4 minute read
Improving well-being for all humankind
In recent years due to climate change, high tidewaters encroach upon and flow into homes such as this one in West Bengal, India. The effect of rising water levels not only causes residents to adjust how they live, it often causes climate migration.
Students from around the world who typically would not have access to knowledge resources found in municipal libraries are now able to access them through tools such as SolarSPELL, a solar-powered digital library innovated by ASU senior Global Futures Scientist Laura Hosman.
Our ambitious goals require a new approach to challenges, one that is:
Transdisciplinary. By combining exceptional scholars in humanities, arts and social sciences with natural, engineering and medical sciences, we develop solutions that address the holistic, societal, systemwide nature of the challenge.
Inclusive. No single organization, sector or nation can do this alone because a thriving global future includes all people, everywhere. We believe it is vital to honor and respect the wisdom and knowledge of people of all backgrounds.
Solutions-focused. By removing silos and barriers to collaboration across cultures, we rapidly translate ideas into tangible solutions that are scaled around the globe, building a shared future.
Dean of Student Services at Tohono O’odham Community College Naomi Tom (left) and ASU American Indian Studies Assistant Professor Tennille Marley listen to the panel discussion, “What is Indigenous research? What does research in Indigenous communities look like?”
Peter Schlosser, former deputy director and director of research at The Earth Institute, founding chair of the Earth Institute’s faculty, and one of the planet’s leading environmental physicists , leads the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory and guides its evolution, rooted in the vision of our founders, ASU President Michael M. Crow and Julie Ann Wrigley.
Schlosser is a globally respected leader, thinker, innovator and scholar. During his more than three-decade career, his research expanded from the study of water movement and its variability in natural systems to include global change and humans’ impact on the natural world. His fieldwork spans the global oceans — including icebreaker excursions to the North Pole and the waters around Antarctica — as well as continental waters, in order to understand how the planet is reacting to the impacts of the Anthropocene. He possesses extensive knowledge on the undue pressures that humans are placing on the Earth’s systems and societies due to over extraction of resources, emission of greenhouse gases and other pollutants, and societal conflicts.
Yet, in a field characterized by dire, worse-than-we-thought reports and climate anxiety, Schlosser remains optimistic that humans can implement solutions to the systemic crises we face, including climate change.
It was the relationship between humans and the planet that attracted Schlosser to environmental physics. At the University of Heidelberg, where he obtained his master’s and PhD degrees, he recognized the broad spectrum of topics encompassed by physics and discovered the breadth of subtopics within the science, including the emerging field of environmental physics.
His work has demonstrated that trace substances from human activity have penetrated Earth’s natural systems from the outer atmosphere to the deep ocean. He has found human fingerprints everywhere and uses the spreading patterns and velocities of these substances to understand the spatial and temporal scales of the impact of human activities on our planet’s life-supporting systems.
Julie Ann Wrigley
A philanthropist with a vision
Julie Ann Wrigley has been instrumental to ASU’s effort to address global challenges from the very beginning She was invited to participate at ASU’s retreat in Temozón, Mexico, where she witnessed the deep academic commitment to sustainability and global health and came to appreciate ASU’s unique position and opportunity to lead change. This led her to becoming the founder and co-chairperson of the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation, launched in 2004. The world’s first School of Sustainability, opened in January 2007, is a direct result of her commitment and philanthropy. Each represented a foundational step towards the creation of the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory.
Her affinity for ASU quickly grew through a kindred devotion to inclusivity, practical research and transcending traditional university disciplines. Through the Julie A. Wrigley Foundation, a private foundation committed to the environment, health care and education, Wrigley has invested millions to pursue sustainability insights and solutions. Her commitment to working toward a better future for all goes well beyond money invested, with Wrigley contributing her time, experiences and passions to dealing with real-world challenges.
