The 2020 Fulbright Scholar competition is now open, with applications due in September. Applications submitted during this year’s competition will be for research and/or teaching abroad to take place during 2021-2022 academic year.
If you are considering applying this year or in the future, you can learn more about the Fulbright Scholars program and strategies for applying. In a special workshop session hosted on April 15th and April 23rd, Karen Engler-Weber, ASU's Fulbright Liaison, will discuss different award options available for faculty, academics and administrators. Additionally, you'll learn about the application process, important strategies for applying and ASU resources available to support your Fulbright goals.
Recipients of the 2020 NAS Awards will be honored at a ceremony on Sunday, April 26th during the National Academy of Sciences’ 157th Annual Meeting. The Awards Ceremony will be webcast live, beginning at 1:30 p.m. Arizona time.
Among the winners is sustainability scientist Lindy Elkins-Tanton, who has been awarded the 2020 Arthur L. Day Prize and Lectureship. The Arthur L. Day Prize and Lectureship is awarded to a scientist making lasting contributions to the study of the physics of the Earth and whose lectures will provide solid, timely, and useful additions to the knowledge and literature in the field.
Many scientific sessions during the NAS Annual Meeting will be webcast live, from a book and author talk with Carl Zimmer on She Has Her Mother’s Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity to a COVID-19 Update with the National Academy of Medicine.
The coronavirus pandemic may have upended life as we know it, but there are a few things that haven’t changed, like the fact that it’s currently Earth Month at Arizona State University. To mark the occasion, Siobhan Lyon and Emmery Ledin, two members on the sustainability committee of the ASU staff council created the Earth Month Learning Series, a sequence of online discussions that are a part of ASU’s recognition of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day.
While the media and the public are focusing on the wildlife trade as the main factor for COVID-19, Gerber believes it is only one part of the equation. In this publication, she explains how environmental degradation has contributed to the transition of disease from animals to humans.
A unique carbon-capture machine developed by Klaus Lackner, an Arizona State University professor and the founding director of the Center for Negative Carbon Emissions, has moved into the next stage of development.
In April 2019, ASU and Silicon Kingdom Holdings, a Dublin-based startup, entered into a partnership to deploy Lackner’s carbon-capture technology at scale. Recently, SKH gave ASU its first two months of payments and will continue to pay ASU $125,000 per month for three years to conduct research in the field of direct air capture.
Experts are in agreement that one of the most effective ways to combat climate change is through an overhaul of our food system. Arizona State University chemistry instructor Zhihao Chen is working to take us one step closer to that reality.
How? Chen has created an innovative way of growing food called “cleantech.” A system that can work anywhere, cleantech is contained in two standard shipping containers. The first container is used to break down food waste, relying on a process called anaerobic digestion where certain bacteria under specific conditions break down the carbon chain in food waste, transforming it into fertilizer and methane. This container can process the same amount of waste an average grocery store discards each day.
Dear Members of the Global Futures Laboratory and Sustainability Scientists, Scholars and Fellows,
During several conversations over the past few weeks, we’ve heard comments about the terminology being used to safely distance people during the COVID-19 event we are presently experiencing. Most recently, we see the conversation shifting from practicing social distancing to practicing physical distancing while staying socially and emotionally connected and supported.
While social distancing and physical distancing are being used to stress the importance of controlling the spread of the corona virus by keeping appropriate space between individuals, we are recognizing the importance of social and emotional connectivity in these challenging times. No matter which terminology is used, it is important to follow the guidelines associated with social distancing, i.e. staying at least 6 feet away from other people. At the same time, it is also important to find ways to stay in touch with family and friends through the technology that, for example, social media offer.
Led by his passion about sustainable change in the sports industry, Master of Sustainability Solutions student Brian Boyle decided to create a sustainable event guidebook for USA Triathlon events. The project focuses on providing resources, capacities, and strategies to manage and mitigate the overall sustainability footprint of USA Triathlon (USAT) events with an emphasis on outcomes and behaviors that adhere to sustainability principles.
COVID-19 is not the end of the world, and that’s what we should be telling our children, say Denise Bodman and Bethany Van Vleet, two Arizona State University lecturers with the T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics.
In fact, they say, not only can our children learn resilience from this crisis, but they can pass on these strengths to the next generation. Facing challenges – and boredom – can help children learn, grow and make new connections.
A key aspect of parenting is realistic expectations, not only of our children, but of what is possible and achievable for the parent. Striving for “good enough” as a baseline can reduce our stress and sense of failure, which can actually improve our parenting and connections.
This message was distributed by Dave White on Monday, April 6, on behalf of Ann Marie Hess, Capture Manager, Global Futures Laboratory, with COVID-19 research updates and resources.
Hello: I am writing to you with the purpose of sharing a few resources that ASU has put together regarding our response to the emerging challenges to our society. This is to offer ways to connect and share/generate both ideas and resources. ASU’s colleges/schools/units are already active with resources and intellectual capacity. Knowledge Enterprise is working to connect these activities across the university, with the goal of offering a method of communication.
They have created a Google Form that will be active through the life of the crisis. They will do a monthly data pull with everyone’s information. Please complete this form. In addition, there has been a Slack channel created: http://covid19-research.slack.com/. This channel offers you the ability to connect with current working groups with specific topics. These working groups will be self-guided and will not be managed by anyone other than the working group teams.
This article was written by William H. Walker VI, a sophomore in the School of Sustainability. Edited December 2, 2020 by Alana Burnham.
From left to right: Team members Fatou Bintou Sarr, Sidikarou Badiane, Braedon Kantola, and Alana Burnham pose with a CFSA participant at a sabar or drum circle in Boulel, Senegal.
Imagine you are in rural Senegal, working on a farm. It's your livelihood, your culture, and a part of your well-being. You grow millet, peanuts, maybe even some tomatoes or eggplant. You do all you can to take care of your farm and your family. Yet, there is cause for concern: locusts and grasshoppers. One day, your field is suddenly overtaken by a swarm. You call your government’s USDA equivalent, but by the time agents arrive to spray pesticides, your harvest is all gone. How can you prevent this? What can be done to empower farmers? One way is by teaching them to identify and monitor pest species, so that they can inform authorities early on and outbreaks can easily be controlled. That’s what a team at Global Locust Initiative is working on, as a part of their larger project Communities for Sustainable Agriculture (CFSA) funded by the United States Agency for International Development’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance. Collaborating with the Senegalese Plant Protection Directorate (Direction de la Protection des Végétaux or DPV), locust experts in Senegal and France, and Senegalese community members, the team created a booklet on identification of locally relevant locust and grasshopper species. Master of Sustainability Solutions (MSUS) student Braedon Kantola assisted this team as a part of his culminating experience—which brought him all the way to Senegal.
In February 2020, Kantola accompanied booklet-lead and outreach specialist Alana Burnham to communities in central Senegal, where the team workshopped symbols and illustrations developed for the identification booklet. Along with local locust experts Sidikarou Badiane, Alioune Beye, and Fatou Bintou Sarr, they met with 100 farmers to gather feedback.
Entomologist Fatou Bintou Sarr presents the first edition of the identification booklet to CFSA participants in Nganda, Senegal.
The finished identification booklet covers several topics: a general background on locust and grasshopper anatomy; species identification information such as markings, habitat, and diet; and contact information for local DPV agents. Written in French and Wolof, Senegal’s predominant local language, the booklet includes illustrations developed by Kara Brooks, a graduate student at the Herberger Institute for the Design and the Arts. This resource will complement a previous booklet on monitoring techniques, which is now available on GLI’s website.
A CFSA participant in Nganda, Senegal, reads a finished booklet on locust management. Participants in Nganda helped provide feedback on the booklets during the revision process.
During his time in Senegal, Kantola visited several rural communities, picked up a few phrases of Wolof, and even participated in a few Senegalese sabar or drum circles. Says Kantola, “having worked on this project has opened my eyes to so many experiences and learning opportunities.”
The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) has announced a grant to the Arizona State University interdisciplinary project “Apocalyptic Narratives and Climate Change: Religion, Journalism, and the Challenge of Public Engagement.”
This article was co-written by William Walker VI, a sophomore in the School of Sustainability and Paul Prosser, Project Partner Liaison at the School of Sustainability.
All students in Arizona State University’s Master of Sustainability Solutions (MSUS) program are required to design and execute a culminating experience project, with the goal being to partner with a community to confront a current sustainability issue. For their project, students Maryam Abdul Rashid, Skyliana Dosier, and Omar Sanchez are creating awareness about student homelessness, breaking down the corresponding stigmas, and improving access to services for homeless students in partnership with ASU’s Dean of Students office. The project explores the three fronts where homeless students experience the most insecurity: housing, health, and food.
Campus Student Sustainability Initiatives (CSSI) is a student project-oriented club on campus where students engage in sustainability projects. They recently participated in the M3F festival where they helped implement sustainability practices applicable to the music industry. Read more about what they did from their President Casey Rapacki in her Q&A.
In the latest thought leader piece from the Global Futures Laboratory, "COVID-19: The Ultimate Stress Test for Our Global Futures," 21 co-authors from across disciplines at Arizona State University explore how COVID-19 is shaking our societal foundations and revealing how vulnerable our systems are to shocks — even though we've long had evidence that something like this could happen. The authors discuss what this pandemic means for society, make connections to the way we as a global population are handling climate change, and outline opportunities for optimal future responses.
CSPO, ASU's Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes, edits Issues in Science and Technology , a science policy journal published in collaboration with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Issues is launching a newsletter, and you can sign up on the journal's homepage at issues.org.
The website's homepage also features articles on the COVID-19 pandemic, including an article by sustainability scientist Dan Sarewitz on the lesson to be learned from coronavirus on the appropriate role of science in helping to guide us toward a better future.
The global pandemic has made digital technology in education more important than it ever has been before. In an April 8 USAID Digi-Know Webinar, sustainability scientists Mary Jane Paramentier and Faheem Hussain will present recent developments in education delivery using digital technologies and the emergence of artificial intelligence in education. They will also highlight the development of an independent, solar-powered, and educational library that provides localized educational content to resource-constrained locations around the world.
If you are interested in learning more about innovative digital initiatives transforming education in underserved and under-resourced areas of the world, or wondering how digital education might be relevant to your work, Register Now for this Zoom webinar.
On Tuesday, April 7, ASU will host one of 52 simultaneous state-by-state webinars as part of a virtual teach-in on climate solutions and justice presented by the Bard Center for Environmental Policy. Sustainability scientist Jennifer Richter will moderate a two-part conversation, first with Patrick Graham of The Nature Conservancy, Hank Courtwright of Salt River Project, and Gary Dirks of ASU; then with youth voices Brian Mecinas and Perla Sanchez of Arizona Youth Climate Strike, and ASU senior Sarah Lucia Barbey representing Local to Global Justice.
The Solve Climate event features webinars with varying start times by state. Faculty and teaching instructors are encouraged to make a class about climate by assigning students to watch their state's webinar, then discuss it in the next class. Solve Climate offers teaching guides for discussion. International universities are welcome to participate.
According to the United Nations, the year 2050 could see more than 5 billion people suffer water shortages as a result of climate change, increased demand and polluted supplies. This forecast means that now more than ever, it’s important to create new ways of obtaining sustainable drinking water. One person working to make that a reality is Arizona State University professor Cody Friesen.
Arianne Cease and Ariane Middel, two senior sustainability scientists in the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability, recently received the prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER award. The award is given to the country’s most promising young faculty and it provides them with funding for five years to pursue outstanding research.
The 2020 Fulbright Scholar competition is now open, with applications due in September. Applications submitted during this year’s competition will be for research and/or teaching abroad to take place during 2021-2022 academic year.
