Two Arizona State University engineers – Mariana Bertoni and Stuart Bowden – will aid photovoltaic manufacturing and supply-chain companies in advancing their technologies as part of a U.S. Department of Energy initiative. Both are faculty members in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, as well as senior sustainability scientists at the ASU Wrigley Institute.

Bertoni will work to develop technology for a novel silicon ingot growth, while Bowden will work to replace the silver in solar energy cells with copper - a more abundant and less costly material. These projects are among the research and development endeavors the Department of Energy is supporting through SunShot Solar Manufacturing 2, a program that is providing more than $24 million to 10 solar energy technology manufacturers based in the United States. The program supports the development of innovative technology for manufacturing equipment and processes that will reduce costs while increasing efficiency.

Enrique Vivoni - a hydrologist, senior sustainability scientist and associate professor at Arizona State University - is one of 20 recipients awarded a 2015 Leopold Leadership Fellowship. Vivoni's scholarship in the area of shared resources led to his selection for this prestigious fellowship program, which endeavors to communicate scientific research to a wide audience.

Water in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico is a contentious issue that traverses disciplinary boundaries. Vivoni’s research activities focus on the intersection of hydrology and its allied disciplines - ecology, meteorology and geomorphology - in order to improve our understanding of water resources in this region. The collaborative studies on shared water between the United States and Mexico that Vivoni facilitated are a hallmark of his research achievements.

In order to advance understanding of problems that span biological and social systems, Arizona State University and the Santa Fe Institute will launch a research and education collaboration called the Center for Biosocial Complex Systems. Two areas of particular interest to the center are the dynamics of innovation, and the urbanization and scaling of cities.

As cities grow and strive to be more sustainable, they face new challenges. The Center for Biosocial Complex Systems will help scientists and policymakers alike gain a better understanding of the intricacies behind these challenges. It will also offer solutions to scenarios, such as in health care and human behavior, that a rapidly urbanizing world might face. These solutions will have local and global application.

Sander van der Leeuw, a School of Sustainability Foundation Professor, will serve as director of the center with fellow Distinguished Sustainability Scientist Manfred Laubichler.

ASU’s School of Sustainability seeks local partners to host sustainability focused internships. Interns can be at the graduate or undergraduate level and are available for approximately 10-12 hours a week during spring, summer, or fall semesters. Interns would provide value to your organization, while earning academic credit toward their degree and gaining hands-on professional experience.

Some examples of past internship projects include:

• Waste stream analysis, LCA, and reduction/diversion research

• Creating a sustainability scorecard that encompasses waste, energy usage, food systems, and supply chain issues

• Designing formal and informal curriculum to teach sustainability concepts to children

• Coordinating events that transform vacant lots and connect communities

If you think your organization may be interested in hosting a School of Sustainability intern, please contact Caroline Savalle, Internship and Experiential Education Specialist, for details: caroline.savalle@asu.edu

January 7, 2015

Sarah Porter named inaugural director of Kyl Center for Water Policy at Morrison Institute

Following a national search, natural resource expert and Audubon leader Sarah Porter has been named the inaugural director of the new Kyl Center for Water Policy at Morrison Institute.

"I am so excited to join the new center and help it succeed in finding collaborative solutions to address our state’s water challenges," said Porter, who had been with the Audubon Arizona since 2006, including as executive director since 2010.

She will begin her new job at Morrison Institute for Public Policy on Jan. 20.

"We couldn’t be more pleased with having Sarah take charge of the Kyl Center as Arizona seeks new and innovative ways and strategies to settle water claims, develop sound water policy through consensus and better educate the general public about water resources and choices," said Thom Reilly, director of Morrison Institute for Public Policy at Arizona State University.

Porter has a broad understanding of both Arizona and regional water issues, having directed Audubon’s Western Rivers project, a multi-state initiative to raise awareness of the challenges to Colorado River sustainability, as well as protecting and restoring flows for critical habitats and communities.

"It’s all about securing Arizona’s water future through collective and inclusive input from a diverse roster of agency leaders, elected officials, policy makers and stakeholders. Sarah understands that," Reilly said, noting Porter’s nonpartisan and collaborative successful initiatives at Audubon.

The Kyl Center, named after retired U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl in recognition of his statesmanship and continued leadership on water issues, was officially launched in November after a $1 million gift from the Morrison family. The Kyl Center is housed at Morrison Institute, which is part of the ASU College of Public Service and Community Solutions.

Kyl, who is actively involved in the center, including the selection process for the director post, said he was pleased by the choice of Porter.

"I was very impressed by the quality of all the candidates who expressed interest in the position, and particularly impressed by Sarah’s credentials, energy and dedication to collaboration – all of which are needed in making the center the success we all want and need it to be," Kyl said.

Morrison Institute last month announced the addition of two senior research fellows to help with the research component of the Kyl Center for Water Policy: Kathleen Ferris, executive director of the Arizona Municipal Water Users Association; and Rhett B. Larson, an associate professor of law in the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at ASU. Both are attorneys.

Porter also is an attorney, having graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor’s degree and obtaining her juris doctor from Arizona State University (ranking third in her class). She clerked for federal appellate Judge William Canby and was a litigator for Brown & Bain; Coppersmith Gordon Schermer Owens & Nelson, PLC; and Osborn Maledon PA.

She said she left her law career in 2006 for Audubon because she wanted to contribute to a collaborative effort to address Arizona’s natural resource challenges. She will now dedicate that focus to the Kyl Center.

Arizona State University has been selected to receive the 2015 Community Engagement Classification from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. According to John Saltmarsh, director of the New England Resource Center for Higher Education that oversees the application process, the classification is bestowed upon institutions that have demonstrated deep engagement with local, regional, national and global communities.

Institutions participate voluntarily by submitting materials describing the nature and extent of their engagement in the community. ASU is one of three institutions of higher learning to receive the designation in Arizona, and one of 157 campuses to achieve re-classification nationally.

Jacqueline Smith - executive director of University Initiatives and adviser to the president for social embeddedness - says, “The Carnegie designation serves as a testament to ASU’s university-wide commitment to the economic, social and cultural vitality of our communities.”

As we prepare to bid farewell to 2014, we would like to take a moment to reflect upon some highlights and accomplishments made during this year.

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As a student in the Master’s in Sustainable Solutions program offered by ASU’s School of Sustainability, Angela Cazel-Jahn specialized in communication. Her focus centered on removing barriers to sustainable solutions by improving the public’s understanding of sustainability itself.

Cazel-Jahn set out to simplify sustainability concepts and stimulate conversation about them through her applied project – a participatory mural titled Adapt & Sustain. Through a series of workshops that she organized, students and other locals translated core sustainability terms into scenarios that could be both depicted in the mural and easily understood by the public.

Participants from surrounding neighborhoods, schools and organizations then painted these scenarios on a 330-foot stretch of wall located along the Grand Canal trail. The area's residents will soon walk, run, bike and rollerblade past the final product, enjoying its vibrancy while considering its underlying sustainability theme.

In our last few posts we started walking through the EPA’s calculation of state goals for CO2 emissions, covering Building Block 1, Building Block 2 and Building Block 3. In this post, we’ll conclude the walk-through with Building Block 4: Energy Efficiency.

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In our last two posts we started walking through the EPA’s calculation of state goals for CO2 emissions, covering Building Block 1 and Building Block 2. In this post, we’ll continue the walk-through with Building Block 3: Cleaner Generation Sources.

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During a ceremony hosted by President Michael Crow, five Arizona State University faculty members were appointed University Professors. The appointees are regarded as top experts in their respective fields of research, both nationally and internationally. Among the recipients was Distinguished Sustainability Scientist Stuart Lindsay, who is the director of the Center for Single Molecule Biophysics in the Biodesign Institute.

Lindsay was also recently named a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. This high professional distinction is accorded to academic inventors who have demonstrated a prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development and the welfare of society.

Past the mountains of buried trash at Flagstaff’s Cinder Lake Landfill, 25-foot-high fences stand guard to catch flyaway trash picked up by northern Arizona’s whipping winds. Everything from dog food bags to plastic containers cling to the base of the fences’ nets, but by far the most prevalent items are plastic bags. The city of Flagstaff spent almost $67,000 last year removing windblown trash from the area around the landfill, and project manager Matt Morales estimated that up to 80 percent of the items lofted beyond the landfill’s fences are plastic bags. The possibility of eliminating, or at least greatly reducing, the single-use bags that get caught in trees, coalesce in waterways and blow across streets in and around Flagstaff is motivating a growing coalition of groups hoping to convince the city’s leaders to enact a ban or fee on them. Read more here .

The Future City Competition, an initiative of DiscoverE, will hold its Arizona Regional Competition on Jan. 17. The competition, taking place at Arizona State University, invites middle school students from across Arizona  to imagine what urban food production will look like in the future - a meaningful exercise given projected threats to our food supply.

The winning team from the regional competition will receive the Walton Sustainable Community Award and prize, sponsored by ASU’s Rob and Melani Walton Sustainability Solutions Initiatives. The recipients will be invited to present their future food idea at the 2015 Sustainability Solutions Festival, taking place across the Valley Feb. 16-21. The team will then travel to the Future City National Finals in Washington, D.C, where it will compete against more than 40,000 other students from across the United States.

In our last post we started walking through the EPA’s calculation of state goals for CO² emissions, covering Building Block 1. In this post, we’ll continue the walk-through with Building Block 2: Redispatch from Coal to Natural Gas.

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U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz visited ASU to meet with STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) students, and explore Department of Energy research projects at the university. During his visit, Moniz discussed the energy and technology programs that the department supports, as well as the importance of engaging youth and minorities in STEM education.

An extensive tour, guided by Senior Sustainability Scientist Sethuraman "Panch" Panchanathan and ASU Wrigley Institute Director Gary Dirks, allowed Moniz to witness groundbreaking university endeavors such as the Center for Negative Carbon Emissions and Zero Mass Labs. He was also introduced to the numerous solar initiatives on ASU campuses.

A recent report titled "High Energy Innovation" shows that the most active efforts to develop next-generation, clean energy technologies are in rapidly industrializing countries. The report attributes this to a high demand for energy and abundant deployment opportunities. To take advantage of these opportunities, governments must strengthen international collaboration.

High-Energy Innovation is the second of three reports in the Climate Pragmatism project, a partnership between Arizona State University’s Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes and The Breakthrough Institute. Among the report's 12 authors are ASU Wrigley Institute Director Gary Dirks and Senior Sustainability Scientist Daniel Sarewitz.

“It is [in non-OECD countries] that we should expect to see – and should work hardest to accelerate – energy innovation,” write the authors.

While there is no shortage of legal questions or political rhetoric surrounding the EPA’s proposed carbon pollution standards for Arizona, there are also many technical details that need to be unpacked.

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ASU's Hestia Project, led by Senior Sustainability Scientist Kevin Gurney, combines extensive public database “data-mining” with traffic simulation and building-by-building energy consumption modeling. The resulting high-resolution maps clearly identify carbon emission sources in a way that policymakers can use and the public can understand.

Gurney presented his research on Dec. 5 during the United Nations Climate Conference in Lima, Peru, where delegates from 190 countries are receiving urgent messages about global warming. His talk is part of a session on understanding the carbon emissions of cities, and will focus on applying urban carbon data to address the needs of local decision-makers and planners.

This February, ASU's Rob and Melani Walton Sustainability Solutions Initiatives will host the second annual Sustainability Solutions Festival at venues throughout the Phoenix area. The week-long festival consists of a variety of events that cover every audience, from families to film buffs.

“Our charter states that ASU assumes fundamental responsibility for the economic, social and overall health of the community it serves. Hosting the Sustainability Solutions Festival to highlight innovative ideas and technologies is an example of our institutional commitment to our global community,” said ASU President Michael Crow.

Featured partners for the Festival are GreenBiz Group and The Sustainability Consortium, along with the city of Phoenix, Arizona Science Center and the Arizona SciTech Festival.

A symposium titled “The Future of the University and the University of the Future: A Global Perspective” prominently featured ideas and methods for designing universities that are implemented at ASU. The conference, which took place at the Technical University of Ambato in Ecuador, echoed President Michael Crow’s emphasis on innovation as a driving force of developing universities that meet the needs of their communities.

The symposium featured presentations by a several sustainability scientists, including Lee Hartwell, Netra Chhetri and Mary Jane Parmentier.

“This was an international conference on the design of higher education, specifically the place of science, technology and innovation, and the role of public policy, in designing universities and programs to meet the needs of society – particularly the society in which each institution is embedded," says Parmentier. "They wanted people from different countries to bring their perspective on the role of the university and best practices for university design.”