2019 WE Empower finalist Fakhria Ibrahimi Momtaz is the creator of the first yoga studio in Afghanistan to focus on the needs of women. Momtaz Yoga Studio provides services, including yoga therapy, meditation, and other wellness services, to improve the health and lifestyle of these women. The studio offers specialized classes unique to women’s needs, such as pregnancy, back and joint pain, anxiety, and depression.
Maria Coca Ascencio felt destined to study sustainability.
“I grew up surrounded by mountains, volcanos, calderas, trees, rivers, and dark skies viewing millions of stars with the naked eye,” Coca said. “Nature was my first love.”
Water is a critical issue in Arizona, and a new water-mapping tool created by the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University has collected a vast array of maps and data sets to show a wide-ranging view of water in the state.
The Arizona Water Blueprint visualizes information on groundwater, rivers, agricultural irrigation, dams, ocean desalination, critical species and other concepts that are important not only to policymakers but also to any Arizonan concerned about water.
The first-of-its-kind map creates a holistic view of water in Arizona that was missing, according to Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy.
This blog post was written by Arizona State University graduate student Kelly McClelland. In addition to studying Food Policy and Sustainability Leadership at ASU, Kelly is a food leader in Flint, Michigan where she works as a nutrition program manager at the Crim Fitness Foundation, oversees Flint FoodCorps members, and serves on the board of Edible Flint.
A town hall event hall hosted by ASU’s Construction in Indian Country program brought together tribal and business leaders to discuss the economic outlook and address the current situation in Indian Country as they continue fight COVID-19.
The event was hosted by Arizona State University’s Marcus Denetdale, program manager for Construction in Indian Country. Panelists included sustainability scholars Jacob Moore, associate vice president for tribal relations at ASU, and Traci Morris, director of ASU's American Indian Policy Institute; Jonathan Nez, president of the Navajo Nation; Brian Howard, research and policy analyst, American Indian Policy Institute; James Murphy, chief executive officer, Willmeng Construction; Larry Wright Jr., tribal chairman of the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska; and Martin Harvier, president of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community.
Join by Zoom on July 15 for a robust discussion on an ASU/Tempe research project to detect the presence of coronavirus in wastewater and identify hotspots.The City of Tempe has created a website (best viewed using Chrome) to explain the new field of wastewater epidemiology.
In an innovative partnership to prevent and reduce the spread of COVID-19, the City of Tempe is working with scientists from Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute to study the city's wastewater. Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) is the science of studying community sewage for public health information.
To better understand the science behind the wastewater data, this dashboard displays emerging research about the “COVID-19 gene copies per liter” measured within collection areas throughout the city. An example of “gene copies per liter” measurement is similar to measuring the amount of salt in water. The more salt in the water, the saltier the mixture. Similarly, the more COVID-19 genes copies per liter, the stronger the virus’ signal.
Rosa Inchausti leads Tempe's Office of Strategic Management, which identifies and adopts new technologies that advance the quality of life for the community. Sustainability scientist Rolf Halden is expert in determining where in the environment mass-produced chemicals wind up, their impact on health, and how to remove them.
Arizona State University Executive Vice President and Chief Research and Innovation Officer Sethuraman “Panch” Panchanathan has been named the 15th director of the National Science Foundation, unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate on June 18 after his December 2019 nomination by President Donald J. Trump.
During his six-year appointment, Panchanathan will be responsible for overseeing NSF staff and management, program creation and administration, merit review, planning, budget and day-to-day operations. He also will direct the federal agency’s mission, including support for all fields of fundamental science and engineering, keeping the U.S. at the leading edge of discovery.
This blog post was written by Arizona State University graduate student Dr. Angel Cruz. In addition to studying Food Policy and Sustainability Leadership at ASU, Angel is the academic and extension initiatives manager at the Center for Environmental Farming Systems (CEFS) at NC State University where she champions sustainable ag education and career development across North Carolina.
Ten years ago, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and sank in the Gulf of Mexico, triggering the largest marine oil spill in history. Marcia McNutt was the director of the US Geological Survey at the time. She led the agency’s response efforts and helped bring the disaster to an end. Now the president of the National Academy of Sciences, she is again leading the response to a major catastrophe—this time to the coronavirus pandemic.
Her experience with the Deepwater Horizon spill informs her thinking on the special role of science in a crisis. As she writes in a new article for Issues in Science and Technology, delivering actionable, strategic, and irreplaceable science will help the research enterprise confront COVID-19. Employing this kind of science will not only assist in developing a vaccine and therapies, but support a stronger and more resilient nation and world.
Tyler DesRoches, an assistant professor in the School of Sustainability and the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies at Arizona State University, was recently elected president of the International Network for Economic Method (INEM), the largest professional organization for philosophy and methodology of economics in the world.
DesRoches, who is also a project director in philosophy of economics at the Center for the Study of Economic Liberty, said he is one of a few philosophers and methodologists of economics working on sustainability issues.
“My own research has focused on the social-scientific approach to modeling sustainable development, human well-being in economics, the normative foundations of behavioral welfare economics, and the concept of ‘natural capital’ in ecological economics,” he said.
As president of INEM, DesRoches aims to “improve INEM’s constitution, grow the membership and host a top-notch conference at ASU during the fall of 2021.”
Survivor Link, a team of Arizona State University educators, students, faculty and community members who work to promote healthy relationships and provide domestic violence interventions, will receive the 2020 President’s Medal for Social Embeddedness.
This webinar, titled “A Global Strategy for Preventing the Next Pandemic,” took place on June 11, 2020 and was co-sponsored by the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes. A recording of the webinar is available here.
A new paper in the Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences is the result of Fulbright Scholar Paul Bolger's work at Arizona State University, Cornell University and Columbia University. Bolger was hosted in 2019 by sustainability scientist Rob Melnick.
This blog post was written by Arizona State University graduate student Liz Broussard. In addition to studying Food Policy and Sustainability Leadership at ASU, Liz serves as a project coordinator at the National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT), where she supports the Mississippi Food Justice Collaborative, a network of organizations working to improve access to healthy food and transform Mississippi food systems.
Sustainability scientist Ted Pavlic shares: In this incubator, we want to foster interdisciplinary conversation and ideation that culminate in research proposals that re-frame poverty as an innovation problem. Poverty is statistically defined as a shortage of income, whether on absolute or relative measures. The modern welfare state comprises programs of social insurance, income subsidies, and in-kind transfers of goods and services that were largely developed and have been managed in the context of addressing perceived market failures in the distribution of income.
The conventional welfare state solution to poverty has thus been a combination of redistribution and regulation aimed at redressing inefficiencies or inequalities, or a combination thereof. But what if poverty is thought of more as a symptom of an innovation problem — a problem of finding ways to better use knowledge, promote coordination, and foster exchange that helps those with low incomes more quickly find pathways to flourish? Can we imagine an innovation commons that can promote social and economic innovations to fuel human betterment and make poverty a temporary condition rather than a lifelong dependency? Our goal is to promote an interdisciplinary conversation that elicits research and development to radically change our approach to addressing poverty.
Elisamaria Torres is a 2019 WE Empower finalist and the founder of Froggin English for Kids, the first Mexican franchise focused on teaching English as a Second Language to children ages three to 12. The mission of Froggin is to help its students excel in opportunities where English is a necessary tool. It provides innovative learning programs for students to have meaningful engagement with a new language.
As the novel coronavirus created urgent demand for personal protective equipment, a major hospital chain in Phoenix was seeking a solution that would allow hospital staff to sanitize masks themselves, rather than sending their masks off site for disinfection and possibly getting other people’s masks in return.
According to sustainability scientist Paul Westerhoff, “It’s potentially a life-and-death issue in the context of viruses because once an N95 mask is fit to someone’s face, it may not form a proper seal on anyone else’s face.”
In a June 12 statement, ASU president Michael Crow announced that, effective immediately at ASU, face coverings will be required for all employees, students and visitors while in buildings. Face coverings will also be required in outdoor community spaces where social distancing isn’t possible. Examples of outdoor community spaces include garages and parking lots, ASU shuttles, bicycle racks and sidewalks.
Sustainability scholar James Hodge is director of the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law’s Center for Public Health Law and Policy. Hodge's expertise in public health law, emergency legal preparedness, global health law, ethics and human rights has attracted more than 500 inquiries from policymakers, health industry leaders, public health practitioners and nonprofits seeking guidance on public health law and policy issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The center operates the Western Region Office of the Network for Public Health Law, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which has addressed every imaginable issue related to COVID-19 law and policy concerns through federal and state officials, doctors, hospitals and others.
"All of our efforts are driven by our consummate goal of using law and policy as positive tools for intervention to prevent excess morbidity and mortality related to the pandemic," says Hodge.
In this new Q and A with ASU Now, Hodge addresses legal and policy issues related to COVID-19.