2014 CENTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT ANNUAL REPORT

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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

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 ENVIRONMENTThe 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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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 ledby 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.

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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

MISSIONThe 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 2014In 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

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Linda Lee and Lilan Zhang, Visiting Ph.D. scholar from Beijing Normal University

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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 APPROACHCHALLENGES 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

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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.

Sustainable Natural Resources Social Science (Forestry and Natural Resources) Hired 2013How 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?

Norm Evolution and Human Cooperation (Philosophy) Hired 2014How 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?

Environmental Justice and Community Resilience (Political Science) Hired 2014 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?

Integrated Systems Analysis (Industrial Engineering/Political Science) Hired 2014How do network structures and interdependencies promote or threatensystem resilience and community sustainability? How can the integration of various approaches from systems analysis help answer this question.

Community-Based Development (Anthropology) Hiring 2015How 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?

Social Decision-Making and Sustainability (Psychology) Hiring 2015How 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.

Coupled Natural-Human System Interactions (Civil Engineering / Political Science) Hiring 2015How 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?

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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

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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 PIs Timothy 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-on Your 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.

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The ChallengeThe 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?

InitiativeProviding 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 ResponseTo 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 ChallengeCarbon 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 ResponseResearchers 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

CATALYZING NEW RESEARCH COMMUNITIES Environmental Justice and Equitable Access to Natural ResourcesEnvironmental 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 PanelRosemary Ahtuangaruak, Alaska WildernessRebecca Hardin, University of MichiganSharlene Mollett, University of TorontoLaura Zanotti, Purdue University

Environmental Justice and Access to Basic Resources PanelFenda Akiwumi, University of South FloridaLeila Harris, University of British ColumbiaGerald 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.

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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

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Aldrich speaking at Tohoku Daigaku March 2014

REBUILDING GREENSBURG

Greensburg, Kansas Mayor Robert Dixson

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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.

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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

EVPRP 2-03-2015