Scientific Innovation for a Sustainable, Equitable Future

The Earth is changing rapidly and indelibly. Warming temperatures are upending ecosystems. Sea levels are rising, while aquifers dwindle. Industrial chemicals permeate every region of the globe, from urban neighborhoods to remote fens in the Arctic tundra. Indeed, geologists are debating whether human-wrought changes over the past several decades are so profound they’ve ushered in a new epoch in planetary history, the Anthropocene, that is etched for eternity in rock and sediment.

IN THIS DYNAMIC WORLD, applied researchers focused on sustainability are can-do masters of complexity. They’re devising new methods to identify, describe and record unfolding, multi-layered impacts at the granular level, as well as the means to temper them. More challenging still, they’re tasked with predicting conditions already in play, but not yet fully apparent — a future of uncertainties and risks that are difficult to quantify — by building into their technologies security, safety, resilience and hope.

Biologist Xiaonan Tai, for example, is shedding light on how the interplay of ecological and hydrological features, such as subsurface water, shapes forest response and recovery from fires. In tracking the transformation of industrial mercury into a neurotoxin in warming Arctic soil, chemist Lijie Zhang is developing models to help policymakers forecast pollution levels under different climate scenarios.

In a world of newly energetic storms, wildfires and pandemics, disaster planners are rethinking what it means to be prepared. Engineer Michel Boufadel is building a “Community Intrinsic Resilience Index” to evaluate a region’s ability across key sectors to respond and recover following disruptive events. Civil engineer Matthew Bandelt is investigating novel construction materials better able to withstand earthquakes and massive storms. Roboticist Petras Swissler is constructing autonomous, self-assembling robots to swarm into disaster areas to support collapsing infrastructure and later repair it. Efforts to mitigate the harm of ongoing human development are gathering momentum. Students in architect John Cays’ design studio are required to conduct a life cycle analysis — an examination of a building’s impact on the environment from the initial extraction of raw materials to its potential dismantling decades later — for each project. Erin Heidelberger ’20, an environmental performance analyst, runs simulations that give designers sustainability options, such as how to orient a building to access more daylight and reduce energy use, in the early planning stages. Environmental engineer Wen Zhang’s boat-mounted device for removing toxic algae blooms from lakes employs microbubbles of air, which also restore oxygen, rather than chemicals. Researchers are also finding new ways to reuse existing infrastructure and products. Architect Georgeen Theodore is developing a toolkit that will give communities in Athens access to now untapped water in a Roman aqueduct and create green pockets to offset heat island effects. Civil engineer Matthew Adams explores the logistical, technical and policymaking hurdles that prevent municipalities from incorporating demolished sidewalks, manhole casings and building slabs into new structures, rather than mining for raw stone. NJIT students and faculty are developing new uses for manufactured products that are now difficult to recycle, from colored glass, to plastics, to batteries. Because remedies come with a cost and often require new ways of thinking, inventors understand that technology alone will not get the job done. Science and progress hinge on the understanding, participation and assent of stakeholders and institutions.

“I would argue that leading with equity is a way to make climate change actions stick. If they are acceptable to communities, that’s the key to ensuring they’re not voted out at the next election,” says Robin Leichenko, co-director of the Rutgers Climate Institute, at the inaugural forum of NJIT’s chapter of the National Academy of Inventors in late 2021.

Increasingly, NJIT student researchers incorporate community feedback in their projects. Taylor VanGrouw, who is investigating the declining trout population in a New Jersey river, presented his results and remediation proposals to state environmental officials and hopes to work with local governments. Vishva Rana, who is developing a real-time air quality monitoring system to deploy throughout city neighborhoods, wants to empower local citizens, including women and people of color, to push for policy actions. A group of architecture students working with Newark on sustainable homes for the unhoused, solicited feedback from the residents of emergency housing constructed during the pandemic.

Social scientist Yao Sun is using crowdsourcing platforms to help stakeholders in coastal communities share ideas and information about storm preparation. Among other elements, immersive VR technology will allow residents to grasp sustainable architectural design and help researchers, in turn, record their behavioral responses.

To ensure that sustainable technologies come to fruition, electrical engineer Philip Pong is building a scaled-down turbine learning facility so that tomorrow’s wind engineers can gain hands-on experience on dry land.

Lastly, Ph.D. biology student Amani Webber-Schultz understands that without diverse representation, researchers may not even frame problems adequately.

She and three other Black female scientists founded the nonprofit Minorities in Shark Sciences to boost diversity in the field, in part by fully funding hands-on research experiences for gender minorities of color who struggle financially to break in.