Catalyzing Sustainability Research

Although we support faculty research and endeavors ona broad range of topics related to sustainability, the Center has always had core focus areas in which we have an interdisciplinary and highly regarded group of faculty leaders. Our three research thrustsinclude: Circular Economy;Sustainable Cities and Urban Systems;and Water Critical Design and EcoDistricts.

Dr. Melissa Bilec, Deputy Director

2020-2021 MCSI Research Seed Grant Awards

A Circular Chemical Industry: Closing the Anthropogenic Carbon Cycle with Biomimetic Reactors James McKone, Chemical and Petroleum Engineering

Mapping the Landscape of Seafood in Pittsburgh Markets: Do Safe, Sustainable and Accessible Meet? Carla Ng, Civil & Environmental Engineering

Optimization of Traffic Signals on Pitt's Campus Road Network to Reduce Fuel Consumption and Green House Gas Emissions from Vehicular Traffic Aleksandar Stevanovic, Civil & Environmental Engineering

Upcycling of Machining Scrap via Mechano-Chemical Attrition Enhanced Hydride-Dehydride Processing for Sustainable Ti-Powder Fabrication formation of convergent

Jorg Wiezorek, Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science Ravi Shankar, Industrial Engineering

Chemical Recycling of Polyethylene to Ethylene (Renewal) The goal of the MCSI Research Seed Grant Program is to catalyze the

Eric Beckman, Chemical and Petroleum Engineering research teams focused on sustainability and associated solutions.

Since 2004, MCSI has supported over 113 faculty research projects, resulting in over $27 Million in federal follow-on funding -- a 4:1 return on investment.

LARGE GROUP GRANTS

A 5-university team led by Dr. Melissa Bilec, will address the complex challenge of global waste through circular economy design. Their proposal received a 2-year, $1.3 million award from the National Science Foundation's new Growing Convergence Research program, with the potential for an extension to 5 years and $3.6 million.

MCSI RESEARCH SEED GRANT FOLLOW-ON FUNDING (FY20 TOTALING $3,680,515)

Five Year Summary of MCSI Seed Grant Follow-On Funding Follow - on Grants (Dollars) $1,000,000 $2,000,000 $3,000,000 $4,000,000 $1,280,000 $1,130,000 $1,230,000 [$28MM total over 11 years] $2,800,000 $0

FY16 FY17

FY18 Fiscal Year FY19 $3,700,000

FY20

FY2020 GRANTS

 Aurora Sharrard, Melissa Bilec, and Gena Kovalcik (Office of Sustainability and MCSI), L2S2: Pitt Living

Laboratory for Sustainable Solutions, West Penn Power Sustainable Energy Fund, $35,000, 2 years

Eric Beckman (Chemical Engineering), Pitt-internal “Momentum fund scaling grant”; title: “Attacking the Global Plastics Waste Problem”, 06/01/20 - 05/31/22, $400,000

Kent Harries (Civil Engineering), PITT Hewlett International Travel Award: IC-NOCMAT, Nairobi, 9/2019, $3,440

Kent Harries (Civil Engineering), NSF: REU Supplement to Collaborative Research: “Full-culm Bamboo as a Full-fledged Engineering Material”, Summer 2019, $16,000

Katherine Hornbostel (Mechanical Engineering), NOAA & EERE, Ocean Observing Prize: DISCOVER Competition, Summer 2020, $10,000,

Justin Kitzes (Biological Sciences), NSF: Division of Biological Infrastructure: “Locating and counting terrestrial wildlife with an open source, automated acoustic survey platform”, 10/1/2019 to 09/30/2022, $643,272

Pau Leu (Industrial Engineering and A. Gomez, NSF, “EAGER: Transforming Additive Nanomanufacturing with Machine Learning,” 09/01/2019 –08/31/2021, $300,121.

Paul Leu and S. B. W. Melbs LeMieux, DOE, “Sttr Phase II: Microfluidic Printing of High Performance Microgrids for High Efficiency, Flexible Organic Light Emitting Diodes,” , 08/19/2019 –08/18/2021, $1,000,000.

David Sanchez (Civil Engineering) and Seok Hoon Hong, Illinois Institute of Technology, NSF: Chem, BioEng, Env and Transportation Systems “Collaborative Research: Engineering Biofilm-Electrode for Organic Contaminant Degradation”, 3 years, $420,000

Sachin Velankar (Chemical Engineering) and Tara Meyer (Chemistry), NSF-CBET; “Fundamentals of CoCrystallization of Polyoxacyclobutane and Water”, three years, $352,682

Feng Xiong (Electrical Engineering), NSF, “CAREER: Scalable Ionic Gated 2D Synapse (IG-2DS) with Programmable Spatio-Temporal Dynamics for Spiking Neural Networks”, 03/01/2020 to 02/28/2025, $500,000.

INVENTION DISCLOSURES, PATENT APPLICATIONS AND LICENSES

Minhee Yun, David Schwartzman, Jiyong Huang, “A Wireless BNP Monitoring System with Singel Nanowire Sensor at Home”, filed on April 25, 2016, approved on April 9, 2020 (under payment)

Eric Beckman, Susan Fullerton, Samantha Bunke, Jonathan Bingaman, “Gradient Cross-Linked Polymer with Triggerable Decomposition into Benign Byproducts, disclosure filed May 7, 2020.

LIVING LAB

Our vision is for every University of Pittsburgh student, visitor, staff, and faculty member to be positively impacted by sustainability on a daily basis. Creating a

sustainability ethos at the University of Pittsburgh requires strategic and tactical approaches, including the incorporation of living laboratories throughout campus at various scales. To create an important foundational piece of this vision, we are proposing to create the Pitt Living Lab for Sustainable Solutions (L2S2), a physical space where students and faculty learn about and create live sustainable products and technologies. Fundraising for the L2S2 is underway with funds secured through the West Penn Power Foundation and through Pitt Day of Giving. Talks continue with the Hillman Foundation and with Pitt’s Office of Philanthropic & Alumni Engagement to secure the remaining funds to advance this effort.

CONFERENCE GRANTS

In order to provide opportunities for MCSI-associated students to learn about cutting edge research and educational programs nationally and globally, MCSI supports undergraduate and graduate student participation at conferences. This year MCSI supported 7 students.

Student

Eli Brock Electrical and Computer Engineering

Mikhail Gordon Katz Graduate School of Business

Anna Coleman Statistics

Zhenge Jia Electrical and Computer Engineering Sabrina Nguyen Electrical and Computer Engineering Clara Weibel Urban/Environmental Studies Yawen Wu Electrical and Computer Engineering Conference IEEE Green Technologies Conference (Oklahoma City, OK)

INFORMS Annual Meeting (Seattle, WA)

Penn State University’s Drawdown Conference- Research to Action: The Science of Drawdown (State College, PA) Int’l Conf on Hardware/Software Codesign and System Synthesis (New York, NY) IEEE Green Technologies Conference (Oklahoma City, OK) AASHE Conference: Co-Creating a Sustainable Economy (Spokane, WA) Int’l Conf on Hardware/Software Codesign (New York, NY) and System Synthesis