A recent Associated Press article highlights the ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes as an example of innovative partnerships born within universities with the potential of solving society’s most unsettling problems.

In the article, A new bond between the public and universities could brighten America’s future, Dean Amber Miller writes, “These kinds of partnerships do exist inside universities, such as the Johns Hopkins Community Health Partnership, Arizona State University’s Center for Biodiversity Outcomes, the USC Dornsife Southern California Earthquake Center, and elsewhere,” states Miller. “But they are often forged by individual centers and institutes and exist as isolated efforts within their home institutions.”

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The ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes is hiring a summer 2018 student. The ideal candidate would facilitate a research project aimed at developing a decision tool for conservation investments, as well as assist with center communications and marketing.

Essential duties include collaboratively design the tool structure, compile and clean data and metadata for input; incorporate modeling framework into R; use R Shiny to build an interactive web application; work one-on-one with the center's communication manager; develop web-based communication materials, including blogs, social media posts and newsletters.

$15/hr, 20 hrs/wk. Click here for a complete job description.

If interested in applying, please contact Anahi Astudillo and Krista Kemppinen.

When Benjamin Fogg was brainstorming ways to bring sustainability practices to FedEx Ground, a company he began working for after completing his bachelor’s degree in Alabama, he discovered Arizona State University’s Online Master of Sustainability Leadership. Fogg applied to the program at the School of Sustainability, he said, because of its focus on innovation and leadership “paired with the broader, global context. Since FedEx Corporation operates all over the world, it felt like the perfect fit for my career.”

During his time as a master’s student, Fogg was promoted multiple times and moved to different states. “ASU Online allowed that mobility to happen while I continued my education,” he said.

Recently, Fogg was promoted to a Sustainability Specialist position at FedEx. His career goal, he said, is to “obtain a senior leadership position within the company that focuses on bringing sustainability to the forefront of what we’re doing.”

The Center for Research Strategy at the National Cancer Institute published an updated Collaboration and Team Science Field Guide.

This guide is a useful resource to assist researchers in navigating common issues regarding science team collaborations.

Some of the topics include vision, communication, research collaborations, emotional intelligence, leadership, mentoring, recognition, addressing conflict and disagreement, as well as navigating and leveraging networks and systems.

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School days for Carl Harris were not the routine experience they are for most college students.

Harris has been on active duty or reserve status for the U.S. Navy for the past 18 years, with multiple deployments throughout the Middle East. On top of that, Harris earned a bachelor’s degree this month through the online engineering management program in ASU's Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, with a minor in sustainability from ASU’s School of Sustainability.

“I am a big fan of the whole sustainability movement,” Harris said. “Sustainable technologies are going to be a big emerging market around the world. I would love to work in engineering management at a cutting-edge sustainable tech company.”

The UREx SRN has been highlighted for its collaborative effort with The International Institute of Tropical Forestry (IITF) to support hurricane recovery in urban areas.  This effort is focused on San Juan, Puerto Rico, a UREx SRN network city and one of the Caribbean islands still recovering from Hurricanes Irma and Maria.

As the largest university in the country Arizona State University inevitably makes quite a bit of waste. Sure we have a Zero Waste initiative, and we recycle and compost, but there are often items, large and small, that get overlooked. Students are helping to fill the gaps.

In spring 2018 a one-credit course was created as a cross-disciplinary effort between the School of Sustainability (SOS), University Sustainability Practices (USP), and the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts (HIDA) to bring students of different disciplines together to collaborate on a sustainability-focused art project. Students were charged with the task of developing a prototype of an outdoor common space for the Tempe campus. They focused on waste, recycling, and circular resources and were then released to complete the project with guidance from a team of staff from SOS, USP, and HIDA. The intention of the final installation was to engage campus visitors, students, staff, and faculty who move through common spaces at ASU. Groups were encouraged to consider innovative materials and construction processes for their installations.

Class time comprised of talks by artists, designers, and sustainability experts to give students an idea of the kinds of projects they could create, the specific issues they could focus on, and free time to work on their designs. Once student teams moved through development stages, they received approval to construct their proposed installation. Students were judged by ASU student peers, selected staff, and faculty. Funding and scholarship opportunities were also available for this group and were judged in a competition setting.

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The website for the Board of Directors of the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability has been recently updated. In preparation for our meeting, set for May 17-18 in Washington, D.C., we have provided the latest sustainability@asu highlights magazine, a new signature brochure for the School of Sustainability, as well as meeting materials.

As always, you will find profiles of current board members, past editions of this newsletter, and contact information for Connie, Jessica and Emma. We look forward to seeing many of you later this month.

At the fall board meeting, we rolled out a fiscal-year 2017 edition of our annual accomplishments magazine in a new, smaller format. Find out what else happened in 2017 in the follow-up edition of sustainability@asu, just released.

The new edition gives an update on the institute’s impact and progress in 2017. From creating a new Sustainable Foods degree to continuing the upward sustainability student enrollment trend, building international connections and conducting award-winning research, this review highlights the institute’s growth on a global scale.

The interactive version of the magazine includes links to TED-style KED Talks, presented by ASU’s Office of Knowledge Enterprise Development, the latest essays in our Thought Leader Series, and a link to the newest videos in our Wrigley Lecture Series.

We hear the term used all over the place: in music, on TV, in books– but what IS resilience? In this episode, we discuss resilience from the Social-Ecological-Technological Systems (SETS) perspective. To understand what

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School of Sustainability holds its spring convocation ceremony in Gammage Auditorium on Thursday, May 10. Watch live at 4:30 p.m. Arizona time.

The ASU-Conservation International annual retreat was held April 23-26, 2018 at the ASU Tempe campus. The retreat celebrated the successful first year of the partnership and outlined priorities for subsequent years.

“As we reflect on the past year of our unique partnership, we are keeping our eye on the horizon,” Project Manager Amy Scoville-Weaver said. “The sky is the limit for our two organizations.”

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Two staff members at Arizona State University’s Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability are editors of a new book, “Urban Planet: Knowledge Towards Sustainable Cities,” released by Cambridge University Press.

Corrie Griffith, Program Manager for the Global Consortium for Sustainability Outcomes, and Mark Watkins, Program Manager for the Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research Project, were on a team of 10 editors who crafted the book. The authors argue that global urbanization challenges can be alleviated by weaving inclusiveness and sustainability into the fabric of society.

“Urban Planet” brings together the expertise of more than 100 scholars across many different fields to develop interdisciplinary approaches to global urbanization issues.

On April 25, 2018, the ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes and the Global Drylands Center hosted Daniel Miller, an assistant professor in Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, for the Hugh Hanson seminar series.

During his talk, co-authored by Anthony Waldron, and titled “Frontiers in the assessment of global funding for biodiversity conservation,” Dr. Miller discussed findings from a recent paper published in the journal Nature examining the impacts of conservation spending on biodiversity loss. He explained how evidence-based model can be used to quantify how conservation spending reduces the rate of biodiversity loss.

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The ASU and Conservation International partnership continues to advance one of its three main goals, which is to train the next generation of conservation leaders. A recent article by CI’s Editorial Director Bruno Vander Velde titled “To tackle environmental challenges, start with students” offers great insight into the advancement of this strategic goal, which is at the heart of ASU’s innovative model for The New American University.

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The ASU and Conservation International partnership continues to advance one of its three main goals, which is to train the next generation of conservation leaders. A recent article by CI’s Editorial Director Bruno Vander Velde titled “To tackle environmental challenges, start with students” offers great insight into the advancement of this strategic goal, which is at the heart of ASU’s innovative model for The New American University.

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In February, Major League Baseball announced it was partnering with ASU on a zero waste initiative that took place during spring training. In April, the Diamondbacks called on School of Sustainability Dean Christopher Boone to partner with them on a special Earth Day project.

Our fearless dean agreed to throw out the first pitch at the Sunday afternoon game. The official video shows the pitch was juuuust a bit outside, but we do like to think outside the box here at ASU.

Many School of Sustainability alumni and staff were in attendance at the game to support the Diamondbacks and Dean Boone. View our photo album from the event.

Over the past year, it has become even more apparent that climate change is not some future event, but rather, something we are currently experiencing.  This has been demonstrated by yet another year of record temperatures and extreme weather events.

As UREx SRN researchers, Marta Berbés-Blázquez, David Iwaniec, Nancy Grimm, and Timon McPhearson, stated in their article on The Nature of Cities, the UREx SRN emerged out of the need for cities to become more resilient and adapt to our current climate.  This blog entry reflects on the scenarios workshops, an important aspect of the project, which encourages out-of-the-box thinking while addressing immediate and future challenges.

As part of their Fulbright Fellowships to Ecuador, Professors Leah Gerber and John Sabo are experiencing the interface between people and nature in the Amazon rainforest and on the Galapagos Islands.

Sabo’s work focuses on strategic development of hydropower in the Amazon basin and Gerber’s focus is on the social, ecological and economic dimensions of marine conservation in the Galapagos Islands.

During their time in the Galapagos Islands, the pair are also piloting the ASU-CI Professor-in-Residence program. The converse of our ASU-CI Professor of Practice program where CI scientists engage with ASU scholars. Professor in Residence work on the ground with conservation practitioners.

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With its roots in a plant-based diet, Julia Colbert’s interest in sustainability began to grow. Colbert understood development does not need to come at the cost of our planet, and wanted to find a way to create harmony between humans and nature.

So she enrolled in the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University. She was recognized at Convocation as the school's 2018 Outstanding Graduate.

During her time at ASU, Colbert took advantage of every learning opportunity. Through School of Sustainability study abroad programs, she traveled to foreign countries to learn new sustainable practices and solutions. She joined student organizations and accepted jobs at the ASU Sustainability Teacher’s Academy and Decision Center for a Desert City.

In the fall, Colbert will return to ASU to pursue a master's degree in sustainability.

She answered some questions about her experiences as a sustainability student.

Question: What’s something you learned while at ASU — in the classroom or otherwise — that surprised you or changed your perspective?

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