Spring 2021 update | FAQ page | Class flexibility for students | Novel coronavirus updates
July 27, 2021
Many contributors across the PLuS Alliance partner universities - executives, advisers, researchers, academics, educators, students and professional staff - bring expertise, passion and a collaborative spirit to help make PLuS Alliance a success. Released in June 2021, the 2021 Snapshot Report contains examples of their accomplishments.
July 27, 2021
Transforming Women’s Leadership Pathways, an initiative of the PLuS Alliance, has been selected as a case study for the SDSN’s Accelerating Education for the SDGs in Universities to be showcased in the upcoming SDSN International Conference on Sustainable Development, set for Sept. 20-21. The case study is a joint submission between ASU, UNSW and King’s College.
The pioneering Transforming Women’s Leadership Pathways digital event in October 2020 brought together opinion shaping stakeholders to examine the evidence on the critical factors that limit women’s pathways to senior leadership in their fields, and to develop 10 action plans that articulate the practical actions Government, Universities and Industry must take to close the leadership gender gap. Sustainability scientists Erin Carr-Jordan and Miki Kittelson lead the higher education working group, while sustainability scientist Diana Bowman co-led the Politics and Policy group.
View and download the action plans: What will it take: gender equality in leadership by 2030.
July 27, 2021
The spaces between fields—or the “borderlands” between disciplines—represent unique opportunities for social inquiry. Scholarly Borderlands, an initiative of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), invites proposals for interdisciplinary working groups that ask novel questions, develop new frameworks, rethink methodological approaches, and find innovative answers. Scholarly Borderlands incubates high-risk, high-rewards research efforts.
This New Interdisciplinary Projects in the Social Sciences RFP is open exclusively to faculty of the College and University Fund for the Social Sciences (CUF) member institutions. Proposed projects must be led by a principal investigator (PI) from a CUF institution in collaboration with one or two additional co-PIs. Working group leadership should represent at least two different disciplines, and preference will be given to teams with leadership from different institutions. The deadline for applications is Monday, September 13, 2021 at 5:00 p.m. eastern time.
July 26, 2021
The Tokyo Olympics, starting July 23, will be remembered for three things: a complete lack of spectators, being postponed a year because of a pandemic and searing heat.
Sustainability scientist Jennifer Vanos, an Arizona State University biometeorologist in the School of Sustainability, has been studying the latter for more than two years, publishing a suite of papers on subjects including planning for spectator thermal comfort, a climatological analysis and the need to integrate heat management among athletes, climatologists, events operators, public health officials and emergency medical technicians.
Part of Vanos' research focused on big-picture climatological understanding of Tokyo. The other part honed in on urban differences. "Average temperatures will differ depending on where in the city you are, and the humidity can differ to get them to be higher on the coast than if you're inland a little bit or in the city where there's a little bit less sources of moisture from the ocean,” Vanos said.
July 26, 2021
If you’re interested in receiving tips, events, stories and other updates regarding campus sustainability at ASU, sign up using this form. The USP team plans to offer one newsletter per semester: March and September.
July 26, 2021
Cities that undergo constant but measured change are better positioned to weather the impacts of economic shocks. That’s according to a new paper, Resilience of Urban Economic Structures Following the Great Recession, out earlier this year in the journal Sustainability. Sustainability scientist Shade Shutters is lead author.
In a recent post, John Plodinec summarizes the article; it’s an interesting perspective. Plodinec is the former associate director for resilience technologies at the Community and Regional Resilience Institute (CARRI), established in 2007 at Oak Ridge National Laboratory with the support of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Drawing on a parable, Plodinec compares Shutters to a wise forester, looking not at what makes trees fall, but what makes them stand.
You can read Plodinec’s piece here. The paper’s full abstract follows.
July 26, 2021
The Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems focuses on innovative ideas and solutions to the many challenges of current food systems. In this series, we’re sitting down with the Swette Center affiliated faculty to catch up on food systems, innovation, and what makes a good meal. Read the rest of the series here.
July 26, 2021
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will release its report from Working Group I on August 9. The topic is the physical science basis of climate change, and the approved chapter outline is detailed here.
Please take a moment to tell us how your work ties to the IPCC report in this four-question survey. Results will be used to understand ASU’s intellectual inventory on this topic, and may offer you the opportunity to engage with media and inform policy. Please feel free to forward the survey to ASU colleagues as appropriate.
July 23, 2021
We are pleased to congratulate Jay Davies, with the City of Peoria on his receipt of the Gabe Zimmerman “Community Builder” Award!
Jay currently serves as the Interim Public Works Director and fmr Chief of Staff for the City Manager’s Office. The “Community Builder” award seeks to recognize efforts made by individuals that advance community pride through job creation and training, healthy communities, environmental and historical preservation, volunteer and philanthropic efforts, and educational advancement.
July 23, 2021
Congratulations to Melissa Guardaro, PhD, a HUE member, Knowledge Exchange for Resilience and Assistant Research Professor at the Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation, for testifying in front of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology hearing on the rising problem of extreme heat in the U.S.
July 20, 2021
By Mauricio Bellon, Research Professor
On July 8, I participated virtually in the German Sustainability Science Summit organized by the German Committee of Future Earth, a global network of scientists, researchers, and innovators collaborating for a more sustainable planet. During this meeting I participated in a session organized by a group that I belong to called EvolvES (Evolution for Earth Sustainability, also part of Future Earth) that aims at providing an evolutionary framework for biodiversity science. This session, called “Phylogenetic and genetic diversity: linking past and contemporary evolution to sustainability,” consisted of four presentations which were aimed at illustrating how evolutionary thinking, processes, insights and tools can contribute to earth sustainability, with a special emphasis on the application of an evolutionary perspective in food, health and conservation.
July 15, 2021
The WE Empower UN SDG Challenge – a global business challenge led in partnership by Vital Voices Global Partnership and Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory at ASU – today announced the five social entrepreneurs selected as their 2021 Awardees.
The five 2021 WE Empower Awardees are:
• Olufunto Boroffice, Founder and CEO, Chanja Datti Ltd (Nigeria)
• Nidhi Pant, Co-Founder and Head of Finance and Partnerships, S4S Technologies (India)
• Sara Saeed, Co-Founder and CEO, Sehat Kahani (Pakistan)
• Panmela Castro, Founder and CEO, Panmela Castro Arte e Cultura and Rede Nami (Brazil)
• Aline Sara, Co-founder and CEO, NaTakallam (United States)
Each entrepreneur was selected on the basis that they lead an enterprise committed to advancing one or more of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals, and leverage their businesses to push for progress in their communities.
July 15, 2021
The United Nations Environment Programme has partnered with Arizona State University's Sustainable Purchasing Research Initiative (SPRI) and a team of researchers around the world to produce its 2022 Global Review of Sustainable Public Procurement. Building on the findings of the UN's first edition of the Global Review published in 2013 and the second edition published in 2017, this report will examine the state of sustainable public procurement (SPP) policies and practices globally.
July 13, 2021
By Tucker Larson, Swette Center Student Worker
On Friday, July 9th, the USDA announced that it would be allocating $500 million to increase competition and “level the playing field” for meat and poultry processing. These funds will come through the American Rescue Plan and are intended to increase capacity, giving farmers and ranchers more choices when it comes to meat and poultry processing. On top of this $500 million, the USDA will also be providing $150 million to existing small and very small (SVS) processing facilities. Small facilities have anywhere from 10 to 499 employees and very small facilities have less than 10 employees or annual sales of less than $2.5 million. A third of this will be going to increasing the SVS plants processing capacity, while the other two thirds will go to producers who saw an unexpected increase in costs from overtime inspections and other variables caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
July 13, 2021
Application deadline extended for the Global Futures Research Accelerator, a program developed to empower the Scientists and Scholars network to develop an ASU research enterprise strategy to increase competitiveness, funding success, partnerships and societal impact. Early to mid-career faculty with a research focus are encouraged to apply. Classes are planned to run bi-weekly on Fridays, September 3, 2021 through April 29, 2022.
The Research Development Office is offering a virtual info session this Thursday, July 15, from 2-3 p.m. Arizona time. Learn more about the Fall 2021- 2022 Research Accelerator hybrid classes, meet the instructors and hear from a few of your peers from the first cohort.
Access the Zoom session or link to our application and flyer through InfoReady.
July 13, 2021
Sustainability scientists Alexandra Brewis and Amber Wutich are co-authors (with Cindi SturtzSreetharan, Jessica Hardin and Sarah Trainer) of a new book, Fat in Four Cultures: A Global Ethnography of Weight.
The book looks at how people across four different cultures — Japan, the United States, Paraguay and Samoa — experience being fat. It examines how our bodies impact the way we talk, interact and fit into our social networks, communities and broader society.
What surprised all five scientists is that the thin ideal has sunk in across the world. Public health messaging in all four countries urges people to watch what they eat, control diabetes and keep a handle on their weight.
And people across the world all say the same things in response: I don’t have time to work out. The food near my office is unhealthy but it’s convenient. I know I should eat better, but healthy food costs too much. Yes, I know traditional food is bad for you, but it’s so delicious.
In all four countries, it became clear that if you want that body that society tells you is ideal, it’s going to be expensive and it’s going to take time. Read more in ASU News.
July 13, 2021
With Arizona experiencing its hottest summer on record last year, identifying heat-mitigation strategies and solutions is already a complex issue, and the lasting effects of racially based redlining implemented throughout the 20th century only add to its complexity.
Redlining was the practice of denying loans to people of color and low-income individuals based on the financial risk of the area where they chose to live. Essentially, this process aided in the active separation of races during segregation.
On the Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America website, a map of Phoenix shows how the city’s neighborhoods were categorized by lenders in 1940.
Patricia Solis, executive director of the Knowledge Exchange for Resilience (KER) at Arizona State University, and her team began by mapping and formulating a rich dataset. By linking heat-associated deaths, state programs, cooling centers, utility bills and more, Solis discovered that people who live in mobile homes were disproportionately affected by extreme heat.
July 13, 2021
As normalcy begins to come back into our lives, what habits that we adopted during the pandemic are we most likely to continue? In a new article released today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from Arizona State University highlight their findings from a nationwide survey documenting potential behavioral changes Americans see themselves making.
Most notably, many Americans see themselves continuing to have telecommute, or work from home, options. In our pre-pandemic world, only 13% of survey respondents participated in telecommute work. But as this method of work became more normalized, 26% of respondents noted that they will be likely to continue telecommuting at least a few days every week.
“This is a large shift, and it comes with a number of cascading effects, including changes to rush-hour traffic patterns, changing demand for downtown services and changes in where people want to live and what they are looking for in a home and a neighborhood,” said sustainability scientist Deborah Salon, associate professor in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning at ASU and lead author of the article. Co-authors included sustainability scientists Sara Khoeini, Nathan Parker and Ram Pendyala, among others. Read the story in ASU News.
The article's abstract follows.
July 13, 2021
For blue-water sailors, the French Frigate Shoals is often thought of as a place with significant wildlife and deep cultural meaning. The Polynesian Voyaging Society hopes to train sailors in this spot in the Pacific Ocean. It’s all in preparation for next year’s Moananuiākea Voyage, a circumnavigation of the Pacific Ocean in which ASU will play an important partner role.
“The Pacific Ocean voyage will serve as a point of coalescence for researchers and educators at ASU — and elsewhere — to imagine and create a future that helps make the planet more habitable and allows for new relations among peoples for shared purpose,” said Bryan McKinley Jones Brayboy, the university’s vice president of social advancement, President’s Professor, director of the Center for Indian Education, and ASU’s senior adviser to the president on American Indian Affairs.
“Our role is to support, amplify and enhance PVS’ message,” Brayboy said. “That message is: We all share one home — planet Earth." ASU will work with PVS to create a 'Third Canoe,' a virtual platform that will allow educators and students across the globe to virtually participate and learn.
July 12, 2021
The NSF’s Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program identifies the nation’s most promising young faculty members and provides them with funding to pursue outstanding research, excellence in teaching and the integration of education and research. Often, these awards spur the creativity of the faculty member and helps set them on an innovative career path.
Four sustainability scientists are among ASU's most recent 16 CAREER award recipients. Margaret Garcia, Giulia Pedrielli, Jorge Sefair and Jennifer Vanos are featured in a recent article in ASU News. Read more about their work.
