2. 1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Tim Filley and Indrajeet Chaubey analyzing stream water at the Throckmorton Purdue Agricultural CenterTim Filley and Indrajeet Chaubey analyzing stream water at the Throckmorton Purdue Agricultural Center
3. Purdue University is a vast laboratory for discovery. The university is known not only for science,
technology, engineering, math and agriculture programs, but also for our imagination, ingenuity, and
innovation. It’s a place where those who seek an education come to make their ideas real — especially
when those transformative discoveries lead to scientific, technological, social, or humanitarian impact.
Providing food, water, energy and other human needs to the world’s entire population
without harming the environment is a formidable task. Through Purdue’s Global
Sustainability Institute (GSI), the Center for the Environment, Purdue Climate Change
Research Center, Energy Center, Purdue Water Community and the Center for Global
Food Security connect existing expertise at Purdue with a pressing global issue and
form the core of the institute.
ABOUT PURDUE GLOBAL SUSTAINABILITY INSTITUTE
CENTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT
The Center for the
Environment (C4E) serves to
better connect faculty and
students across departments
and disciplines, strengthen
support for innovative
projects, and increase the
impact of Purdue’s work on
important environmental
issues. Located in Discovery
Park’s Mann Hall, we work
closely with campus faculty
to integrate interdisciplinary
environmental education
and training with research.
The C4E also promotes
campus sustainability
activities in partnership with
Purdue’s Office of University
Sustainability.
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4. LETTER FROM THE
DIRECTOR
On behalf of the Purdue Center for the
Environment faculty, students, and staff, I
am pleased to present this report on our
many activities in the past year. 2014 was
an important year for the center for many
reasons. More than thirty faculty and students
interested in environmental research,
learning, and engagement participated in a
year-long process of renewing the center’s
strategic vision, establishing new cross-
cutting focus areas for our work, as well as an
updated set of strategies by which the center
can help our community make progress in
those areas.
This new strategic vision for the center is
presented in this annual report: a vision that
stresses the importance of human health and
well being as well as protecting threatened
ecosystems, and an increased focus on all
aspects of human decision making that relate
to many major environmental challenges. I
expect this new vision will help shape the
future direction of the center for years to
come, and thank the many individuals who
contributed their time to producing such an
energizing set of new ideas.
Closely linked to this new strategic vision is
the center’s leadership of an exciting new set
of interdisciplinary hires around the theme
of“building sustainable communities.”In
2013-14, participating departments made
successful offers to new faculty in political
science, philosophy, and industrial engineering,
bringing the total faculty now hired within this
cluster to four. We are very excited to welcome
these new colleagues working on topics directly
related to the center’s new strategic vision, including
environmental decision making, environmental
justice, and managing and projecting complex
environmental risks from natural disasters. The
center will serve as a primary interdisciplinary home
for these new faculty members as they begin to
collaborate with existing faculty on campus working
on these environmental challenges.
The center’s faculty also submitted more than $11M
in external grants to address pressing environmental
challenges, a dramatic increase from last year’s
totals. We are also pleased to see more of these
proposals achieving success across a broad range
of topics, including interdisciplinary investigations
of the effects of global change on indigenous
communities in the Arctic, of threats to“critical
zones”of soil in the agricultural Midwest, and of
our ability to remediate new chemicals of concerns
such as perflourinated compounds found in many
hazardous waste sites. It is also exciting to see
new work by faculty in the area of environmental
education, including a major NSF-funded project led
by Bryan Pijanowski and collaborators that will
preserve, archive, and present a wide range
of natural and anthropogenic“soundscapes”
to help educate and inspire young people
about environmental conservation issues. It is
especially exciting to note that the soundscape
project emerged from an earlier C4E seed grant.
54
Our Discovery Park Research Fellow from Civil
Engineering, Prof. Satish Ukkusuri, also led several
interdisciplinary research proposals in line with the
center’s new strategic vision in addition to helping
lead the sustainable communities cluster hire.
The center also continues to emphasize outreach
and education efforts, including organizing an
international workshop on environmental justice
held at Purdue in April 2014, as well as generating
policy briefs related to an earlier event on the
latest research to address the problem of nutrient
management. Finally, it is exciting to see the center
begin to support more undergraduates in our
mission, including funding several undergraduate
research assistants on environmental research
projects in 2014.
In short, the C4E took several important steps
toward sharpening its strategic focus and increasing
campus efforts to address critical environmental
challenges. I look forward to additional progress
in many of these areas in the coming year as
our community continues to grow and our
interdisciplinary relationships continue to deepen
across new boundaries to address important new
challenges.
Leigh Raymond
Professor of Political Science
Center for the Environment Director
lraymond@purdue.edu
Leigh Raymond
5. MISSION
The mission of the Discovery Park Center for the Environment is to catalyze, support, and promote proactive, interdisciplinary work at Purdue
addressing important environmental challenges.
OVERVIEW
Building on Purdue’s existing and emerging strengths, the Center for the Environment will focus on supporting efforts to address three
overlapping aspects of the environmental challenges facing the world today: challenges to ecosystem functioning, environmental challenges to
community health and well-being, and environmental decision-making and behavior. By emphasizing the deep connection between human
society and the ecosystems that support us, the center seeks more promising solutions to environmental challenges than those that focus
exclusively on technical or scientific fixes, or on social, political, or economic considerations in isolation.
STRATEGIC VISION 2014
In 2013, the center invited faculty and students to participate in an inclusive discussion to update and revise the center’s strategic vision and
mission. After more than eight months of work, including two large meetings and multiple smaller working group discussions, the new C4E
strategic vision was completed. The center will use this vision to guide its activities and priorities in the next five years, and to communicate the
community’s research, teaching, and engagement priorities to interested audiences inside and outside Purdue.
Challenges to
ecosystem
functioning
Environmental
decision-making
and behavior
Environmental
challenges to
health and
well-being
76
Linda Lee and Lilan Zhang, Visiting Ph.D. scholar from Beijing Normal University
6. 98
The Center for the Environment promotes interdisciplinary, problem-driven work related to major environmental challenges through all three
parts of the university’s mission: research, learning, and engagement.
Environmental Research: we organize and support workshops to explore and develop new research initiatives; identify funding opportunities in
priority areas; provide strategic and conceptual support for investigators in drafting proposals and finding interdisciplinary collaborators; and host
events for environmental researchers to network and build community.
Environmental Learning: we support integration of undergraduate students into research teams; promote and sponsor interdisciplinary
undergraduate and graduate environmental classes; include students in organizing the center’s efforts; and support programs that enhance and
promote K-12 environmental education.
Environmental Engagement: we develop issue and research briefs and communications; organize on and off-campus policy workshops and
stakeholder events; and collaborate with campus partners to improve environmental quality and reduce environmental impacts on campus.
FOCUS AREAS OUR APPROACH
CHALLENGES TO ECOSYSTEM
FUNCTIONING
Growing human demand for various
natural resources and our expanding
global footprint have increased
pressure on ecosystems ranging
from coral reefs to tropical forests to
Midwestern prairies. As a result, the
ability of these ecosystems to continue
to function effectively, and to provide
essential services such as nutrient
cycling, pollination, or clean air and
water, is at risk. In addition, rapid global
changes including population growth,
the expansion of the global economy,
and anthropogenic climate change
add to these growing pressures on
ecosystems. Work in this focus area
seeks to understand the natural and
anthropogenic drivers of ecological
change and how these can be reduced
or managed to best maintain vital
ecosystem functions.
ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGES
TO COMMUNITY HEALTH AND
WELL-BEING
Environmental change is putting many
communities at risk from both sudden
natural disasters such as storms and
heat waves as well as longer-term
stresses such as changing flooding
patterns or exposure to persistent,
bioacculmulative and toxic chemicals.
Rapid changes in population,
economic growth, globalization,
and climate change amplify these
risks. Work in this focus area seeks to
understand the causes of and identify
potential solutions for these threats to
community health and well-being in
general, paying particular attention to
the uneven distribution of these threats
among different groups in society.
ENVIRONMENTAL DECISION-
MAKING AND BEHAVIOR
To study environmental challenges
without considering the details of
human decision-making and behavior
is to overlook the central element
of any environmental system today.
Thus, the most effective efforts to
address environmental challenges
must consider the complexities of
human decision-making and social
change, including the role of economic
incentives, political institutions, cultural
and social influences, and values and
ethics in shaping those decisions. Work
in this focus area considers the role of
these diverse factors in both individual
and collective decision making
processes, on topics ranging from
the adoption of new environmental
technologies or behaviors to the
design and implementation of
formal and informal rules to address
environmental challenges.
Participants of the Dynamics of Climate conference discussing a professional development toolkit for climate science education
7. 1110
BUILDING SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES— FACULTY CLUSTER HIRE
Based on a successful proposal to the Office of the Provost in August 2012 organized by center director Leigh Raymond in
partnership with Engineering Professors Satish Ukkusuri and Suresh Rao, the cluster hire represents a major new investment by
Purdue related to the study and practice of building more resilient and sustainable communities through interdisciplinary work
on three areas in particular: informal institutions and decision making, critical infrastructure systems, and resilient (engineered and
ecological) systems. Together with faculty already working on related topics, seven planned new hires will create an opportunity
for collaborative research, teaching, and engagement programs that examine the complex connections across various human,
natural, and engineered systems. The Center for the Environment serves as the interdisciplinary hub for this research community,
coordinating the cluster hire process and supporting the growing research community, while participating departments in four
colleges serve as tenure homes for these new faculty.
SustainableNaturalResourcesSocialScience
(ForestryandNaturalResources)Hired2013
How do formal and informal institutions affect management
decisions for natural resources? What are the important
linkages between national, local, and international natural
resource management regimes and the sustainability and
resilience of various human communities? How do changes
in physical infrastructure affect sustainability of natural
resource management efforts at multiple scales, from the
local to the international?
NormEvolutionandHumanCooperation
(Philosophy)Hired2014
How do“prosocial”norms emerge and evolve over time,
and how do they give rise to cooperative behavior and
collective action? What makes a given configuration of
pro-environmental norms more or less resilient in the face of
external perturbation?
EnvironmentalJusticeandCommunity
Resilience (PoliticalScience)
Hired2014
Complex global networks have profound
and unequal effects on the sustainability
of poor and minority communities. How
can formal and informal institutions better
explain and prevent these challenges, making
such communities more resilient to these
pressures? How can political elites work
effectively with local communities on these
issues?
IntegratedSystemsAnalysis
(IndustrialEngineering/Political
Science)Hired2014
How do network structures and
interdependencies promote or threaten
system resilience and community
sustainability? How can the integration of
various approaches from systems analysis
help answer this question.
Community-BasedDevelopment
(Anthropology)Hiring2015
How are local communities affected by
and respond to new socio-economic and
infrastructure changes? How do they resist
forces threatening environmental and social
sustainability both within and outside their
community?
SocialDecision-MakingandSustainability
(Psychology)Hiring2015
How can we better understand decision-making and
behavior affecting resilience and sustainability. Specific
research topics of interest include judgment and decision-
making, attitudes, social cognition, norms, and ideology.
CoupledNatural-HumanSystemInteractions
(CivilEngineering/PoliticalScience)Hiring2015
How can we better understand the interactions between
built-environment and ecological networks, habitat
fragmentation issues caused by this interaction, and how
can we develop design guidelines that promote community
sustainability and resilience?
8. 1312
Assistant Professor, Sustainable Natural Resources Social Science, Department
of Forestry and Natural Resources (started Fall 2013)
Zhao Ma’s research focuses on understanding how individuals and institutions make decisions
with respect to natural resource management and conservation. Her current projects include
a study of smallholder farmer perception of and adaptation to climate change in semi-arid and
arid regions of China, an assessment of forest resilience and climate change adaptation among
forest agencies in the Intermountain West, a study of institutional adaptive water management
decision-making in the context of rapid environmental and social changes in the Wasatch
Front Metropolitan Area, an assessment of the dynamics of coupled human and large carnivore
systems in the western United States, and studies of non-industrial private forest management
and conservation policies in Indiana and beyond. Ma has a Bachelor’s of Engineering degree
from the University of Science and Technology in Beijing, China, a M.A. in Sustainable
International Development from Brandeis University, and a Ph.D. in Natural Resource Science
and Management from the University of Minnesota.
ZHAO MA
Assistant Professor, Environmental Justice and Community Resilience,
Department of Political Science (started Fall 2014)
Kimberly Suiseeya’s research interests include global environmental justice, rights and equity
in conservation, environment and development in Southeast Asia, and institutions for global
environmental governance. In her dissertation she examined the justice gap in global forest
governance. Using data gathered from the Convention on Biological Diversity negotiations and
the national and village levels in Lao PDR, she traces the effects of a justice meta-norm on the
justice experiences of forest-dependent communities. Prior to her doctoral studies, she was a
conservation and development practitioner for nearly a decade, including stints in the Peace
Corps, with the Sierra Club, and working as a Protected Areas Researcher and Management
Advisor for the Government of Lao PDR. Suiseeya holds a B.A. from Scripps College, an M.A. in
International Environmental Policy from the Monterey Institute of International Studies, and a
Ph.D. in Environmental Politics from Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment.
KIMBERLY R. MARION SUISEEYA
Assistant Professor, Norm Evolution and Human Cooperation for
Sustainability, Department of Philosophy (started Fall 2014)
Though his graduate training is in philosophy, Taylor Davis has focused his work on
foundational questions that arise at the boundaries of psychology and evolutionary
biology. This is reflected in his research on religion, which focuses as much on the role
of evolutionary theory in explaining psychology in general as it does on the evolution
of specific religious forms of cognition and behavior. Central to this work are questions
about the cultural evolution of social norms, and about the psychological capacities
involved in learning, following, and enforcing norms. In the context of the Building
Sustainable Communities Initiative, Prof. Davis intends to focus on questions about how
to direct normative motivations toward more sustainable ends by loosening the grip of
pernicious or unjust norms—those that exacerbate group conflict, for example, or are
oppressive to women—without disrupting the integrity of a community’s larger system
of norms. Prof. Davis holds a B.S. in Psychology from the University of Georgia, a M.A. in
Philosophy from Tufts, and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from The University of British Columbia.
TAYLOR DAVIS
Assistant Professor, Integrated Systems Analysis and Sustainability – Joint
appointment in the Departments of Industrial Engineering and Political
Science (starting Fall 2015)
David Johnson was the lead developer of the flood risk model used to assess the
impacts of a wide range of flood protection systems for Louisiana’s $50-billion 2012
Comprehensive Master Plan for a Sustainable Coast. He is currently the co-principal
investigator and technical lead of the Risk Assessment team for Louisiana’s 2017 plan
update. His work encompasses the development of new statistical methods for estimating
flood exceedance probabilities in protected areas like New Orleans, estimating the
probability and consequences of levee failures, calculating the damage associated with
storm events, and working to identify robust policies for nonstructural flood mitigation
measures. His other research has produced a model of greenhouse gas emissions from
the production of biomass for the National Energy Technology Laboratory. He also
works with California water agencies to build climate change and other uncertainties
into their long-range planning. Johnson holds a Ph.D. in Policy Analysis from the Pardee
RAND Graduate School, with concentrations in quantitative methods and economics.
He previously earned a B.S. in mathematics from North Carolina State University and a
MASt in mathematics from the University of Cambridge, where he was a Gates Cambridge
Scholar.
DAVID JOHNSON
MEET OUR NEW FACULTY
9. 1514
RESEARCH
NEW GRANTS
Gender, Environment and Change: Women’s Leadership and Strength in
Barrow, Alaska
PIs: Laura Zanotti, Anthropology; Courtney Carothers, University of Alaska, Fairbanks
Funding Agency: NSF
This collaborative environmental anthropology project hopes to provide a better understanding of the ways
in which Alaska Native communities are responding to global challenges while at the same time retaining
and practicing their core indigenous values in the face of many uncertainties. Project PIs, Laura Zanotti and
Courtney Carothers use a participatory and critical feminist framework to explore the gendered facets of
change and specifically focus on the ways in which women’s roles build resilience and community well-being.
It has long been recognized that women across the Arctic occupy multiple roles and contribute a vital part in
maintaining household and community well-being through their caretaking tasks, wage work, and defense of
their rights to a subsistence lifestyle.With a strong commitment to engaged social science and participatory
research, this project seeks to work with both women and men in Barrow, Alaska to better understand the
challenges women face, varied emergent opportunities for leadership, and future directions for community
resilience, strength, and health. In partnering with the community of Barrow, Zanotti and Carothers have
structured this project to be responsive to local needs and methodologies founded upon working alongside and
giving back to participants.
Critical Zone Observatory for Intensively Managed Landscapes (IML-CZO)
Purdue PIs: Timothy Filley and Indrajeet Chaubey, Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary
Sciences
Funding Agency: NSF
The landscape of the Upper Midwest is among the most altered in North America. After more than a century
of intensive plowing, erosion, and artificial drainage, the region’s rich soils have been transformed into
a patchwork of farm fields.This transformation has made the Midwestern states leaders in agricultural
production, but the intensity of change is responsible for unintended deterioration of our land and water
resources, particularly in the“critical zone”— the part of the Earth from the treetops into the bedrock
aquifers, including the Midwest’s layer of rich topsoil, where the atmosphere, biosphere and geosphere
interact to sustain life. Led by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, this project brings together
researchers from eight universities from many disciplines to holistically study the critical zone in intensively
managed landscapes as an interconnected system. Purdue PIsTimothy Filley and Indrajeet Chaubey will work
on integrating the fundamental biogeochemical and soil properties of these altered landscapes into process
models, across a wide range of spatial and temporal gradients. By understanding present day dynamics in the
context of long-term co-evolution of the landscape, soil, and biota, the project aims to support the assessment
of short- and long-term resilience of crucial ecological, hydrological and climatic services including freshwater
quality and quantity, provision for food, fiber and (bio)fuel, nutrient transformations, and terrestrial carbon
storage.
Defluorination of Perfluoroalkyl Acids
PIs: Linda Lee, Agronomy; Marisol Sepulveda, Forestry and Natural Resources; Larry Nies,
Civil Engineering
Funding Agency: NSF
Perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) have been widely used as commercial or industrial products, such as
lubricants, stain-resistant treatments, and flame retardants.The unique chemical characteristics of these
compounds make them especially useful in fire-fighting foams. Known as aqueous film-forming foams
(AFFFs), these materials are used to help extinguish difficult fires, such as petroleum fires. The use of AFFFs
at over 550 military training centers has resulted in repeated short-term releases of PFASs. Of the military
training sites recently surveyed, groundwater in nearby aquifers consistently contained two of the most
common PFASs, perfluorooctanoic sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), in concentrations
several orders of magnitude above the USEPA Provisional Health Advisory values. Due to their exceptional
stability, most conventional remediation techniques are not effective at destroying PFOA and PFOS in ambient
environments.This project will be the first to apply and evaluate the use of bimetal nano-Fe0 particles (e.g.,
Pd0/Fe0 synthesized and delivered in smectite clays or associated with graphene or carbon nanotubes) for
remediation of any perfluoroalkyl substance.
The Global Soundscapes! Big Data, Big Screens, Open Ears Project
PIs: Bryan Pijanowski, Forestry and Natural Resources; Daniel Shepardson, Curriculum and
Instruction and Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences.
Funding Agency: NSF
This project uses the new science of soundscape ecology to design a variety of informal science learning
experiences that engage participants through acoustic discovery. Soundscape ecology is an interdisciplinary
science that studies how humans relate to place through sound and how humans influence the environment
through the alteration of natural sound composition. The project includes: (1) an interface to the NSF-funded
Global Sustainable Soundscapes Network, which includes 12 universities around the world; (2) sound-based
learning experiences targeting middle-school students (grades 5-8), visually impaired and urban students,
and the general public; and (3) professional development for informal science educators. Educational
components that will be developed in this project include: the first interactive, sound-based digital theater
experience; hands-onYour Ecosystem Listening Labs (YELLS), a 1-2 day program for school classes and out-of
school groups; a soundscape database; and iListen, a virtual online portal for learning and discovery about
soundscapes. The project team includes Purdue-based researchers involved in soundscape and other ecological
research; Foxfire Interactive, an award-winning educational media company; science museum partners with
digital theaters; the National Audubon Society and its national network of field stations; and the Perkins School
for the Blind.
10. 1616 17
The Challenge
The world’s natural and urban landscapes are vast and immensely varied, ranging from desert ecosystems of the American Southwest to
megacities such as Shanghai and New York City, from Arctic tundra to the croplands of the Midwestern United States. While the imprint of
human activity on recent environmental changes is clear, fundamental questions about our land, water, and living resources remain unanswered,
including: How is the environment changing? Are the problems getting better or worse? Do the management choices we make have positive
outcomes? Are unexpected environmental challenges arising?
Initiative
Providing answers to these questions relies on our understanding of key characteristics of our environment,
including the combination of sounds present in our landscapes. For instance, by listening to“nature’s
music,”the rich but soft sounds of a desert remind us that these barren ecosystems are indeed
vibrant with life; life that depends on the health of the surrounding environment to persist.
The full range of sounds of our landscapes (soundscapes), however, includes more than
bioacoustics; it includes both the natural environment (e.g., animal vocalizations, the
sounds of weather) and the created environment (e.g., musical compositions, the sounds
of industrial technology).
By monitoring the condition and use of our environment through soundscapes, we can
offer a new perspective from which to gather information about the extent and pattern
of change across our varied built and natural environments. What is needed is a broadly
accepted, consistent, and well-tested soundscape monitoring protocol that can track
changes in our environment through time, and ultimately serve to better inform
decision-making.
Purdue’s Response
To address these needs, a team of ecologists, engineers, social scientists and musicians,
led by Purdue University, launched a new interdisciplinary science known as soundscape
ecology; a field of study motivated by concerns of preserving our natural soundscapes
and studying the impacts that humans have on ecosystems via disruption of natural
sounds.
Through a grant from the National Science Foundation, Bryan Pijanowski has led the
establishment of a Research Coordination Network (RCN), the Global Sustainable Soundscape
Network, to bring together ecologists (landscape ecologists and conservation biologists),
acoustic ecologists (from the creative arts) and acousticians and psychoacousticians (scientists
who study sound and how people perceive sound) to coordinate studies of diverse soundscapes
around the world. The RCN will connect activities across five soundscape monitoring sites where long-
term acoustic data have been and will be collected. The team will look to develop a common vocabulary,
long-term monitoring standards, and metadata standards for acoustic data for use by researchers,
practitioners, and other stakeholders to address scientific problems and decision-making needs.
The goal of this new effort is to gather and study the collection of all sounds produced at a particular location, from
those inherent to nature to those created by humans and to use this information to help understand (1) how humans relate to
place and (2) how humans influence the environment through the alteration of natural soundscapes. From a scientific standpoint, this whole-
ecosystem perspective is new. In the past, scientists and engineers have focused on single-species bioacoustical patterns and noise levels in
urban landscapes. Soundscape ecology takes a new, holistic approach to the study of sounds by focusing on the occurrence and interaction of
three major sound sources: biological (or biophony), geophysical (geophony) and sounds from humans (anthrophony). Such a fresh paradigm
reveals new ways to understand our environment and our impact on nature.
RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT: SOUNDSCAPES
The Challenge
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are one of the most commonly engineered nanomaterials. They are found in solar cells, batteries, wires, thermal
conductors, optical devices, and computer chips. CNTs already are used as bulk additives in many structural materials due to their unique
mechanical and electrical properties, and the production of large quantities of carbon nanotubes is expected to continue in the future. While
the benefits of carbon nanotubes are clear in applications requiring superior hardness and strength, the effects of these nanoparticles on
the environment is less clear. Some studies have compared the health risks of the release and subsequent inhalation of these particles to
the inhalation of coal dust or asbestos, and under certain conditions CNTs can enter human cells and cause cell death. Given the widespread
application of CNTs, the potential hazards of these materials to human health and the environment need to be better understood. The answers
to the seemingly simple questions such as,“how long will CNTs persist in the environment?”and“what processes will lead to their transformation
and/or mineralization in the environment?”are not yet known.
Purdue’s Response
Researchers Chad Jafvert, professor of civil engineering, Purdue; Tim Filley, professor of geochemistry, Purdue; and Howard Fairbrother,
professor of chemistry, Johns Hopkins University, are studying two of the most likely processes that have the potential to transform and/or
mineralize carbon nanotubes in the natural environment – photochemical and fungal mediated reactions. Previous and ongoing research by
the researchers has examined similar reactions involving another carbon-based nanomaterial, C-60 fullerenes. The team is working to identify
transformation products as well as reaction mechanisms for CNTs, including the effects of coupled photochemical-fungal exposures. Their work
is driven by two overarching hypotheses grounded in their prior work on C-60 fullerenes. First, that photochemical and fungal transformations
of CNTs will occur and proceed via oxidative processes with important consequences for their overall persistence in the environment, and
second, that the rate of these reactions will depend on CNT physicochemical properties and environmental conditions.
RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT: CARBON NANOTUBES IN THE ENVIRONMENT
Chad Jafvert
11. CATALYZING NEW RESEARCH COMMUNITIES
Environmental Justice and Equitable Access to Natural Resources
Environmental justice, or the issue of ensuring fair access to environmental decision making and resources for all groups in society,
is a critical issue. As part of the our new strategic vision, and our new“building sustainable communities”initiative, the Center for
the Environment (C4E) organized a two-day workshop on environmental justice on the Purdue campus on April 24-25, 2014. Co-
sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts’Center for Research on Diversity and Inclusion, the workshop featured keynote address
by Julian Agyeman of Tufts University on the topic of“Just Sustainabilities,”followed by a full day of presentations and discussions
in a smaller workshop setting. Important themes in the workshop included the role of gender in shaping access to important
environmental resources across societies, as well as different challenges and solutions to the just distribution of clean water and
sufficient food to all communities.
Members of the workshop organizing committee included faculty working at the intersection of environmental issues and issues
of race, class, and gender in the Departments of Anthropology, Sociology, and Political Science. Speakers included the following
scholars and activists:
Gender and Environmental Justice Panel
Rosemary Ahtuangaruak, Alaska Wilderness
Rebecca Hardin, University of Michigan
Sharlene Mollett, University of Toronto
Laura Zanotti, Purdue University
Environmental Justice and Access to Basic
Resources Panel
Fenda Akiwumi, University of South Florida
Leila Harris, University of British Columbia
Gerald Shively, Purdue University
More information on the workshop, including video of the two sessions, is available at:
http://www.purdue.edu/discoverypark/environment/workshop/
As part of the Center’s 2014 international workshop on Environmental Justice, several speakers agreed to contribute updated versions
of their remarks to a special section of the peer-reviewed journal Politics, Groups, and Identities. Focused on exploring the workshop
theme of environmental justice and equitable access to natural resources, the special section was edited by workshop co-organizers and
C4E members Laura Zanotti of anthropology, and Mangala Subramaniam of sociology. The special section in the journal includes essays
by both practitioners and academics working in the environmental justice area in locations ranging from Alaska to Africa.
1918
12. As part of the center’s efforts to promote the new Building Sustainable Communities cluster hire and research initiative, C4E
Fellow Satish Ukkusuri led the formation and organization of a new interdisciplinary research community focused on creating
community resilience in the face of natural disasters. This group met multiple times throughout the year, hearing presentations
from diverse faculty on campus working on different aspects of community preparedness for and responses to natural disasters.
Participating faculty spanned the social and physical sciences as well as engineering, sharing work on topics ranging from
transportation infrastructure designs to aid evacuations, to the role of social networks in communicating about disasters and
helping post-disaster recovery processes, to how small businesses are able to respond to natural disasters effectively.
As a result of these conversations, the group was able to generate several major proposals for funding to study different
challenges for promoting community and infrastructure resilience in the face of natural disasters. The group will continue to work
together in 2015, connecting work on social, engineered, and natural systems to create better ideas for promoting community
resilience in the face of these important environmental threats.
On May 31, 2014, the Center hosted
a luncheon with Mayor Robert
Dixson of Greensburg, Kansas,
a leader in the area of disaster
recovery and resilience. Over lunch,
Mayor Dixson met with a small
group of faculty from the center’s
working group on disaster resilience
to discuss the process of rebuilding
Greensburg following the May 4,
2007 EF5 tornado that destroyed
95% of this small town. Sustainable
building, renewable energy, and
“green”technologies have been
the cornerstones of the recovery of
Greensburg, and Dixson highlighted
the essential role that community
involvement and public-private
partnerships have played in the
recovery efforts. During his visit
to Purdue, Mayor Dixson also
spoke with the mayors of Lafayette
and West Lafayette, Purdue
administrators, and students.
Post-Disaster Recovery and
Sustainability
Community Resilience and Natural Disasters
Center for the Environment Discovery Park Research Fellow Satish Ukkusuri
Daniel P. Aldrich, associate professor and University
Faculty Scholar in political science, won a Kinley Trust
Fellowship in the spring of 2014 to continue his work on
issues of disaster resilience and recovery following the
March 11, 2013 compounded disaster in Tohoku, Japan.
Aldrich also spoke at the IFPRI 2020 conference on
Building Resilience for Food and Nutrition Security, May
15-17, 2014, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
on issues of resilience to shocks.
View Perspectives of Daniel Aldrich on
Understanding Resilience and Coping
with a World of Shocks at:
http://bit.ly/1CbUX0F
2120
Aldrich speaking at Tohoku
Daigaku March 2014
REBUILDING GREENSBURG
Greensburg, Kansas Mayor Robert Dixson
13. 2322
SOCIAL MEDIA
Insta
facebook.com/PurdueC4E
twitter.com/PurdueC4E
instagram.com/purduec4e
Kaitlin Harris is a
junior studying
anthropology and
environmental
and ecological
engineering at
Purdue University.
Growing up in
Bedford, Indiana
she has always
had a passion for
nature. Kaitlin’s
interests lie in
the intersection
of humanity and the environment and she
is passionate about finding solutions to
sustainability challenges that benefit both
society and the natural world.
During her year
with the center,
Ishra Ella Noor
took the lead in
developing the
C4E social media
presence. She
created a regular
series of articles
featuring Purdue
environmental
faculty and
students working
on topics
ranging from sustainable electronics to
paleoclimatology to social cohesion and
disaster resilience. She also assisted with
event planning and public outreach for
several center programs. Ishra is majoring in
environmental sciences and serves as Vice
President of the Purdue University Geological
Society.
C4E Student Internship Program
In 2014, the Center for the Environment (C4E) began to offer internships to Purdue undergraduate students interested in working
with our affiliated faculty on various research projects, as well as with center staff on specific projects to enhance student
engagement in the center’s activities.
Faculty-Student Summer Research Internships offer students the opportunity to spend up to eight weeks working with a
Purdue faculty mentor on a field or laboratory-based research project focused on an environmental challenge. We anticipate that
these collaborations will lead to a variety of outcomes including gathering preliminary data for a student senior thesis or faculty
proposal submission, presenting results at a conference, or creating an app, website, or other technological product. Two research
projects were funded in 2014.
C4E Administrative Internships give students a chance to learn
about the center’s mission, administration, and programs while
also gaining hands-on experience helping to design, develop
and launch a specific project targeting student engagement
with the center. These internships are available during the
academic year, or during the summer months. In the 2013-14
academic year, student intern Ishra Noor worked on creating
new on-line communication tools for the center, including a
Facebook page and Twitter account. In the summer of 2014,
intern Kaitlin Harris worked on developing a new“Conversation
with an Environmental Leader”program to debut in Spring 2015,
that will bring local environmental professionals to Purdue to
meet with small groups of students interested in environmental
careers.
Alison Wong
Chelsea Lynn Ambriz
In a collaboration between Purdue’s VACCINE center, the American Red Cross (ARC), and Purdue
professors Timothy Filley and Mike Baldwin, Earth, Atmospheric & Planetary Sciences, and Megan
Sap-Nelson, Library Sciences, Chelsea Lynn Ambriz investigated the efficacy of a new tool
developed by Visual Analytics for Command, Control, and Interoperability Environments (VACCINE)
that tracks, analyzes, and monitors social media feeds, to pinpoint disaster-caused damage in real
time. The goal of the work is to ultimately help first-responders and relief agencies gain situational
awareness immediately after a disaster or crisis. The emphasis of this project will be analysis of
data from severe storms in the Midwest or Great Plains regions.
Alison Wong worked with professors Nadia E. Brown, Political Science and African American
Studies, and Valeria Sinclair-Chapman, Political Science, to create a database on environmental
justice bills. By collecting and coding information on all environmental justice and racism bills
introduced in state legislatures between 1990-2014, the data will provide a clearer picture of how
the states have tried to regulate the negative environmental impacts, especially for those who
have traditionally lived, worked, and played closest to the sources of pollution.
14. 2524
2013-2014 EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Timothy Cason,
Distinguished Professor
and Robert and Susan
Gadomski Chair,
Economics
Indrajeet Chaubey,
Professor and Department
Head, Earth, Atmospheric
and Planetary Sciences
Jonathon Day,
Associate Professor,
Hospitality and Tourism
Management
Jeffrey Dukes,
Professor, Forestry and
Natural Resources and
Biological Sciences
Nancy Emery,
Assistant Professor,
Biological Sciences
and Botany and Plant
Pathology
Timothy Filley,
Professor, Earth,
Atmospheric and
Planetary Sciences
Jennifer Freeman,
Associate Professor,
Health Sciences
Benjamin Gramig,
Associate Professor,
Agricultural Economics
Carol Handwerker,
Reinhardt Schuhmann
Jr. Professor of Materials
Engineering
Linda Lee,
Professor and Associate
Department Head,
Agronomy
Leigh Raymond,
C4E Director and
Professor, Political Science
Rose Filley,
Managing Director
Cindy Fate,
Administrative Assistant
Kaitlin Harris,
Intern
CENTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT STAFF
Bryan Pijanowski,
Professor, Forestry and
Natural Resources
Linda Prokopy,
Associate Professor,
Forestry and Natural
Resources
Paul Shepson,
Distinguished Professor,
Chemistry and Earth,
Atmospheric and
Planetary Sciences
Ron Turco,
Professor, Agronomy
Laura Zanotti,
Assistant Professor,
Anthropology
CO-SPONSORED EVENTS
Capturing Resilience
Led by students in the Ecological Sciences and
Engineering (ESE) graduate program, the theme of this
year’s ESE Symposium centered on“Capturing Resilience.”
With specific focus on smart growth, regenerative
agriculture, and resource productivity, the symposium
brought together leaders from government, industry,
agriculture, and academia to work on a strategy for
addressing the economic and environmental struggles
that are reflections of national and global problems, but
nevertheless unique to our region.
The Dynamics
of Climate
conference returned to the
Purdue University campus
June 18-20, 2014. Co-
sponsored by the Center
for the Environment, and
organized by Professors
Dan Shepardson, Dev
Niyogi, and C4E Managing
Director Rose Filley, the
conference included a
keynote lecture, panel
discussions on climate
change, and sessions to
take participants through
the implementation of a
professional development
toolkit for climate
science education. The
toolkit was designed to
give a basic, timely and
important understanding
about climate change
from a climate systems
perspective to teachers and
professional educators with
content geared especially
for educating middle
school and high school
students.
EA/EOU
