In April, Senior Sustainability Scholar Amanda Ellis was one of two keynote speakers, along with Master Navigator Larry Raigetal, for the 10th University of Guam Regional Conference on Island Sustainability. Ellis works with the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University as the executive director of Hawaii and Asia Pacific and director of strategic partnerships.

During her presentation, Ellis discussed how the University of Guam (UOG) Center of Island Sustainability's proposed Guam Green Growth initiative — modeled after Hawaii Green Growth (for which Ellis is a board member) — could bring great opportunities in sustainable development for the island region. After the conference, Ellis said that UOG showed interest in working with experts in the ASU Wrigley Institute, particularly from the fields of renewable energy, microgrids and biochar, to further the Guam Green Growth initiative.

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Protecting the planet isn’t easy. Proposed solutions are as bountiful and diverse as the problems they seek to address, ranging from expensive technological solutions like CO2 capture to small, behavioral changes like eating less meat.

As the largest public university in the country, Arizona State University is not short on ideas – but recognizes the need for collaboration to drive new research and innovation.

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A new signature event for Earth Month, Carbon Free Day on April 17, encourages the Arizona State University community to make small changes that can add up to make a big difference in the fight against climate change.

On Carbon Free day, ASU will be purchasing carbon offsets and planting 218 trees to mitigate the university’s emissions for the day. University Sustainability Practices is asking students, staff, faculty and the wider ASU community to join the commitment by making a pledge to reduce carbon emissions. Pledges run the gamut from transportation to food to energy, or participants can create their own.

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Senior Sustainability Scientist Zachary Holman’s research spanning the full spectrum of solar cell technologies has made him shine as a leader in the photovoltaics community.

The assistant professor of electrical engineering in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University recently was recognized with the 2019 IEEE Stuart R. Wenham Young Professional Award for significant contributions to photovoltaic energy conversion science and technology. This award is given annually by the photovoltaic section of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

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The U.S.-Mexico border is a complicated mosaic of unpredictable policies and shifting economic tides. A patchwork of man-made and natural barriers spanning four U.S. states and almost 2,000 miles, the stretch is usually defined by the things it separates.

But at the Arizona-Sonora Colloquium, academics aimed to challenge that notion by reconnecting the area’s historic ties and forging a more sustainable future for both lands.

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School of Sustainability alumna Haley Paul, who now works as a policy manager for Audubon Arizona, talked on Arizona PBS about the organization’s new report detailing the value of waterways to Arizona's economy. According to the report, water-based recreational activities in Arizona bring $13.5 billion to the economy and create 114,000 jobs.

The report aimed to establish a baseline of information and show how important water-based recreation is as an industry in Arizona.

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Senior Sustainability Scientist Jianguo Wu, a professor at Arizona State University in the School of Sustainability and School of Life Sciences, was elected an Ecological Society of America (ESA) 2019 Fellow. According to ESA’s announcement, Wu’s most notable work is in “landscape ecology, urban ecology, and sustainability science, particularly in the areas of hierarchical patch dynamics, spatial scaling, habitat fragmentation and biodiversity, ecological impacts of urbanization, and landscape sustainability.”

Wu regularly teaches ASU classes about landscape ecology and sustainability science. He has written at least 14 books and 295 research papers. Among his many activities and accolades, Wu has been the editor-in-chief for the journal Landscape Ecology since 2005. He is also an affiliated faculty of the Center for Biodiversity Outcomes at ASU.

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The ASU Conservation Innovation Lab is proud to present thesis defenses for three of its honor students.

CIL is a partner initiative of the ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes.

CIL is formed by an interdisciplinary and collegial group of ecologists, mathematicians, economists, geographers and conservation scientists who share a motivation to do research that has impact in the real world.

Some of the ASU-Conservation International professors of practice serve as mentors to CIL students, taking active roles in their committees as part of the ASU-CI partnership.

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The ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes is currently hiring a postdoctoral research associate to conduct research on boundary organizations practice.

This research has an application to multi-stakeholder (including corporations, agencies and policy makers) collaboration, communication and decision-making.

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For most people, the thought of Greece may elicit images of sandy beaches and beautiful buildings cascading toward the shore, but for Senior Sustainability Scientist Matei Georgescu, Greece means the opportunity to expand his research into the effects urbanization has on climate. To help him accomplish this, Georgescu has been awarded the prestigious Fulbright Scholar Grant.

“A key objective of my Fulbright Award is focused on development of high-resolution data of climate output illustrating the magnitude of future extreme heat events for all of Greece,” said Georgescu, an associate professor in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning and affiliated faculty in Arizona State University's Center for Biodiversity Outcomes.

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ASU-Conservation International Professor of Practice David Hole, along with other conservation scientists, recently published a paper in Science Advances Magazine called “Evaluating the impacts of protected areas on human well-being across the developing world”.

Abstract:

Protected areas (PAs) are fundamental for biodiversity conservation, yet their impacts on nearby residents are contested. We synthesized environmental and socioeconomic conditions of >87,000 children in >60,000 households situated either near or far from >600 PAs within 34 developing countries.

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It was fantastic to participate in the recent 13th International Congress of the Orthopterists´ Society in Agadir, Morocco — the first to be held on the African continent. Around 250 members from around the world engaged in presentations and workshops surrounding the themes of integrated pest management, forecasting and monitoring, regional integration and collaboration, conservation, ecology, neurobiology and physiology, genomics, and taxonomy. Thank you to Professor Idrissi and the rest of the ICO organizers for their tremendous hard work to make ICO 2019 a major success!

We also had a great turnout and fruitful conversations at our GLI-hosted data management workshop at the conference. As part of the workshop, we asked our invited expert panel* what the most pressing challenges with regards to data management were, and what they saw as critical future directions to be implemented. Following this, GLI members commented and asked additional questions to the panel.

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Ashley Quay, who graduated from the School of Sustainability's Executive Master of Sustainability Leadership program in January 2019, was one of two winners of the Knowledge Impact Mobilization Awards presented by the Graduate College at Arizona State University. These awards recognize graduate students who are translating research into real-world impact.

Quay's project, “Positively Impactful,” is a social-media campaign and website that highlights changes people are making to be more sustainable. “The doom-and-gloom approach is leaving people disheartened, overwhelmed and stagnant to change,” Quay said, so she used what she learned during her studies to take a more positive, inspirational approach.

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 Chris Wharton, assistant dean of innovation and strategic initiatives at ASU's College of Health Solutions.

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Senior Sustainability Scientist Paul Coseo, an assistant professor in The Design School, Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, was awarded 2019 Educator of the Year by the Arizona chapter of American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA). As a licensed landscape architect, Coseo integrates into his work and teachings sustainable design that is adapted to local ecosystems. Coseo has been a professor at Arizona State University for five years.

A new segment of “Catalyst” by Arizona PBS features three Senior Sustainability Scientists in the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability: Jenni Vanos, Nancy Selover and Ariane Middel. The segment covers the recurring tragedy of children dying in hot cars after parents experience a “cognitive failure” that causes them to forget their children are still in the car — and the research being done to prevent this from happening.

View the story, which was released April 3, online through Arizona PBS.

John “Marty” Anderies is a senior sustainability scientist in the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability and a professor and graduate director in the School of Sustainability. He is one of the authors of a new research paper titled “Empathy, place and identity interactions for sustainability.”

“[H]ere we posited that empathy can promote sustainability when individuals have empathic relations with the consequences of environmental harm, when they have inclusive identities beyond their locality, and when empathy promotes collective responses,” the authors stated. Besides Anderies, there were nine other researchers involved from the University of Exeter, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, and the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development.

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The Global KAITEKI Center officially kicked off on Wednesday, April 3, 2019 during a launch event at Arizona State University's Fulton Center. Below is a copy of the event's agenda, with links to two PowerPoint presentations made by Dr. George Stephanopoulos and Dr. Hideki Murayama.

The Global KAITEKI Center launch program

09:30 – 10:00 a.m. Coffee and continental breakfast

10:00 – 10:10 a.m. Welcome and introduction to The Global KAITEKI Center by Dr. George Stephanopoulos, Founding Director of the new Center

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Arizona State University researchers are set to receive a $3.6 million award from the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office to advance solar energy’s role in strengthening reliability and resiliency of the nation’s electricity grid.

The research project, which is funded by the Advanced Systems Integration for Solar Technologies (ASSIST) program, will focus on building enhanced grid models and control technologies for increasing the amount of renewable power operating in the distribution system.

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A Thought Leader Series Piece

By Nainoa Thompson

Note: Hawaiian master navigator Nainoa Thompson, president of the Polynesian Voyaging Society, gave a Wrigley Lecture in October 2018.

“Nainoa, you have no idea how beautiful your Island Earth is until you see it from space. But we are changing it. It’s going to change us. And we’re not prepared for the change.”

Conversations with one of my best friends and teachers, the late Hawaii-born astronaut Lacy Veach, would often end up this way. He would then say, “You can’t protect what you don’t understand, what you don’t care about.”

To understand the Earth, Lacy urged me to sail around the world on the Hōkūleʻa, a deep-sea voyaging canoe, as the ancient Polynesians did: using as wayfinding tools the stars, the winds, the waves and other cues from nature. No modern instruments. No GPS.

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