Evan DeLucia (Emeritus Professor of Plant Biology), Carl Bernacchi (U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service), and new co-PI Lisa Ainsworth (USDA ARS) to extend the campus’s enhanced weathering experiments using basalt rock on farm fields.
$2M+ from NSF’s Smart & Connected Communities program for a team led by Crop Sciences Assistant Professor Andrew Margenot to build a “Nutrient Management Community (NuMC)” to help farmers adopt effective and trusted tools that will help address critical water quality issues.
A $1M, two-year grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) to bolster an iSEE 2020 seed-funded project to turn ash into energy. The Rapid AI-based Dissection of Ashes using Raman and XRF Spectroscopy (RADAR-X) Project, led by Civil & Environmental Engineering (CEE) Assistant Professor Nishant Garg, will develop rapid, real-time analysis of the ashes — then explore numerous composition-dependent end uses.
One of iSEE’s original 2018 Campus as a Living Laboratory projects received nearly $1M from DOE and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Led by Agricultural & Biological Engineering Professor Yuanhui Zhang, the Environment-Enhancing Food, Energy, and Water Systems project is testing a livestock waste processing system that can deliver renewable energy as well as clean water and some bonus organic ag fertilizers.
Another 2020 iSEE seed-funded project led by Blue Waters and Natural Resources & Environmental Sciences (NRES) Associate Professor Kaiyu Guan to monitor crop nitrogen status was granted $1M from the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR).
A $518,000 subaward for NRES Professor Jeffrey Brawn and CEE Associate Professor Jeremy Guest from the U.S. Geological Survey for the University of Minnesota-led Midwest Climate Adaptation Science Center (CASC) consortium. The eight partner institutions will advance scientific research and education in response to climate change impacts in the Midwest.
A $500,000 subaward for Guan from DOE for a project led by Alder Energy to convert biomass into aviation fuel.
— iSEE Communications & Public Affairs Director Tony Mancuso
The Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE) has helped facilitate funding to enable geospatial data-driven scientific discovery at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and the resulting research will lead to better understanding of the risks and impacts of climate change and disasters.
The $15 million Institute for Geospatial Understanding through an Integrative Discovery Environment (I-GUIDE) will receive the funding over five years as part of the National Science Foundation’s Harnessing the Data Revolution, which establishes five institutes across the United States to explore questions at the frontiers of science and engineering.
WANG
“The goal of I-GUIDE is to revolutionize theories, concepts, methods, and tools focused on data-intensive geospatial understanding for driving innovative cyberGIS and cyberinfrastructure capabilities to address the most pressing resilience and sustainability challenges of our world, such as biodiversity, food security, and water security,” said Shaowen Wang, Head of the Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science and Founding Director of the CyberGIS Center for Advanced Digital and Spatial Studies (CyberGIS Center), who will lead the institute.
Collaborating scientists and institutions from around the country that are part of I-GUIDE will work with the CyberGIS Center in partnership with iSEE and the U of I System’s Discovery Partners Institute.
I-GUIDE aims to drive transformative advances across many fields — from computer, data, and information sciences to atmospheric sciences, ecology, economics, environmental science and engineering, human-environment and geographical sciences, hydrology and water sciences, industrial engineering, sociology, and statistics. The new institute will bring together about 40 researchers from U of I, Columbia University, Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc., Florida International University, Michigan State University, Open Geospatial Consortium, Purdue University, University Consortium for Geographic Information Science, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, Utah State University, and a variety of other partners.
Said Wang: “I-GUIDE nurtures a diverse and inclusive geospatial discovery community across many disciplines by bridging disciplinary digital data divides with broader impacts amplified through a well-trained and diverse workforce and proactive engagement of minority and underrepresented groups.“
I-GUIDE fits within three of iSEE’s research thrusts: Climate Solutions, Water & Land Stewardship, and Sustainable Infrastructure. Read more about iSEE-affiliated centers >>>
$2.1M in additional five-year funding from the Leverhulme Centre for Climate Change Mitigation for U of I researchers, led by Evan DeLucia (Emeritus Professor of Plant Biology), Carl Bernacchi (U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service), and new co-PI Lisa Ainsworth (USDA ARS) to extend the campus’s enhanced weathering experiments using basalt rock on farm fields.
A $1M, two-year grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) to bolster an iSEE 2020 seed-funded project to turn ash into energy. The Rapid AI-based Dissection of Ashes using Raman and XRF Spectroscopy (RADAR-X) Project, led by Civil & Environmental Engineering (CEE) Assistant Professor Nishant Garg, will develop rapid, real-time analysis of the ashes — then explore numerous composition-dependent end uses.
One of iSEE’s original 2018 Campus as a Living Laboratory projects received nearly $1M from DOE and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Led by Agricultural & Biological Engineering Professor Yuanhui Zhang, the Environment-Enhancing Food, Energy, and Water Systems project is testing a livestock waste processing system that can deliver renewable energy as well as clean water and some bonus organic ag fertilizers.
Another 2020 iSEE seed-funded project led by Blue Waters and Natural Resources & Environmental Sciences (NRES) Associate Professor Kaiyu Guan to monitor crop nitrogen status was granted $1M from the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR).
A $518,000 subaward for NRES Professor Jeffrey Brawn and CEE Associate Professor Jeremy Guest from the U.S. Geological Survey for the University of Minnesota-led Midwest Climate Adaptation Science Center (CASC) consortium. The eight partner institutions will advance scientific research and education in response to climate change impacts in the Midwest.
Eventually change total in headline, change pub date, and update and reorder with AGRIVOLTAICS ($10M), Margenot-Heaton USDA NIFA subaward ($1.7M), Margenot NSF grant ($2.5M), plus Guan Alder energy grant (tiny).
Last week, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) finalized an agreement with the University of Minnesota and seven partner organizations — including the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign — to form a new Climate Adaptation Science Center (CASC). The center will advance scientific research and education in response to climate change impacts in the Midwest.
The Midwest CASC consortium will be hosted at Minnesota and will include the U of I, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the College of Menominee Nation, the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, Michigan State University, Indiana University, and The Nature Conservancy. Member organizations were selected to the newest of nine regional Climate Adaptation Science Centers after an open competition and extensive review by scientific experts.
GUEST
BRAWN
The U of I team, funded at $518,000 over five years, is led by Jeffrey Brawn, Levenick Endowed Chair of Sustainability and Professor of Natural Resources & Environmental Sciences, and Jeremy Guest, Associate Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering and iSEE Associate Director for Research.
“Our membership in the Midwest CASC consortium opens up a host of collaborative and funding opportunities for researchers campuswide,” Brawn said. “It establishes exciting new partnerships that greatly enhance the U of I’s capacity in a diverse suite of topics in sustainability and climate science.”
Together, the Midwest CASC consortium organizations will work closely with USGS and other federal, state, and tribal entities in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to support management and protection of land, water, and natural resources with actionable climate science, innovation, and decision support tools.
The Midwest CASC will focus on pursuing adaptation — from understanding key vulnerabilities to climate change, to designing adaptation actions in ecologically and culturally appropriate ways. A key aspect of the innovation will include monitoring approaches to review and update actions. To this end, the CASC will fund individual research projects and work collaboratively across the consortium on key issues in the region that also involve adaptation practitioners.
