MCSI Partnerships Create Public Good from University Research

HOMEWOOD

Greenhouse for Year-Round Growing

Through a Pitt Year of Engagement Grant (written by Ellie Cadden MCSI Sustainability Engagement Assistant and interns Gabby Sampson and Anna Coleman), Dr. David Sanchez will be able to expand his work with the Oasis Project and Pitt Hydroponics. A new greenhouse will enable the expansion of the growing season, offer new growing space for Pitt Hydroponics and provide new educational opportunities. Construction and initial use of the greenhouse also serves as a volunteer opportunity for students.

IEEE and the Ruach Bicycle Club

MCSI Faculty Fellow, Bob Kerestes, working with the IEEE Power and Energy Society Student Chapter will be mentoring youth to learn the mechanical aspects of a bike and how to use the mechanical energy generated from their bike to charge a mini led headlights. This project is through a collaboration with the Homewood Community Engagement Center and the Ruach Bicycle Club.

CITY OF PITTSBURGH

Sustainability Capstone Course & Collaborations with External Partners

Drs. David Sanchez and Faculty Fellow, Tony Kerzmann led 57 students on 13 projects with a broad range of partners including: Avient Corporation, Corning, The Mosaic Company, Carnegie Museum of Art, The Bible Center Church, McCandless Township, Solar Renewable Energy LLC, Pillars Assets, and the City of Pittsburgh.

As an example, in conjunction with the City of Pittsburgh, students designed a park to aid Pittsburgh in its goal of zero waste by 2030. The park design offers plenty of new green space in the city while also serving as a community gathering space, educational center and waste management facility. Learn more about this innovative circular economy design in the

student video.

“...the work you all accomplished in one semester is totally outrageous...Seriously quality work- I've never gushed like this over a class project. And you're all a pleasure to work with on top of it. Congratulations and thank you! --Rebecca Kiernan, Principal Resilience Planner, City of Pittsburgh”

Marshall Plan for Middle America

The Marshall Plan (MP4MA) was developed by Pitt’s Center for Sustainable Business with the support of key project partners. Drs. Melissa Bilec and Mike Blackhurst played critical roles in the MP4MA’s development and are now working with the City of Pittsburgh and others to activate the concepts.

TEN Program

Dr. Melissa Bilec has partnered with The Efficiency Network (TEN) with the aim of developing an energy education program to support Pittsburgh Public School (PPS) with a specific focus on the Allegheny Traditional Academy (ATA) housing K-8. TEN is currently completing an energy conservation project for PPS ATA, with an aim to utilize this construction project for experiential learning opportunities.

Sustainable Traffic Operations in the City

The City of Pittsburgh and Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission are working with Dr. Alex Stevanovic’s research group on modeling efforts related to more sustainable traffic operations in the City of Pittsburgh. His PITTS Lab team is working on developing a microsimulation model for the Pitt campus and will then start to optimize signal timings in order to reduce fuel consumption and associated greenhouse gas emissions. Building such a comprehensive and accurate model (consisting of various transportation modes such as private cars, buses, bicyclists, and pedestrians) requires a great amount of traffic data, including origin-destination traffic demands, turning movement counts, signal timing plans, etc. This is where their partners - the City of Pittsburgh Department of Mobility and Infrastructure and the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission (SPC), help by providing required traffic data and other relevant materials. The map shows the model of Pitt’s campus in a traffic microsimulation tool overlayed on the GIS network.

Solar Farm in Jefferson Hills

MCSI Faculty Fellow, Tony Kerzmann, is assisting a local landowner in Jefferson Hills with the design, engineering, permitting, and project management of Allegheny County’s first commercial solar farm. The solar farm will be a 3.5 MWdc solar array that will span approximately 10 acres and be comprised of more than 9000 solar panels. Over a 30-year lifespan, the solar farm is projected to produce more than 130 million kWh of clean electricity, with an average annual output of approximately 4 million kWh. The clean electricity that is produced will offset over 200 million pounds of CO2 which is the equivalent to planting 1.5 million trees.

Market Science in Bloomfield

MCSI Faculty Fellow, Sara Kuebbing and her team of students participated in “Market Science”, which is an event coordinated by the Biology Department outreach staff at the Bloomfield Farmers Market.