CEIE Success Stories

George Mason REACHes for regional health policy solutions

Nathan Kahl — Fri, 01 Nov 2024 15:53:52 +0000

George Mason REACHes for regional health policy solutions Nathan Kahl Fri, 11/01/2024 - 11:53

As the planet’s climate shifts, so too does the health of its inhabitants. Rising temperatures, wildfires, and worsening air quality are environmental and public health concerns.

With a new $3.69 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Research and Engagement for Action in Climate and Health (REACH) Center is set to tackle the urgent intersection of climate change and public health in the nation’s capital. ��AV is part of a team of institutions working on environmental health innovation that includes George Washington University (GWU), Howard University (HU), and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). The REACH Center will be directed by Susan Anenberg, professor and chair of the Milken Institute School of Public Health at GWU.

Jim Kinter, director of the Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies and the Virginia Climate Center (VCC) at George Mason, sits on the REACH internal advisory board. VCC's interdisciplinary team of Mason experts conduct research on Virginia’s vulnerability and risks to the impacts of climate change in order to provide local decision makers with actionable climate information.

“Climate change is having negative impacts on public health, and projected future climate changes will only exacerbate those effects, most acutely felt in underserved communities," said Kinter. "The REACH Center serves a vital role in making data and information more accessible, more effective, and more useful for conducting research and co-producing equitable solutions to advance public health resilience. With George Mason experts working across several disciplines, the center has a unique and powerful capability to transform research and applications in public health, and the emphasis on community engagement will help translate findings into practical solutions.”

Lucas Henneman, an assistant professor in the Sid and Reva Dewberry Department of Civil, Environmental, and Infrastructure Engineering at George Mason, is leading a research project within the center studying climate policy in Washington, D.C. He’ll look at congestion pricing—charging a toll for vehicles traveling into a central part of the city—and the impacts on air pollution and local health. The D.C. government previously showed interest in such policies, and Henneman is working with researchers at George Mason and GWU along with a transportation advocacy group called Greater Greater Washington, who have deep ties in the D.C. government and interested community groups.

“The big thrust is that there's all this useful data out there that can be used to better protect public health from impacts of climate change," said Henneman, "but how do we make that data useful to stakeholders like researchers, community groups, and local governments?”

The co-location of these entities in the Washington, D.C., region allows them to work with the federal and regional governments, as well as other experts in public health and big data. The REACH Center will also look broadly at the implication of health and climate data.

“How do you process air pollution and public health information in a way that can be useful for different stakeholders,” said Henneman. “In D.C., for example, you have wards, neighborhoods, and census tracts, and you might have different amounts of data in each of those geographies and different stakeholders would want to see information about their locations. So, how do we interpret the outcome of a policy on these different geographic boundaries?”

Daniel Tong, director of George Mason's Cooperative Institute of Satellite and Earth System Studies, is co-directing REACH’s Exposure Assessment Core. He gave an example of how even far-flung incidents can affect local populations, and why it’s important to understand this impact. “Rising temperature and droughts bring more wildfire smoke and every-day air pollution to cities like Washington, D.C.," said Tong, who is also an an associate professor in the College of Science. "It is critical to measure how these changes harm people’s health. The exposure core will leverage George Mason’s world-renowned expertise in atmospheric and climate sciences to support health researchers and practitioners to understand these impacts.”

Jenna Krall, an associate professor in George Mason's College of Public Health, also brings expertise to the project, further emphasizing the interdisciplinary aspects.

The NIH Climate Change and Health Initiative (CCHI) funded 16 new exploratory research centers in September, including the REACH Center. These centers will support the development of innovative transdisciplinary research into the complex impacts of climate change on health.

Henneman noted that, in the long-run, this could mean more opportunities for George Mason researchers to study how regulations can consider the intersection of climate change and health.

In This Story

Lucas Henneman

Jenna Krall, PhD

Learn more about the Virginia Climate Center

Topics

Public Health

environmental engineering

Climate Change

climate policy

National Institutes of Health

Research

College of Science

College of Public Health

College of Engineering and Computing

Strategic Direction

CEIE Success Stories

A $6 million NSF grant will translate research into practice to help local communities become climate-resilient

Colleen Rich — Tue, 23 Jan 2024 18:50:38 +0000

A $6 million NSF grant will translate research into practice to help local communities become climate-resilient Colleen Rich Tue, 01/23/2024 - 13:50

��AV scientists and partners will leverage their climate expertise and the university’s resources into broader societal implications, thanks to a $6 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) that is going to translate research into practice to support the creation of climate-resilient communities across Virginia.

Mason researcher Celso Ferreira (far right) and President Gregory Washington take Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger on a tour of Mason's Flood Hazards Research Lab. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Office of University Branding

The funding from the NSF’s Accelerating Research Translation (ART) program will allow Mason to expand its capabilities and capacity for translating research into real-world practical applications, with the creation of programming that will allow Mason faculty to serve communities across the commonwealth—especially within the state’s underserved regions—by co-producing science-based solutions that help them increase their resilience to climate change.

The four-year cooperative agreement, “ART: Translating Research to Practice to Create Climate-Ready Communities Across Virginia,” begins Feb. 1, and will allow Mason faculty and their nonprofit partner, the Center for Climate Strategies, to work with local municipal governments and community partners to produce science-based solutions that will create sustainable, community resilience to the impacts of climate change.

The project proposes two initial seed translational research projects, focusing on the co-production of solutions to mitigate flood hazards and reduce the impacts of urban heat on frontline communities. The latter comes on the heels of the world’s warmest year on record in 2023. Faculty will have the opportunity to propose additional translational research projects that address other climate impacts and response capabilities needed by Virginia communities to become climate-ready.

Mason’s Jeremy Campbell leads a discussion on local resiliency planning with staff from the Northern Virginia Regional Commission at a workshop held by the Virginia Climate Center in March 2023. Photo by VCC

“This really gives universities a chance to have an impact,” said Leah Nichols, the project’s principal investigator and the executive director of Mason’s Institute for a Sustainable Earth. “I think it’s going to help us start to institutionalize things that until now had been one-offs.”

Mason was one of 18 schools to have been awarded an ART cooperative agreement. The NSF overall investment of more than $100 million will enable academic institutions to accelerate the pace and scale of translational research that will grow the nation's economy.

“NSF endeavors to empower academic institutions to build the pathways and structures needed to speed and scale their research into products and services that benefit the nation,” said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan. “The [ART program] identifies and champions institutions positioned to expand their research translation capacity by investing in activities essential to move results to practice.”

Mason’s ART program leverages the model already created by the Virginia Climate Center (VCC)—which was initially established by a $2 million Community Project grant sponsored by Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-VA) – since its inception in 2022 for the necessary engagement infrastructure. That includes targeted outreach to individual community leaders and other key influencers in the hopes of creating the kind of collaborative relationships necessary to figure out what each community’s specific needs are.

Other co-PIs on the Mason project include Jim Kinter, a professor in the Climate Dynamics PhD Program and the director of both Mason’s Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies within the College of Science and the Virginia Climate Center; Celso Ferreira, an associate professor within Mason’s College of Engineering and Computing and the director of the Flood Hazards Research Lab; Luis Ortiz, an assistant professor in the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Earth Sciences within the College of Science; and Tom Peterson, the CEO of the Center for Climate Strategies. Other entities involved include MN Associates Inc., which will monitor’s the program’s implementation and progress, and the University of Kentucky, which is serving as the project’s mentoring institution. Pairing awardees with mentor institutions that have an established translational research ecosystem is one of the unique features of the ART program.

Current research that can be brought to bear on local community concerns includes, but is not limited to risk and vulnerability assessment, the development and deployment of new adaptive capacities through modeling, simulating, predicting and projecting climate variability and change, including downscaled global observational and modeling data sets, and the development of solutions to close vulnerability gaps by assessing needs for action and designing and evaluating new measures for local implementation.

Other aims include supporting faculty who wish to be involved and the creation of specific academic programming, such as specialized courses on key climate issues, a new climate action minor, and a graduate certificate program, for future workforce development.

“One very troubling aspect of the effects of climate change is that it has the biggest impact on underserved people and communities that are least able to address the issue,” Kinter said. “Mason, being the largest public university in Virginia, owes it to the residents of the commonwealth to understand the risks it faces and create innovative solutions to increase community resilience.”

Virginia bore the brunt of nine climate disasters in 2018 and 2019 alone, resulting in $1.6 billion of negative economic impact, according to the Secretary of Natural and Historic Resources.

Increasing community resilience to the effects of climate change is expected to help mitigate the impact and substantially reduce costs associated with damage from progressive climate change, extreme weather events, and other climate-driven effects, the researchers said.

“We’re really trying to understand what it is that [local communities] need from a scientific, technical, or research point of view through the lens of what is it that a university can provide,” Nichols said. “And once the climate-focused ART programs become well-established, we hope to extend this model to support the translation of research into practice in other sustainability domains as well.”

In This Story

Celso Ferreira

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Mushrooming feats of engineering success

Rena Malai — Tue, 24 Oct 2023 13:12:44 +0000

Mushrooming feats of engineering success Rena Malai Tue, 10/24/2023 - 09:12

In This Story

Emma (Xijin) Zhang

It’s important not to crowd mushrooms in a pan, otherwise they won’t cook properly, according to well-known American chef Julia Child. But Child likely didn’t realize that those mushrooms crowded together can accomplish impressive feats of engineering within concrete structures.

Xijin “Emma” Zhang, assistant professor in civil engineering at ��AV, is working on exploring the use of fungi spores within infrastructures. The practice is relatively new, and Zhang is the first professor within Mason’s Sid and Reva Dewberry Department of Civil, Environmental, and Infrastructure Engineering to work on incorporating fungi materials for sustainable building purposes.

“The research I’m very passionate about is exploring how to utilize natural resources to solve challenges within civil engineering,” Zhang said. “Although I am not a biologist, studying these natural solutions to engineering can help make complex solutions to infrastructure challenges simple.”

In Zhang’s research, the fungal fibers that make up the "stem" part of the mushroom get mixed into the concrete mixture before the building process starts. If cracks later generate within the concrete structure, the air and moisture seeping through the cracks activate the fungi spores. The fungi fibers ‘bloom’ and produce chemical minerals. The strong fungal fibers and the chemical minerals help heal the cracks.

“The healing of the cracks is facilitated by the growth of the fungal fibers and the fungi’s productions of chemical minerals,” Zhang said. “This self-healing technology saves expensive and timely repairs to the structures.”

The fungi’s hydrophobic surface means just that—it repels water. This additional benefit prevents water from infiltrating concrete, deterring water-related distresses and improving the durability of the infrastructure.

Zhang is working on cultivating different fungi spores and testing what works best, as not all classes of fungi would necessarily work for cracks. She has discovered the fungi spores within oyster mushrooms have resilient fibers and can be developed to provide excellent properties in thermal insulation, while being safe for human beings to come in contact with.

She sees Mason as a hub of rich resources in research, collaboration, and connections. Being fairly new to the College of Engineering and Computing, Zhang is excited to partner with fellow colleagues in various fields, who are also interested in exploring the uses of fungi as a solution, beyond civil engineering.

“Fungi have many unknown properties, and I’m looking forward to exploring these types of green technology solutions,” she said. “If anyone is interested in joining me to collaborate, I hope they will reach out.”

Zhang can be reached at xzhang50@gmu.edu.

Topics

civil and infrastructure engineering

CEIE Success Stories

Research

CEC faculty research

Cool lessons from Utqiaġvik, Alaska

Rena Malai — Wed, 23 Aug 2023 17:21:32 +0000

Cool lessons from Utqiaġvik, Alaska Rena Malai Wed, 08/23/2023 - 13:21

This summer, computer modeling and the Arctic ecosystem converged at the top of the world. Professor Elise Miller-Hooks and a team of National Science Foundation (NSF) researchers convened at the Barrow Arctic Research Center. These NSF Navigating the New Arctic researchers traveled to the remote location to attend the Permafrost and Infrastructure Symposium in Utqiaġvik, Alaska, some 320 miles north of the Arctic Circle.

The symposium brought together scientists, regional planners, village leaders, project managers, and federal and local policy makers. The team attended to learn and grow their research–and to share. Miller-Hooks described what she learned as massive.

“It was nothing like I expected. When I entered Utqiaġvik, I found myself in a tough environment with mostly dirt roads. The other researchers told me these roadways are built on permafrost,” she said. “Later on, they convinced me to lower myself into a cave underground to see 16,000-year-old permafrost.”

Elise Miller-Hooks analyzes permafrost in Utqiaġvik.

The people of Utqiaġvik live on the permafrost and they still fish and whale in the surrounding seas, as they have for centuries. Whaling is not a hobby, or for profit. They whale to survive. It is their food supply and more.

“It [whaling] is their culture. It is what they raise their kids to do. It's what their songs and dances are about. It's truly everything. They say that if you take that away from them, it's like killing them,” said Miller-Hooks. All of this could be threatened by more shipping traffic as the polar ice caps shrink and Arctic sea ice diminishes.

Most of the researchers at the symposium were there to study the permafrost which is thawing because of human-made climate change; when the permafrost thaws, the land under the structures that have been built on it sinks. Miller-Hooks described the situation as the base falling out from under them and said that they need to find solutions now, not tomorrow. With very limited access to materials, finding a solution is especially challenging.

Miller-Hooks’ research focuses on forecasting and modeling shipping and maritime transportation changes that will come as the permafrost thaws and the sea-level rises. She said she doesn’t get out in the field much in her line of work but found the experience life changing.

“What I learned from the community and tribal leaders was invaluable. I learned that they really want co-production. They want to be heard. They want us to understand what they know and bring it into our research. We must not ignore their experience and try to push research findings on them, but instead, learn together and jointly develop solutions.”

This idea crystalized after Miller-Hooks presented her research at the symposium. After her presentation, one of the village leaders expressed concern and skepticism about the math.

He said he thought she was looking at the wrong thing. He told her that more shipping in the Arctic would harm the whales and could harm whaling.

Miller-Hooks explained that her research creates the tools that can help forecast changing Arctic traffic, and how these projections and analyses can be used to help make cases to mitigate the impact on the whales and their breeding, other marine life, whale hunting, and indigenous people’s subsistence way of life.

“Now I have a much better understanding of the power of the results that we will get, and how they can be used from many new angles that I hadn't thought of,” she said. Miller-Hooks hopes to collaborate with the communities and work with them to uncover how increased maritime traffic and related industrial activity in the region will impact their way of life, and how the U.S. and other Arctic nations can prepare to do the right thing.

Research Sponsors: Funding for the symposium came from the NSF Arctic Sciences program, the U.S. Department of Transportation's Center for Safety Equity in Transportation, and UIC Science, a subsidiary of the Ukpeaġvik Iñupiat Corporation providing logistical support to scientists and researchers working in Alaska's Arctic.

In This Story

Elise Miller-Hooks

Delve deeper into Mason's research in the Arctic

Learn more about research at Mason

Topics

Climate Research

Research

Institute for a Sustainable Earth (ISE)

College of Engineering and Computing

National Science Foundation

Sustainability Research

global climate change

CEIE Success Stories

CEC faculty research

CEC Global Engagement

Assessing climate change costs on careers and coastal communities

Nathan Kahl — Tue, 30 May 2023 16:30:26 +0000

Assessing climate change costs on careers and coastal communities Nathan Kahl Tue, 05/30/2023 - 12:30

In This Story

Celso Ferreira

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Coastal communities worldwide are seeing stronger storm surges, more powerful waves, and potential devastation for homes, infrastructure, jobs, and a way of life. Celso Ferreira, an associate professor in the Sid and Reva Dewberry Department of Civil, Environmental, and Infrastructure Engineering at the ��AV College of Engineering and Computing, studies the impacts of these threats and suggests ways to manage them.

In May 2023 he co-authored a paper, Jobs at Risk: Sea Level Rise, Coastal Flooding, and Local Economies. “This study is the first to evaluate potential future impacts of flooding from sea level rise and climate change to people’s jobs and incomes. This new methodology provides a more equitable analysis of the impacts of climate change and a vision into its potential implications for the region,” said Ferreira.

According to the study, approximately 263,500 jobs and $11.1 billion in wage income will be threatened by 100-year flooding in the Chesapeake Bay region by 2050. The nonprofit Resources for the Future, with whom Ferreira co-authored the paper states, “These (jobs) figures represent 3.3 and 5 percent of all jobs in the Chesapeake region now and in 2050, respectively. The study also identified several flooding ‘hot spots’ around the region—counties and cities in Maryland and Virginia where 25 percent or more of jobs are flood-exposed.”

“Working with MDDNR and TNC allows our research to directly impact decision-making at the state and local level. It has been a tremendous experience to see our research translated for stakeholders so they can benefit from the science that Mason is producing.”

In addition to quantifying the economic impact, the paper recommends ways to prepare for it. The recommendations include aiming government spending at developing areas outside current and future flood zones; giving coastal communities financial aid but with the condition that businesses are in areas with limited exposure to flooding; providing aid to enterprise zones that incorporates requirements for resilience, such as infrastructure changes to reduce potential flood damage; using FEMA dollars to relocate businesses to different areas within their existing community but out of flood zones; and encouraging communities to change zoning rules to account for climate change.

Ferreira visits the Chesapeake Bay to study the impacts of climate change

In a related project with The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (MDDNR), Ferreira and colleagues are assessing the ability of tidal wetlands, marshes, and sea grass beds to absorb storm surges and waves, protecting developed areas.

Ferreira says, “We place sensors that measure wave energy across the coastal habitats during extreme coastal storms, capturing unique data documenting its flood protection capacity. We then use computer models to predict future scenarios through 2100, with different projections of sea level rise focusing on coastal flood protection. We are looking at how will these ecosystems provide coastal protection into the future.”

These coastal barriers are essential to absorbing destructive storm surges. The first few feet of tidal marsh can reduce wave energy by 90 percent, according to TNC. In addition, marshes can trap tidal water sediment, allowing them to grow naturally with sea level rise. “Living” shorelines improve water quality while creating a habitat for fish and increasing biodiversity.

Nicole Carlozo of MDDNR says, “The data collected will help us make better decisions about where to restore and protect coastal habitats and make decisions about coastal restoration strategies. For example, how wide does a marsh need to be, to provide protection benefits.”

Researchers believe that their findings will provide input for statewide models to understand how habitats will transition as sea levels rise, allowing Maryland to make strategic decisions about anticipating and responding to such changes.

Topics

Climate Change

coastal habitats

Chesapeake Bay

civil and infrastructure engineering

environmental engineering

Research

CEIE Success Stories

CEC faculty research

New lab closes the loop on water sustainability

Anonymous — Mon, 06 Dec 2021 18:47:56 +0000

New lab closes the loop on water sustainability Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 12/06/2021 - 13:47

In This Story

Kirin Emlet Furst

The water that pours out from your kitchen faucet goes through a lot to make it to your home. Assistant Professor Kirin Emlet Furst wants to use her new high-tech Water Systems Chemistry Lab at the Potomac Science Center to close the loop on water and increase the efficiency of those processes by taking a systems approach.

Kirin Furst (pictured) says that the new equipment in her lab makes their work studying water from different angles possible and accurate. Photo by Evan Cantwell.

Furst, a faculty member in the Sid and Reva Dewberry Department of Civil, Environmental, and Infrastructure Engineering, believes a systems approach is the best way to solve the world’s safe water problems. “Our research lab is primarily focused on removing organic contaminants in drinking water systems and potable reuse systems,” says Furst.

The water treatment process has many steps: source water protection, water treatment, the distribution of the water, and what people are actually exposed to in their homes. “A lot of researchers and research labs focus on one of these processes, but we have projects that touch each part of the water system,” Furst says.

Furst’s main research interest is in reducing disinfection byproducts caused by reactions between dissolved organic materials and water disinfectants. The disinfectants used in water are essential to preventing water-borne pathogens, but when they react with materials that remain in the water, they can create toxins that have numerous health effects.

“To solve the disinfection byproducts problem, we have to look at the bigger picture. It’s hard to test their effects, and there are dozens of opportunities for these toxins to be introduced, so we can’t look at one stage in the process,” she says.

Furst and the graduate and undergraduate students in her lab are also working on ways to increase affordable water treatment methods for low-income areas and increase the treatment and reuse of wastewater. In addition, some of her graduate students are looking into creating new types of filters, others at reducing phthalates.

The advanced equipment in her lab gives her and her students the ability to tackle numerous parts of the water treatment systems, says Furst. And she is looking forward to the new and innovative projects her undergraduate and graduate students will take on.