Being elected to the National Academy of Sciences is one of the highest honors for a scientist, and it also means that members are qualified to inform the president and Congress about issues related to their expertise. Two Arizona State University sustainability scientists, Nancy Grimm and James Elser, can now add that accolade to their already celebrated resumes.

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is an honorific society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research dedicated to the advancement of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare of society. The academy announced Tuesday the election of 100 new members and 25 foreign associates in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.

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Arizona State University and Northern Arizona University scientists have teamed up to map the food, energy and water supply chains for every community in America in a new project called FEWSION.

This kind of data collection is critical to understanding the complex interactions and real-world dynamics of food systems that we here at the Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems strive to unpack for policymakers.

Read the full article on ASU Now to learn about the potential far-reaching impacts of this project.

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. See the rest of the series on our Food Systems Profiles page.

Read on for an interview with Peter Byck, professor of practice in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications.

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Arizona State University and Silicon Kingdom Holdings (SKH) have announced an agreement to deploy carbon-capture technology developed by Professor Klaus Lackner, director of ASU’s Center for Negative Carbon Emissions.

The proprietary technology acts like a tree that is thousands of times more efficient at removing CO2 from the air. The “mechanical trees” allow the captured gas to be sequestered or sold for re-use in a variety of applications, such as synthetic fuels, enhanced oil recovery or in food, beverage and agriculture industries.

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Arizona State University President’s Professor Ariel Anbar has been selected to receive the 2019 Science Innovation Award from the European Association of Geochemistry (EAG). This award recognizes scientists who have recently made a particularly important and innovative breakthrough in geochemistry.

Anbar is a scientist and educator interested in Earth’s past and future as an inhabited world and the prospects for life beyond it. He is on the faculty of the School of Earth and Space Exploration and the School of Molecular Sciences and is a Distinguished Sustainability Scholar in ASU’s Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability. Anbar also directs ASU’s Center for Education Through Exploration, which is reinventing digital learning around curiosity, exploration and discovery.

School of Sustainability junior Jade Lantz has been on our radar a lot lately. Last week, she presented about the benefits of community gardens in Phoenix from an environmental justice perspective, based on research she conducted through the Sustainability Undergraduate Research Experience program. In addition, her hometown newspaper, the Rockford Register Star, recently published her op-ed about food deserts: “My View: The solution to supermarket shutdowns may be in the schools.” In the essay, Lantz wrote that community gardens in schools can ensure that children still have access to healthy, fresh foods even if they live in a food desert.

We asked Lantz a few questions including why she decided to study sustainability and what sustainability means to her.

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Sophia Yvonne Vitale is days away from graduating with her Master of Sustainability Leadership from Arizona State University’s School of Sustainability. She said her inspiration to study sustainability came from a spiritual awakening in which she realized that all of her actions have impacts, and she wanted to do more to change the world.

Despite family tragedies occurring during her studies, Vitale was able to stay on track with her degree and learn a lot through her classes, school mentors, classmates and capstone project — a sustainability consulting project working with businesses. Read more about Vitale’s journey in her Q&A.

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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. See the rest of the series on our Food Systems Profiles page.

Read on for an interview with Joshua Abbott, associate professor in the  School of Sustainability.

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This year, the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University celebrated Earth Day in a new way. Around the clock on April 22, the School of Sustainability's Facebook broadcasted a documentary series highlighting projects and people who are making an impact for a sustainable tomorrow. The successful “24 Hours of Sustainability” broadcast — presented by Wells Fargo and powered by ASU — reached more than 1.7 million Facebook users in 45 countries.

Each short video highlighted a sustainability story in one of five categories: sustainability leaders, students making a difference, conservation leaders at work, teachers inspiring action, and eco-heroes making an impact. Viewers could tune in at any time throughout the day to learn something new about sustainability.

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ASU-Conservation International Postdoctoral Research Associate Krista Kemppinen, was recently interviewed by KJZZ News, Phoenix's NPR member station, about an article published in Science journal titled “Rewilding complex ecosystems.”

The practice of rewilding is an approach in the restoration of human-altered landscapes that seeks to promote self-sustaining ecosystems with minimal human intervention. In the context of the current extinction crisis, both the protection of wild landscapes and their restoration are urgently needed.

Click here to listen to the radio story.

The ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes is excited to announce a new full-time postdoctoral research fellowship to be housed in the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa in Honolulu, Hawai‘i.

This position is funded by a joint Belmont Forum Collaborative Research grant secured in partnership with Arizona State University, Conservation International, the University of Hawai‘i and a dozen international research institutions involved in an ambitious ocean futures initiative that seeks to assess coral reef ecosystem services in the Anthropocene.

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As School of Sustainability sophomore Nadene Hubbard knows from personal experience, access to clean and safe water (or the lack thereof) is a prevalent issue on the Navajo Nation. Like more than one-third of Navajo Nation residents, Hubbard grew up without running water, and now she aims to use her sustainability degree and subsequent master’s degree in hydrology to “fix water quality and quantity issues on Native American reservations throughout the United States — starting with mine.”

Hubbard, who is also pursuing an American Indian Studies minor from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, said she originally started off at Arizona State University as an engineering student but realized sustainability was her true passion.

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On March 27, Alice Waters — famed chef, author and founder/owner of Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, California — visited Arizona State University to deliver the year's first Wrigley Lecture, called "We Are What We Eat: Teaching Slow Food Values in a Fast Food Culture." In the lecture, Waters discussed the dangers of fast food culture and presented slow food values as the antidote.

Waters said that fast food is more than about just food — it's about values. A fast food culture, she said, encourages the insidious values of uniformity, speed, availability, cheapness, (meaningless) standards and dishonesty. On the other hand, a slow food culture fosters sustainability, seasonality, interconnectedness, responsibility, generosity and community.

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On April 25, the WE Empower UN SDG Challenge held its first Changemaker Series event at the Arizona State University Barbara Barrett and Sandra Day O'Connor Washington Center. This event celebrated Habiba Ali, the competition’s 2018 winner, who founded a Nigerian company called Sosai that brings renewable energy technologies to the most rural of users, improving access to clean, affordable energy and providing clean water and better health outcomes.

At a related event the evening before, Ali was awarded the 2019 Economic Empowerment Award through Vital Voices’ Global Leadership Awards Honoree Program. Vital Voices and ASU's Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability are lead partners of the WE Empower Challenge.

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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. See the rest of the series on our Food Systems Profiles page.

Read on for an interview with Hallie Eakin, professor in the School of Sustainability.

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As the world attempts to shift away from fossil fuel use, the need for alternative forms of energy is growing. But this transition does not come without major growing pains — especially in the politics surrounding the implementation of new technologies or energy policies. Hanna Breetz, an Arizona State University senior sustainability scientist and School of Sustainability assistant professor, studies the political economy of alternative energy and co-authored a journal article about the subject, "Politics in the U.S. energy transition: Case studies of solar, wind, biofuels and electric vehicles policy."

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Want to watch the Arizona State University School of Sustainability convocation from afar? It will be livestreamed on ASU Live 2. Tune in Thursday, May 9 2019 at 4:30 p.m. MST.

Did you know that 2019 is the United Nation’s International Year of Indigenous Languages?

Recognizing the importance of spreading indigenous culture and knowledge worldwide, the ASU School of Sustainability is excited to offer a unique three-credit class in fall 2019 aimed at exploring indigenous sustainability solutions via the Sustainability Field School model.

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Daryn Lee Lieberman is an Arizona State University online student pursuing a bachelor’s degree from the School of Sustainability. Recently, Lieberman presented a vertical garden project for elementary schools at ASU’s inaugural Change the World event (more on that project in the Q&A below), so we decided to ask him some questions to get to know more about him and his work.

Lieberman, a junior, describes himself as a “reconnecting indigenous student” and said that when he lived in San Antonio — where he started his undergraduate studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio — he organized a large march downtown in opposition of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Standing up for indigenous rights is important to him, and he said he’s in the process of starting a nonprofit that will “assist with sustainable development in indigenous communities — specifically to increase their sovereignty, visibility and ecosystem/community health.”

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