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    In a unique research collaboration, students make the case for less e-waste

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    Brought together as part of the Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing (SERC) initiative within the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, a community of students known as SERC Scholars is collaborating to examine the most urgent problems humans face in the digital landscape.Each semester, students from all levels from across MIT are invited to join a different topical working group led by a SERC postdoctoral associate. Each group delves into a specific issue — such as surveillance or data ownership — culminating in a final project presented at the end of the term.Typically, students complete the program with hands-on experience conducting research in a new cross-disciplinary field. However, one group of undergraduate and graduate students recently had the unique opportunity to enhance their resume by becoming published authors of a case study about the environmental and climate justice implications of the electronics hardware life cycle.Although it’s not uncommon for graduate students to co-author case studies, it’s unusual for undergraduates to earn this opportunity — and for their audience to be other undergraduates around the world.“Our team was insanely interdisciplinary,” says Anastasia Dunca, a junior studying computer science and one of the co-authors. “I joined the SERC Scholars Program because I liked the idea of being part of a cohort from across MIT working on a project that utilized all of our skillsets. It also helps [undergraduates] learn the ins and outs of computing ethics research.”Case study co-author Jasmin Liu, an MBA student in the MIT Sloan School of Management, sees the program as a platform to learn about the intersection of technology, society, and ethics: “I met team members spanning computer science, urban planning, to art/culture/technology. I was excited to work with a diverse team because I know complex problems must be approached with many different perspectives. Combining my background in humanities and business with the expertise of others allowed us to be more innovative and comprehensive.”Christopher Rabe, a former SERC postdoc who facilitated the group, says, “I let the students take the lead on identifying the topic and conducting the research.” His goal for the group was to challenge students across disciplines to develop a working definition of climate justice.From mining to e-wasteThe SERC Scholars’ case study, “From Mining to E-waste: The Environmental and Climate Justice Implications of the Electronics Hardware Life Cycle,” was published by the MIT Case Studies in Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing.The ongoing case studies series, which releases new issues twice a year on an open-source platform, is enabling undergraduate instructors worldwide to incorporate research-based education materials on computing ethics into their existing class syllabi.This particular case study broke down the electronics life cycle from mining to manufacturing, usage, and disposal. It offered an in-depth look at how this cycle promotes inequity in the Global South. Mining for the average of 60 minerals that power everyday devices lead to illegal deforestation, compromising air quality in the Amazon, and triggering armed conflict in Congo. Manufacturing leads to proven health risks for both formal and informal workers, some of whom are child laborers.Life cycle assessment and circular economy are proposed as mechanisms for analyzing environmental and climate justice issues in the electronics life cycle. Rather than posing solutions, the case study offers readers entry points for further discussion and for assessing their own individual responsibility as producers of e-waste.Crufting and crafting a case studyDunca joined Rabe’s working group, intrigued by the invitation to conduct a rigorous literature review examining issues like data center resource and energy use, manufacturing waste, ethical issues with AI, and climate change. Rabe quickly realized that a common thread among all participants was an interest in understanding and reducing e-waste and its impact on the environment.“I came in with the idea of us co-authoring a case study,” Rabe said. However, the writing-intensive process was initially daunting to those students who were used to conducting applied research. Once Rabe created sub-groups with discrete tasks, the steps for researching, writing, and iterating a case study became more approachable.For Ellie Bultena, an undergraduate student studying linguistics and philosophy and a contributor to the study, that meant conducting field research on the loading dock of MIT’s Stata Center, where students and faculty go “crufting” through piles of clunky printers, broken computers, and used lab equipment discarded by the Institute’s labs, departments, and individual users.Although not a formally sanctioned activity on-campus, “crufting” is the act of gleaning usable parts from these junk piles to be repurposed into new equipment or art. Bultena’s respondents, who opted to be anonymous, said that MIT could do better when it comes to the amount of e-waste generated and suggested that formal strategies could be implemented to encourage community members to repair equipment more easily or recycle more formally.Rabe, now an education program director at the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative, is hopeful that through the Zero-Carbon Campus Initiative, which commits MIT to eliminating all direct emissions by 2050, MIT will ultimately become a model for other higher education institutions.Although the group lacked the time and resources to travel to communities in the Global South that they profiled in their case study, members leaned into exhaustive secondary research, collecting data on how some countries are irresponsibly dumping e-waste. In contrast, others have developed alternative solutions that can be duplicated elsewhere and scaled.“We source materials, manufacture them, and then throw them away,” Lelia Hampton says. A PhD candidate in electrical engineering and computer science and another co-author, Hampton jumped at the opportunity to serve in a writing role, bringing together the sub-groups research findings. “I’d never written a case study, and it was exciting. Now I want to write 10 more.”The content directly informed Hampton’s dissertation research, which “looks at applying machine learning to climate justice issues such as urban heat islands.” She said that writing a case study that is accessible to general audiences upskilled her for the non-profit organization she’s determined to start. “It’s going to provide communities with free resources and data needed to understand how they are impacted by climate change and begin to advocate against injustice,” Hampton explains.Dunca, Liu, Rabe, Bultena, and Hampton are joined on the case study by fellow authors Mrinalini Singha, a graduate student in the Art, Culture, and Technology program; Sungmoon Lim, a graduate student in urban studies and planning and EECS; Lauren Higgins, an undergraduate majoring in political science; and Madeline Schlegal, a Northeastern University co-op student.Taking the case study to classrooms around the worldAlthough PhD candidates have contributed to previous case studies in the series, this publication is the first to be co-authored with MIT undergraduates. Like any other peer-reviewed journal, before publication, the SERC Scholars’ case study was anonymously reviewed by senior scholars drawn from various fields.The series editor, David Kaiser, also served as one of SERC’s inaugural associate deans and helped shape the program. “The case studies, by design, are short, easy to read, and don’t take up lots of time,” Kaiser explained. “They are gateways for students to explore, and instructors can cover a topic that has likely already been on their mind.” This semester, Kaiser, the Germeshausen Professor of the History of Science and a professor of physics, is teaching STS.004 (Intersections: Science, Technology, and the World), an undergraduate introduction to the field of science, technology, and society. The last month of the semester has been dedicated wholly to SERC case studies, one of which is: “From Mining to E-Waste.”Hampton was visibly moved to hear that the case study is being used at MIT but also by some of the 250,000 visitors to the SERC platform, many of whom are based in the Global South and directly impacted by the issues she and her cohort researched. “Many students are focused on climate, whether through computer science, data science, or mechanical engineering. I hope that this case study educates them on environmental and climate aspects of e-waste and computing.” More

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      MIT delegation mainstreams biodiversity conservation at the UN Biodiversity Convention, COP16

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      For the first time, MIT sent an organized engagement to the global Conference of the Parties for the Convention on Biological Diversity, which this year was held Oct. 21 to Nov. 1 in Cali, Colombia.The 10 delegates to COP16 included faculty, researchers, and students from the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative (ESI), the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), the Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP), the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS), and the Center for Sustainability Science and Strategy.In previous years, MIT faculty had participated sporadically in the discussions. This organized engagement, led by the ESI, is significant because it brought representatives from many of the groups working on biodiversity across the Institute; showcased the breadth of MIT’s research in more than 15 events including panels, roundtables, and keynote presentations across the Blue and Green Zones of the conference (with the Blue Zone representing the primary venue for the official negotiations and discussions and the Green Zone representing public events); and created an experiential learning opportunity for students who followed specific topics in the negotiations and throughout side events.The conference also gathered attendees from governments, nongovernmental organizations, businesses, other academic institutions, and practitioners focused on stopping global biodiversity loss and advancing the 23 goals of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF), an international agreement adopted in 2022 to guide global efforts to protect and restore biodiversity through 2030.MIT’s involvement was particularly pronounced when addressing goals related to building coalitions of sub-national governments (targets 11, 12, 14); technology and AI for biodiversity conservation (targets 20 and 21); shaping equitable markets (targets 3, 11, and 19); and informing an action plan for Afro-descendant communities (targets 3, 10, and 22).Building coalitions of sub-national governmentsThe ESI’s Natural Climate Solutions (NCS) Program was able to support two separate coalitions of Latin American cities, namely the Coalition of Cities Against Illicit Economies in the Biogeographic Chocó Region and the Colombian Amazonian Cities coalition, who successfully signed declarations to advance specific targets of the KMGBF (the aforementioned targets 11, 12, 14).This was accomplished through roundtables and discussions where team members — including Marcela Angel, research program director at the MIT ESI; Angelica Mayolo, ESI Martin Luther King Fellow 2023-25; and Silvia Duque and Hannah Leung, MIT Master’s in City Planning students — presented a set of multi-scale actions including transnational strategies, recommendations to strengthen local and regional institutions, and community-based actions to promote the conservation of the Biogeographic Chocó as an ecological corridor.“There is an urgent need to deepen the relationship between academia and local governments of cities located in biodiversity hotspots,” said Angel. “Given the scale and unique conditions of Amazonian cities, pilot research projects present an opportunity to test and generate a proof of concept. These could generate catalytic information needed to scale up climate adaptation and conservation efforts in socially and ecologically sensitive contexts.”ESI’s research also provided key inputs for the creation of the Fund for the Biogeographic Chocó Region, a multi-donor fund launched within the framework of COP16 by a coalition composed of Colombia, Ecuador, Panamá, and Costa Rica. The fund aims to support biodiversity conservation, ecosystem restoration, climate change mitigation and adaptation, and sustainable development efforts across the region.Technology and AI for biodiversity conservationData, technology, and artificial intelligence are playing an increasing role in how we understand biodiversity and ecosystem change globally. Professor Sara Beery’s research group at MIT focuses on this intersection, developing AI methods that enable species and environmental monitoring at previously unprecedented spatial, temporal, and taxonomic scales.During the International Union of Biological Diversity Science-Policy Forum, the high-level COP16 segment focused on outlining recommendations from scientific and academic community, Beery spoke on a panel alongside María Cecilia Londoño, scientific information manager of the Humboldt Institute and co-chair of the Global Biodiversity Observations Network, and Josh Tewksbury, director of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, among others, about how these technological advancements will help humanity achieve our biodiversity targets. The panel emphasized that AI innovation was needed, but with emphasis on direct human-AI partnership, AI capacity building, and the need for data and AI policy to ensure equity of access and benefit from these technologies.As a direct outcome of the session, for the first time, AI was emphasized in the statement on behalf of science and academia delivered by Hernando Garcia, director of the Humboldt Institute, and David Skorton, secretary general of the Smithsonian Institute, to the high-level segment of the COP16.That statement read, “To effectively address current and future challenges, urgent action is required in equity, governance, valuation, infrastructure, decolonization and policy frameworks around biodiversity data and artificial intelligence.”Beery also organized a panel at the GEOBON pavilion in the Blue Zone on Scaling Biodiversity Monitoring with AI, which brought together global leaders from AI research, infrastructure development, capacity and community building, and policy and regulation. The panel was initiated and experts selected from the participants at the recent Aspen Global Change Institute Workshop on Overcoming Barriers to Impact in AI for Biodiversity, co-organized by Beery.Shaping equitable marketsIn a side event co-hosted by the ESI with CAF-Development Bank of Latin America, researchers from ESI’s Natural Climate Solutions Program — including Marcela Angel; Angelica Mayolo; Jimena Muzio, ESI research associate; and Martin Perez Lara, ESI research affiliate and director for Forest Climate Solutions Impact and Monitoring at World Wide Fund for Nature of the U.S. — presented results of a study titled “Voluntary Carbon Markets for Social Impact: Comprehensive Assessment of the Role of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLC) in Carbon Forestry Projects in Colombia.” The report highlighted the structural barriers that hinder effective participation of IPLC, and proposed a conceptual framework to assess IPLC engagement in voluntary carbon markets.Communicating these findings is important because the global carbon market has experienced a credibility crisis since 2023, influenced by critical assessments in academic literature, journalism questioning the quality of mitigation results, and persistent concerns about the engagement of private actors with IPLC. Nonetheless, carbon forestry projects have expanded rapidly in Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and local communities’ territories, and there is a need to assess the relationships between private actors and IPLC and to propose pathways for equitable participation. 

      Panelists pose at the equitable markets side event at the Latin American Pavilion in the Blue Zone.

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      The research presentation and subsequent panel with representatives of the association for Carbon Project Developers in Colombia Asocarbono, Fondo Acción, and CAF further discussed recommendations for all actors in the value chain of carbon certificates — including those focused on promoting equitable benefit-sharing and safeguarding compliance, increased accountability, enhanced governance structures, strengthened institutionality, and regulatory frameworks  — necessary to create an inclusive and transparent market.Informing an action plan for Afro-descendant communitiesThe Afro-Interamerican Forum on Climate Change (AIFCC), an international network working to highlight the critical role of Afro-descendant peoples in global climate action, was also present at COP16.At the Afro Summit, Mayolo presented key recommendations prepared collectively by the members of AIFCC to the technical secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The recommendations emphasize:creating financial tools for conservation and supporting Afro-descendant land rights;including a credit guarantee fund for countries that recognize Afro-descendant collective land titling and research on their contributions to biodiversity conservation;calling for increased representation of Afro-descendant communities in international policy forums;capacity-building for local governments; andstrategies for inclusive growth in green business and energy transition.These actions aim to promote inclusive and sustainable development for Afro-descendant populations.“Attending COP16 with a large group from MIT contributing knowledge and informed perspectives at 15 separate events was a privilege and honor,” says MIT ESI Director John E. Fernández. “This demonstrates the value of the ESI as a powerful research and convening body at MIT. Science is telling us unequivocally that climate change and biodiversity loss are the two greatest challenges that we face as a species and a planet. MIT has the capacity, expertise, and passion to address not only the former, but also the latter, and the ESI is committed to facilitating the very best contributions across the institute for the critical years that are ahead of us.”A fuller overview of the conference is available via The MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative’s Primer of COP16. More

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      HPI-MIT design research collaboration creates powerful teams

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      The recent ransomware attack on ChangeHealthcare, which severed the network connecting health care providers, pharmacies, and hospitals with health insurance companies, demonstrates just how disruptive supply chain attacks can be. In this case, it hindered the ability of those providing medical services to submit insurance claims and receive payments.This sort of attack and other forms of data theft are becoming increasingly common and often target large, multinational corporations through the small and mid-sized vendors in their corporate supply chains, enabling breaks in these enormous systems of interwoven companies.Cybersecurity researchers at MIT and the Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI) in Potsdam, Germany, are focused on the different organizational security cultures that exist within large corporations and their vendors because it’s that difference that creates vulnerabilities, often due to the lack of emphasis on cybersecurity by the senior leadership in these small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).Keri Pearlson, executive director of Cybersecurity at MIT Sloan (CAMS); Jillian Kwong, a research scientist at CAMS; and Christian Doerr, a professor of cybersecurity and enterprise security at HPI, are co-principal investigators (PIs) on the research project, “Culture and the Supply Chain: Transmitting Shared Values, Attitudes and Beliefs across Cybersecurity Supply Chains.”Their project was selected in the 2023 inaugural round of grants from the HPI-MIT Designing for Sustainability program, a multiyear partnership funded by HPI and administered by the MIT Morningside Academy for Design (MAD). The program awards about 10 grants annually of up to $200,000 each to multidisciplinary teams with divergent backgrounds in computer science, artificial intelligence, machine learning, engineering, design, architecture, the natural sciences, humanities, and business and management. The 2024 Call for Applications is open through June 3.Designing for Sustainability grants support scientific research that promotes the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on topics involving sustainable design, innovation, and digital technologies, with teams made up of PIs from both institutions. The PIs on these projects, who have common interests but different strengths, create more powerful teams by working together.Transmitting shared values, attitudes, and beliefs to improve cybersecurity across supply chainsThe MIT and HPI cybersecurity researchers say that most ransomware attacks aren’t reported. Smaller companies hit with ransomware attacks just shut down, because they can’t afford the payment to retrieve their data. This makes it difficult to know just how many attacks and data breaches occur. “As more data and processes move online and into the cloud, it becomes even more important to focus on securing supply chains,” Kwong says. “Investing in cybersecurity allows information to be exchanged freely while keeping data safe. Without it, any progress towards sustainability is stalled.”One of the first large data breaches in the United States to be widely publicized provides a clear example of how an SME cybersecurity can leave a multinational corporation vulnerable to attack. In 2013, hackers entered the Target Corporation’s own network by obtaining the credentials of a small vendor in its supply chain: a Pennsylvania HVAC company. Through that breach, thieves were able to install malware that stole the financial and personal information of 110 million Target customers, which they sold to card shops on the black market.To prevent such attacks, SME vendors in a large corporation’s supply chain are required to agree to follow certain security measures, but the SMEs usually don’t have the expertise or training to make good on these cybersecurity promises, leaving their own systems, and therefore any connected to them, vulnerable to attack.“Right now, organizations are connected economically, but not aligned in terms of organizational culture, values, beliefs, and practices around cybersecurity,” explains Kwong. “Basically, the big companies are realizing the smaller ones are not able to implement all the cybersecurity requirements. We have seen some larger companies address this by reducing requirements or making the process shorter. However, this doesn’t mean companies are more secure; it just lowers the bar for the smaller suppliers to clear it.”Pearlson emphasizes the importance of board members and senior management taking responsibility for cybersecurity in order to change the culture at SMEs, rather than pushing that down to a single department, IT office, or in some cases, one IT employee.The research team is using case studies based on interviews, field studies, focus groups, and direct observation of people in their natural work environments to learn how companies engage with vendors, and the specific ways cybersecurity is implemented, or not, in everyday operations. The goal is to create a shared culture around cybersecurity that can be adopted correctly by all vendors in a supply chain.This approach is in line with the goals of the Charter of Trust Initiative, a partnership of large, multinational corporations formed to establish a better means of implementing cybersecurity in the supply chain network. The HPI-MIT team worked with companies from the Charter of Trust and others last year to understand the impacts of cybersecurity regulation on SME participation in supply chains and develop a conceptual framework to implement changes for stabilizing supply chains.Cybersecurity is a prerequisite needed to achieve any of the United Nations’ SDGs, explains Kwong. Without secure supply chains, access to key resources and institutions can be abruptly cut off. This could include food, clean water and sanitation, renewable energy, financial systems, health care, education, and resilient infrastructure. Securing supply chains helps enable progress on all SDGs, and the HPI-MIT project specifically supports SMEs, which are a pillar of the U.S. and European economies.Personalizing product designs while minimizing material wasteIn a vastly different Designing for Sustainability joint research project that employs AI with engineering, “Personalizing Product Designs While Minimizing Material Waste” will use AI design software to lay out multiple parts of a pattern on a sheet of plywood, acrylic, or other material, so that they can be laser cut to create new products in real time without wasting material.Stefanie Mueller, the TIBCO Career Development Associate Professor in the MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and a member of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and Patrick Baudisch, a professor of computer science and chair of the Human Computer Interaction Lab at HPI, are co-PIs on the project. The two have worked together for years; Baudisch was Mueller’s PhD research advisor at HPI.Baudisch’s lab developed an online design teaching system called Kyub that lets students design 3D objects in pieces that are laser cut from sheets of wood and assembled to become chairs, speaker boxes, radio-controlled aircraft, or even functional musical instruments. For instance, each leg of a chair would consist of four identical vertical pieces attached at the edges to create a hollow-centered column, four of which will provide stability to the chair, even though the material is very lightweight.“By designing and constructing such furniture, students learn not only design, but also structural engineering,” Baudisch says. “Similarly, by designing and constructing musical instruments, they learn about structural engineering, as well as resonance, types of musical tuning, etc.”Mueller was at HPI when Baudisch developed the Kyub software, allowing her to observe “how they were developing and making all the design decisions,” she says. “They built a really neat piece for people to quickly design these types of 3D objects.” However, using Kyub for material-efficient design is not fast; in order to fabricate a model, the software has to break the 3D models down into 2D parts and lay these out on sheets of material. This takes time, and makes it difficult to see the impact of design decisions on material use in real-time.Mueller’s lab at MIT developed software based on a layout algorithm that uses AI to lay out pieces on sheets of material in real time. This allows AI to explore multiple potential layouts while the user is still editing, and thus provide ongoing feedback. “As the user develops their design, Fabricaide decides good placements of parts onto the user’s available materials, provides warnings if the user does not have enough material for a design, and makes suggestions for how the user can resolve insufficient material cases,” according to the project website.The joint MIT-HPI project integrates Mueller’s AI software with Baudisch’s Kyub software and adds machine learning to train the AI to offer better design suggestions that save material while adhering to the user’s design intent.“The project is all about minimizing the waste on these materials sheets,” Mueller says. She already envisions the next step in this AI design process: determining how to integrate the laws of physics into the AI’s knowledge base to ensure the structural integrity and stability of objects it designs.AI-powered startup design for the Anthropocene: Providing guidance for novel enterprisesThrough her work with the teams of MITdesignX and its international programs, Svafa Grönfeldt, faculty director of MITdesignX and professor of the practice in MIT MAD, has helped scores of people in startup companies use the tools and methods of design to ensure that the solution a startup proposes actually fits the problem it seeks to solve. This is often called the problem-solution fit.Grönfeldt and MIT postdoc Norhan Bayomi are now extending this work to incorporate AI into the process, in collaboration with MIT Professor John Fernández and graduate student Tyler Kim. The HPI team includes Professor Gerard de Melo; HPI School of Entrepreneurship Director Frank Pawlitschek; and doctoral student Michael Mansfeld.“The startup ecosystem is characterized by uncertainty and volatility compounded by growing uncertainties in climate and planetary systems,” Grönfeldt says. “Therefore, there is an urgent need for a robust model that can objectively predict startup success and guide design for the Anthropocene.”While startup-success forecasting is gaining popularity, it currently focuses on aiding venture capitalists in selecting companies to fund, rather than guiding the startups in the design of their products, services and business plans.“The coupling of climate and environmental priorities with startup agendas requires deeper analytics for effective enterprise design,” Grönfeldt says. The project aims to explore whether AI-augmented decision-support systems can enhance startup-success forecasting.“We’re trying to develop a machine learning approach that will give a forecasting of probability of success based on a number of parameters, including the type of business model proposed, how the team came together, the team members’ backgrounds and skill sets, the market and industry sector they’re working in and the problem-solution fit,” says Bayomi, who works with Fernández in the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative. The two are co-founders of the startup Lamarr.AI, which employs robotics and AI to help reduce the carbon dioxide impact of the built environment.The team is studying “how company founders make decisions across four key areas, starting from the opportunity recognition, how they are selecting the team members, how they are selecting the business model, identifying the most automatic strategy, all the way through the product market fit to gain an understanding of the key governing parameters in each of these areas,” explains Bayomi.The team is “also developing a large language model that will guide the selection of the business model by using large datasets from different companies in Germany and the U.S. We train the model based on the specific industry sector, such as a technology solution or a data solution, to find what would be the most suitable business model that would increase the success probability of a company,” she says.The project falls under several of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, including economic growth, innovation and infrastructure, sustainable cities and communities, and climate action.Furthering the goals of the HPI-MIT Joint Research ProgramThese three diverse projects all advance the mission of the HPI-MIT collaboration. MIT MAD aims to use design to transform learning, catalyze innovation, and empower society by inspiring people from all disciplines to interweave design into problem-solving. HPI uses digital engineering concentrated on the development and research of user-oriented innovations for all areas of life.Interdisciplinary teams with members from both institutions are encouraged to develop and submit proposals for ambitious, sustainable projects that use design strategically to generate measurable, impactful solutions to the world’s problems. More

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      in Environment

      Understanding the impacts of mining on local environments and communities

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      Hydrosocial displacement refers to the idea that resolving water conflict in one area can shift the conflict to a different area. The concept was coined by Scott Odell, a visiting researcher in MIT’s Environmental Solutions Initiative (ESI). As part of ESI’s Program on Mining and the Circular Economy, Odell researches the impacts of extractive industries on local environments and communities, especially in Latin America. He discovered that hydrosocial displacements are often in regions where the mining industry is vying for use of precious water sources that are already stressed due to climate change.

      Odell is working with John Fernández, ESI director and professor in the Department of Architecture, on a project that is examining the converging impacts of climate change, mining, and agriculture in Chile. The work is funded by a seed grant from MIT’s Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (J-WAFS). Specifically, the project seeks to answer how the expansion of seawater desalination by the mining industry is affecting local populations, and how climate change and mining affect Andean glaciers and the agricultural communities dependent upon them.By working with communities in mining areas, Odell and Fernández are gaining a sense of the burden that mining minerals needed for the clean energy transition is placing on local populations, and the types of conflicts that arise when water sources become polluted or scarce. This work is of particular importance considering over 100 countries pledged a commitment to the clean energy transition at the recent United Nations climate change conference, known as COP28.

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      J-WAFS Community Spotlight on Scott Odell

      Water, humanity’s lifebloodAt the March 2023 United Nations (U.N.) Water Conference in New York, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned “water is in deep trouble. We are draining humanity’s lifeblood through vampiric overconsumption and unsustainable use and evaporating it through global heating.” A quarter of the world’s population already faces “extremely high water stress,” according to the World Resources Institute. In an effort to raise awareness of major water-related issues and inspire action for innovative solutions, the U.N. created World Water Day, observed every year on March 22. This year’s theme is “Water for Peace,” underscoring the fact that even though water is a basic human right and intrinsic to every aspect of life, it is increasingly fought over as supplies dwindle due to problems including drought, overuse, or mismanagement.  

      The “Water for Peace” theme is exemplified in Fernández and Odell’s J-WAFS project, where findings are intended to inform policies to reduce social and environmental harms inflicted on mining communities and their limited water sources.“Despite broad academic engagement with mining and climate change separately, there has been a lack of analysis of the societal implications of the interactions between mining and climate change,” says Odell. “This project is helping to fill the knowledge gap. Results will be summarized in Spanish and English and distributed to interested and relevant parties in Chile, ensuring that the results can be of benefit to those most impacted by these challenges,” he adds.

      The effects of mining for the clean energy transition

      Global climate change is understood to be the most pressing environmental issue facing humanity today. Mitigating climate change requires reducing carbon emissions by transitioning away from conventional energy derived from burning fossil fuels, to more sustainable energy sources like solar and wind power. Because copper is an excellent conductor of electricity, it will be a crucial element in the clean energy transition, in which more solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicles will be manufactured. “We are going to see a major increase in demand for copper due to the clean energy transition,” says Odell.

      In 2021, Chile produced 26 percent of the world’s copper, more than twice as much as any other country, Odell explains. Much of Chile’s mining is concentrated in and around the Atacama Desert — the world’s driest desert. Unfortunately, mining requires large amounts of water for a variety of processes, including controlling dust at the extraction site, cooling machinery, and processing and transporting ore.

      Chile is also one of the world’s largest exporters of agricultural products. Farmland is typically situated in the valleys downstream of several mines in the high Andes region, meaning mines get first access to water. This can lead to water conflict between mining operations and agricultural communities. Compounding the problem of mining for greener energy materials to combat climate change, are the very effects of climate change. According to the Chilean government, the country has suffered 13 years of the worst drought in history. While this is detrimental to the mining industry, it is also concerning for those working in agriculture, including the Indigenous Atacameño communities that live closest to the Escondida mine, the largest copper mine in the world. “There was never a lot of water to go around, even before the mine,” Odell says. The addition of Escondida stresses an already strained water system, leaving Atacameño farmers and individuals vulnerable to severe water insecurity.

      What’s more, waste from mining, known as tailings, includes minerals and chemicals that can contaminate water in nearby communities if not properly handled and stored. Odell says the secure storage of tailings is a high priority in earthquake-prone Chile. “If an earthquake were to hit and damage a tailings dam, it could mean toxic materials flowing downstream and destroying farms and communities,” he says.

      Chile’s treasured glaciers are another piece of the mining, climate change, and agricultural puzzle. Caroline White-Nockleby, a PhD candidate in MIT’s Program in Science, Technology, and Society, is working with Odell and Fernández on the J-WAFS project and leading the research specifically on glaciers. “These may not be the picturesque bright blue glaciers that you might think of, but they are, nonetheless, an important source of water downstream,” says White-Nockleby. She goes on to explain that there are a few different ways that mines can impact glaciers.

      In some cases, mining companies have proposed to move or even destroy glaciers to get at the ore beneath. Other impacts include dust from mining that falls on glaciers. White-Nockleby says, “this makes the glaciers a darker color, so, instead of reflecting the sun’s rays away, [the glacier] may absorb the heat and melt faster.” This shows that even when not directly intervening with glaciers, mining activities can cause glacial decline, adding to the threat glaciers already face due to climate change. She also notes that “glaciers are an important water storage facility,” describing how, on an annual cycle, glaciers freeze and melt, allowing runoff that downstream agricultural communities can utilize. If glaciers suddenly melt too quickly, flooding of downstream communities can occur.

      Desalination offers a possible, but imperfect, solution

      Chile’s extensive coastline makes it uniquely positioned to utilize desalination — the removal of salts from seawater — to address water insecurity. Odell says that “over the last decade or so, there’s been billions of dollars of investments in desalination in Chile.”

      As part of his dissertation work at Clark University, Odell found broad optimism in Chile for solving water issues in the mining industry through desalination. Not only was the mining industry committed to building desalination plants, there was also political support, and support from some community members in highland communities near the mines. Yet, despite the optimism and investment, desalinated water was not replacing the use of continental water. He concluded that “desalination can’t solve water conflict if it doesn’t reduce demand for continental water supplies.”

      However, after publishing those results, Odell learned that new estimates at the national level showed that desalination operations had begun to replace the use of continental water after 2018. In two case studies that he currently focuses on — the Escondida and Los Pelambres copper mines — the mining companies have expanded their desalination objectives in order to reduce extraction from key continental sources. This seems to be due to a variety of factors. For one thing, in 2022, Chile’s water code was reformed to prioritize human water consumption and environmental protection of water during scarcity and in the allocation of future rights. It also shortened the granting of water rights from “in perpetuity” to 30 years. Under this new code, it is possible that the mining industry may have expanded its desalination efforts because it viewed continental water resources as less secure, Odell surmises.

      As part of the J-WAFS project, Odell has found that recent reactions have been mixed when it comes to the rapid increase in the use of desalination. He spent over two months doing fieldwork in Chile by conducting interviews with members of government, industry, and civil society at the Escondida, Los Pelambres, and Andina mining sites, as well as in Chile’s capital city, Santiago. He has spoken to local and national government officials, leaders of fishing unions, representatives of mining and desalination companies, and farmers. He observed that in the communities where the new desalination plants are being built, there have been concerns from community members as to whether they will get access to the desalinated water, or if it will belong solely to the mines.

      Interviews at the Escondida and Los Pelambres sites, in which desalination operations are already in place or under construction, indicate acceptance of the presence of desalination plants combined with apprehension about unknown long-term environmental impacts. At a third mining site, Andina, there have been active protests against a desalination project that would supply water to a neighboring mine, Los Bronces. In that community, there has been a blockade of the desalination operation by the fishing federation. “They were blockading that operation for three months because of concerns over what the desalination plant would do to their fishing grounds,” Odell says. And this is where the idea of hydrosocial displacement comes into the picture, he explains. Even though desalination operations are easing tensions with highland agricultural communities, new issues are arising for the communities on the coast. “We can’t just look to desalination to solve our problems if it’s going to create problems somewhere else” Odell advises.

      Within the process of hydrosocial displacement, interacting geographical, technical, economic, and political factors constrain the range of responses to address the water conflict. For example, communities that have more political and financial power tend to be better equipped to solve water conflict than less powerful communities. In addition, hydrosocial concerns usually follow the flow of water downstream, from the highlands to coastal regions. Odell says that this raises the need to look at water from a broader perspective.

      “We tend to address water concerns one by one and that can, in practice, end up being kind of like whack-a-mole,” says Odell. “When we think of the broader hydrological system, water is very much linked, and we need to look across the watershed. We can’t just be looking at the specific community affected now, but who else is affected downstream, and will be affected in the long term. If we do solve a water issue by moving it somewhere else, like moving a tailings dam somewhere else, or building a desalination plant, resources are needed in the receiving community to respond to that,” suggests Odell.

      The company building the desalination plant and the fishing federation ultimately reached an agreement and the desalination operation will be moving forward. But Odell notes, “the protest highlights concern about the impacts of the operation on local livelihoods and environments within the much larger context of industrial pollution in the area.”

      The power of communities

      The protest by the fishing federation is one example of communities coming together to have their voices heard. Recent proposals by mining companies that would affect glaciers and other water sources used by agriculture communities have led to other protests that resulted in new agreements to protect local water supplies and the withdrawal of some of the mining proposals.Odell observes that communities have also gone to the courts to raise their concerns. The Atacameño communities, for example, have drawn attention to over-extraction of water resources by the Escondida mine. “Community members are also pursuing education in these topics so that there’s not such a power imbalance between mining companies and local communities,” Odell remarks. This demonstrates the power local communities can have to protect continental water resources.The political and social landscape of Chile may also be changing in favor of local communities. Beginning with what is now referred to as the Estallido Social (social outburst) over inequality in 2019, Chile has undergone social upheaval that resulted in voters calling for a new constitution. Gabriel Boric, a progressive candidate, whose top priorities include social and environmental issues, was elected president during this period. These trends have brought major attention to issues of economic inequality, environmental harms of mining, and environmental justice, which is putting pressure on the mining industry to make a case for its operations in the country, and to justify the environmental costs of mining.

      What happens after the mine dries up?

      From his fieldwork interviews, Odell has learned that the development of mines within communities can offer benefits. Mining companies typically invest directly in communities through employment, road construction, and sometimes even by building or investing in schools, stadiums, or health clinics. Indirectly, mines can have spillover effects in the economy since miners might support local restaurants, hotels, or stores. But what happens when the mine closes? As one community member Odell interviewed stated: “When the mine is gone, what are we going to have left besides a big hole in the ground?”

      Odell suggests that a multi-pronged approach should be taken to address the future state of water and mining. First, he says we need to have broader conversations about the nature of our consumption and production at domestic and global scales. “Mining is driven indirectly by our consumption of energy and directly by our consumption of everything from our buildings to devices to cars,” Odell states. “We should be looking for ways to moderate our consumption and consume smarter through both policy and practice so that we don’t solve climate change while creating new environmental harms through mining.”One of the main ways we can do this is by advancing the circular economy by recycling metals already in the system, or even in landfills, to help build our new clean energy infrastructure. Even so, the clean energy transition will still require mining, but according to Odell, that mining can be done better. “Mining companies and government need to do a better job of consulting with communities. We need solid plans and financing for mine closures in place from the beginning of mining operations, so that when the mine dries up, there’s the money needed to secure tailings dams and protect the communities who will be there forever,” Odell concludes.Overall, it will take an engaged society — from the mining industry to government officials to individuals — to think critically about the role we each play in our quest for a more sustainable planet, and what that might mean for the most vulnerable populations among us. More

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      in Energy

      At Sustainability Connect 2024, a look at how MIT is decarbonizing its campus

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      How is MIT working to meet its goal of decarbonizing the campus by 2050? How are local journalists communicating climate impacts and solutions to diverse audiences? What can each of us do to bring our unique skills and insight to tackle the challenges of climate and sustainability?

      These are all questions asked — and answered — at Sustainability Connect, the yearly forum hosted by the MIT Office of Sustainability that offers an inside look at this transformative and comprehensive work that is the foundation for MIT’s climate and sustainability leadership on campus. The event invites individuals in every role at MIT to learn more about the sustainability and climate work happening on campus and to share their ideas, highlight important work, and find new ways to plug into ongoing efforts. “This event is a reminder of the remarkable, diverse, and committed group of colleagues we are all part of at MIT,” said Director of Sustainability Julie Newman as the event kicked off alongside Interfaith Chaplain and Spiritual Advisor to the Indigenous Community Nina Lytton, who offered a moment of connection to attendees. At the event, that diverse and committed group was made up of more than 130 community members representing more than 70 departments, labs, and centers.

      This year, Sustainability Connect was timed with announcement of the new Climate Project at MIT, with Vice Provost Richard Lester joining the event to expound on MIT’s deep commitment to tackling the climate challenge over the next 10 years through a series of climate missions — many of which build upon the ongoing research taking place across campus already. In introducing the Climate Project at MIT, Lester echoed the theme of connection and collaboration. “This plan is about helping bridge the gap between what we would accomplish as a collection of energetic, talented, ambitious individuals, and what we’re capable of if we act together,” he said.

      Play video

      Sustainability Connect 2024: Decarbonizing the Campus Video: MIT Office of Sustainability

      Highlighting one of the many collaborative efforts to address MIT’s contributions to climate change was the Decarbonizing the Campus panel, which provided a real-time look at MIT’s work to eliminate carbon emissions from campus by 2050. Newman and Vice President for Campus Services and Stewardship Joe Higgins, along with Senior Campus Planner Vasso Mathes, Senior Sustainability Project Manager Steve Lanou, and PhD student Chenhan Shao, shared the many ways MIT is working to decarbonize its campus now and respond to evolving technologies and policies in the future. “A third of MIT’s faculty and researchers … are working to identify ways in which MIT can amplify its contributions to addressing the world’s climate crisis. But part and parcel to that goal is we’re putting significant effort into decarbonizing MIT’S own carbon footprint here on our campus,” Higgins said before highlighting how MIT continues to work on projects focused on building efficiency, renewable energy on campus and off, and support of a cleaner grid, among many decarbonization strategies.

      Newman shared the way in which climate education and research play an important role through the Decarbonization Working Group research streams, and courses like class 4.s42 (Carbon Reduction Pathways for the MIT Campus) offered by Professor Christoph Reinhart. Lanou and Shao also showcased how MIT is optimizing its response to Cambridge’s Building Energy Use Disclosure Ordinance, which is aimed at tracking and reducing emissions from large commercial properties in the city with a goal of net-zero buildings by 2035. “We’ve been able [create] pathways that would be practical, innovative, have a high degree of accountability, and that could work well within the structures and the limitations that we have,” Lanou said before debuting a dashboard he and Shao developed during Independent Activities Period to track and forecast work to meet the Cambridge goal. 

      MIT’s robust commitment to decarbonize its campus goes beyond energy systems, as highlighted by the work of many staff members who led roundtables as part of Sustainability in Motion, where attendees were invited to sit down with colleagues from across campus responsible for implementing the numerous climate and sustainability commitments. Teams reported out on progress to date on a range of efforts including sustainable food systems, safe and sustainable labs, and procurement. “Tackling the unprecedented challenges of a changing planet in and around MIT takes the support of individuals and teams from all corners of the Institute,” said Assistant Director of Sustainability Brian Goldberg in leading the session. “Whether folks have sustainability or climate in their job title, or they’ve contributed countless volunteer hours to the cause, our community members are leading many meaningful efforts to transform MIT.”

      Play video

      Sustainability Connect 2024: Climate in the Media PanelVideo: Office of Sustainability

      The day culminated with a panel on climate in the media, taking the excitement from the room and putting it in context — how do you translate this work, these solutions, and these challenges for a diverse audience with an ever-changing appetite for these kinds of stories? Laur Hesse Fisher, program director for the Environmental Solutions Initiate (ESI); Barbara Moran, climate and environment reporter at WBUR radio; and independent climate journalist Annie Ropeik joined the panel moderated by Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT Director Deborah Blum. Blum spoke of the current mistrust of not only the media but of news stories of climate impacts and even solutions. “To those of us telling the story of climate change, how do we reach resistant audiences? How do we gain their trust?” she asked.

      Fisher, who hosts the TIL Climate podcast and leads the ESI Journalism Fellowship, explained how she shifts her approach depending on her audience. “[With TIL Climate], a lot of what we do is, we try to understand what kinds of questions people have,” she said. “We have people submit questions to us, and then we answer them in language that they can understand.”

      For Moran, reaching audiences relies on finding the right topic to bridge to deeper issues. On a recent story about solar arrays and their impact on forests and the landscape around them, Moran saw bees and pollinators as the way in. “I can talk about bees and flowers. And that will hook people enough to get in. And then through that, we can address this issue of forest versus commercial solar and this tension, and what can be done to address that, and what’s working and what’s not,” she said.

      The panel highlighted that even as climate solutions and challenges become clearer, communicating them can remain a challenge. “Sustainability Connect is invaluable when it comes to sharing our work and bringing more people in, but over the years, it’s become clear how many people are still outside of these conversations,” said Newman. “Capping the day off with this conversation on climate in the media served as a jumping-off point for all of us to think how we can better communicate our efforts and tackle the challenges that keep us from bringing everyone to the table to help us find and share solutions for addressing climate change. It’s just the beginning of this conversation.” More

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      in Environment

      Robert van der Hilst to step down as head of the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences

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      Robert van der Hilst, the Schlumberger Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, has announced his decision to step down as the head of the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at the end of this academic year.  A search committee will convene later this spring to recommend candidates for Van der Hilst’s successor.

      “Rob is a consummate seismologist whose images of Earth’s interior structure have deepened our understanding of how tectonic plates move, how mantle convection works, and why some areas of the Earth are hot-spots for seismic and geothermal activity,” says Nergis Mavalvala, the Curtis and Kathleen Marble Professor of Astrophysics and the dean of the MIT School of Science. “As an academic leader, Rob has been a steadfast champion of the department’s cross-cutting research and education missions, especially regarding climate sciences writ large at MIT. His commitment to diversity and community have made the department — and indeed, MIT — a better place to do our best work.”

      “For 12 years, it has been my honor to lead this department and collaborate with all our community members — faculty, staff, and students,” says Van der Hilst. “EAPS is at the vanguard of climate science research at MIT, as well Earth and planetary sciences and studies into the co-evolution of life and changing environments.”

      Among his other leadership roles on campus, Van der Hilst most recently served as co-chair of the faculty review committee for MIT’s Climate Grand Challenges in which EAPS researchers secured nine finalists and two, funded flagship projects. He also serves on the Institute’s Climate Nucleus to help enact Fast Forward: MIT’s Climate Action Plan for the Decade.

      In his more-than-decade as department head, one of Van der Hilst’s major initiatives has been developing, funding, and constructing the Tina and Hamid Moghadam Building, rapidly nearing completion adjacent to Building 54. The $35 million, LEED-platinum Building 55 will be a vital center and showcase for environmental and climate research on MIT’s campus. With assistance from the Institute and generous donors, the renovations and expansion will add classrooms, meeting, and event spaces, and bring headquarters offices for EAPS, the MIT/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) Joint Program in Oceanography/Applied Ocean Science, and MIT’s Environmental Solutions Initiative (ESI) together, all under one roof.

      He also helped secure the generous gift that funded the Norman C. Rasmussen Laboratory for climate research in Building 4, as well as the Peter H. Stone and Paola Malanotte Stone Professorship, now held by prominent atmospheric scientist Arlene Fiore.

      On the academic side of the house, Van der Hilst and his counterpart from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), Ali Jadbabaie, the JR East Professor and CEE department head, helped develop MIT’s new bachelor of science in climate system science and engineering (Course 1-12), jointly offered by EAPS and CEE.

      As part of MIT’s commitment to aid the global response to climate change, the new degree program is designed to train the next generation of leaders, providing a foundational understanding of both the Earth system and engineering principles — as well as an understanding of human and institutional behavior as it relates to the climate challenge.

      Beyond climate research, Van der Hilst’s tenure at the helm of the department has seen many research breakthroughs and accomplishments: from high-profile NASA missions with EAPS science leadership, including the most recent launch of the Psyche mission and the successful asteroid sample return from OSIRIS-REx, to the development of next-generation models capable of describing Earth systems with increasing detail and accuracy. Van der Hilst helped enable such scientific advancements through major improvements to experimental facilities across the department, and, more generally, his mission to double the number of fellowships available to EAPS graduate students.

      “By reducing the silos and inequities created by our disciplinary groups, we were able to foster collaborations that allow faculty, students, and researchers to explore fundamental science questions in novel ways that expand our understanding of the natural world — with profound implications for helping to guide communities and policymakers toward a sustainable future,” says Van der Hilst.

      Community-focused

      In 2019, Van der Hilst began looking ahead to the department’s 40th anniversary in 2023 and charged a number of working groups to evaluate the department’s past and present, and to re-imagine its future. Led by faculty, staff, and students, Task Force 2023 was a yearlong exercise of data-gathering and community deliberation, looking broadly at three focus areas: Image, Visibility, and Relevance; External Synergies: collaboration and partnerships across campus; and Departmental Organization and Cohesion. Despite being interrupted by the pandemic, the resulting reports became a detailed blueprint for EAPS to capitalize on its strengths and begin to effect systemic improvements in areas like undergraduate education, external messaging, and recognition and belonging for administrative and research staff.

      In addition to helping the department mark its 40th anniversary with a celebration this coming spring, Van der Hilst will oversee the dedication of the Moghadam Building, including the renaming of lecture hall 54-100 for Dixie Lee Bryant, the first recipient (woman or man) of a geology degree from MIT in 1891.

      As department head, faculty renewal and retention were key areas of focus for Van der Hilst. In addition to improvements in the faculty search process, he was responsible for the appointment of 20 new faculty members, and in the process shifted the gender ratio from one-fifth to one-third of the faculty identifying as female; he also oversaw the development and implementation of a successful junior faculty mentoring program within EAPS in 2013.

      Van der Hilst also made great strides toward improving diversity, equity, and inclusion within the department in other ways. In 2016, he formed the inaugural EAPS Diversity Council (now the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee) and, in 2020, made EAPS the first department at MIT to appoint an associate department head for diversity, equity, and inclusion, tapping Associate Professor David McGee to guide ongoing community dialogues and initiatives supporting improvements in composition, achievement, belonging, engagement, and accountability.

      With McGee and EAPS student leadership, Van der Hilst supported the EAPS response to calls for social justice leadership and participation in national initiatives such as the American Geophysical Union’s Unlearning Racism in Geoscience program, and he helped navigate the changes brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic while maintaining a sense of community.

      Seismic shift

      After stepping down from his current role, Van der Hilst will have more time to catch up on research aimed at understanding of Earth’s deep interior structure and its evolution. With research collaborators, he developed seismic imaging methods to explore Earth’s interior from sedimentary basins near its surface down to the core–mantle boundary some 2,800 kilometers under the surface. Recently, he authored a Nature Communications paper with doctoral student Shujuan Mao PhD ’21 on a pilot application that uses seismometers as a cost-effective way to monitor and map groundwater fluctuations in order to measure groundwater reserves.

      Before becoming department head, Van der Hilst served as the director of the Earth Resources Laboratory (ERL). In the eight years he served as director, he helped to integrate across disciplines, departments, and schools, transforming ERL into MIT’s primary home for research and education focused on subsurface energy resources.

      Van der Hilst was named a fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in 1997 and became a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2014. Before he was named the Schlumberger Professor in 2011, Van der Hilst held a Cecil and Ida Green professorship chair. He has received many awards, including the Doornbos Memorial Prize from the International Association of Seismology and Physics of the Earth’s Interior, AGU’s James B. Macelwane Medal, a Packard Fellowship, and a VICI Innovative Research Award from the Dutch National Science Foundation.

      Van der Hilst received his PhD in geophysics from Utrecht University in 1990. After postdoctoral research at the University of Leeds and the Australian National University, he joined the MIT faculty in 1996. He was ERL director from 2004 to 2012, when he was then named EAPS department head, succeeding Maria Zuber, the E. A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics, MIT vice president for research, and presidential advisor for science and technology policy. More

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      in Environment

      Putting public service into practice

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      Salomé Otero ’23 doesn’t mince words about the social impact internship she had in 2022. “It was transformational for me,” she says.

      Otero, who majored in management with a concentration in education, always felt that education would play some role in her career path after MIT, but she wasn’t sure how. That all changed her junior year, when she got an email from the Priscilla King Gray Public Service Center (PKG Center) about an internship at The Last Mile, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that provides education and technology training for justice-impacted individuals.

      Otero applied and was selected as a web curriculum and re-entry intern at The Last Mile the summer between her junior and senior year — an eye-opening experience that cemented her post-graduation plans. “You hear some amazing stories, like this person was incarcerated before the iPhone had come out. Now he’s a software developer,” she explains. “And for me, the idea of using computer science education for good appealed to me on many fronts. But even if I hadn’t gotten the opportunity to work at The Last Mile, the fact that I saw a job description for this role and learned that companies have the resources to make a difference … I didn’t know that there were people and organizations dedicating their time and energy into this.”

      She was so inspired that, when she returned for her senior year, Otero found work at two education labs at MIT, completed another social impact internship over Independent Activities Period (IAP) at G{Code}, an education nonprofit that provides computer science education to women and nonbinary people of color, and decided to apply to graduate school. “I can tell you with 100 percent certainty that I would not be pursuing a PhD in education policy right now if it weren’t for the PKG Center,” she says. She will begin her doctorate this fall.

      Otero’s experience doesn’t surprise Jill Bassett, associate dean and director of the PKG Center. “MIT students are deeply concerned about the world’s most challenging problems,” she says. “And social impact internships are an incredible way for them to leverage their unique talents and skills to help create meaningful change while broadening their perspectives and discovering potential career paths.”

      “There’s a lot more out there”

      Founded 35 years ago, the PKG Center offers a robust portfolio of experiential learning programs broadly focused on four themes: climate change, health equity, racial justice, and tech for social good. The Center’s Social Impact Internship Program provides funded internships to students interested in working with government agencies, nonprofits, and social ventures. Students reap rich rewards from these experiences, including learning ways to make social change, informing their academic journey and career path, and gaining valuable professional skills.

      “It was a really good learning opportunity,” says Juliet Liao ’23, a graduate of MIT’s Naval ROTC program who commissioned as a submarine officer in June. She completed a social impact internship with the World Wildlife Fund, where she researched greenhouse gas emissions related to the salmon industry. “I haven’t had much exposure to what work outside of the Navy looks like and what I’m interested in working on. And I really liked the science-based approach to mitigating greenhouse gas emissions.”

      Amina Abdalla, a rising junior in biological engineering, arrived at MIT with a strong interest in health care and determined to go to medical school. But her internship at MassHealth, the Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program provider for the state of Massachusetts, broadened her understanding of the complexity of the health care system and introduced her to many career options that she didn’t know existed.

      “They did coffee chats between interns and various people who work in MassHealth, such as doctors, lawyers, policy advocates, and consultants. There’s a lot more out there that one can do with the degree that they get and the knowledge they gain. It just depends on your interests, and I came away from that really excited,” she says. The experience inspired her to take a class in health policy before she graduates. “I know I want to be a doctor and I have a lot of interest in science in general, but if I could do some kind of public sector impact with that knowledge, I would definitely be interested in doing that.”

      Social impact internships also provide an opportunity for students to hone their analytical, technical, and people skills. Selma Sharaf ’22 worked on developing a first-ever climate action plan for Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina, one of two all-women’s historically Black colleges and universities in the United States. She conducted research and stakeholder interviews with nonprofits; sustainability directors at similar colleges; local utility companies; and faculty, staff, and students at Bennett.

      “Our external outreach efforts with certain organizations allowed me to practice having conversations about energy justice and climate issues with people who aren’t already in this space. I learned how useful it can be to not only discuss the overall issues of climate change and carbon emissions, but to also zoom in on more relatable personal-level impacts,” she says. Sharaf is currently working in clean energy consulting and plans to pursue a master’s degree at Stanford University’s Atmosphere/Energy Program this fall.

      Working with “all stars”

      Organizations that partner with the PKG Center are often constrained by limited technical and financial resources. Since the program is funded by the PKG Center, these internships help expand their organizational capacity and broaden their impact; MIT students can take on projects that might not otherwise get done, and they also bring fresh skills and ideas to the organization — and the zeal to pursue those ideas.

      Emily Moberg ’11, PhD ’16 got involved with the social impact internship programs in 2020. Moberg, who is the director of Scope 3 Carbon Measurement and Mitigation at the World Wildlife Fund, has worked with 20 MIT students since then, including Liao. The body of work that Liao and several other interns completed has been published in the form of 10 briefs onmitigating greenhouse gas emissions from key commodities, such as soy, beef, coffee, and palm oil.

      “Social impact interns bring technical skills, deep curiosity, and tenacity,” Moberg says. “I’ve worked with students across many majors, including computer and materials science; all of them bring a new, fresh perspective to our problems and often sophisticated quantitative ability. Their presence often helps us to investigate new ideas or expand a project. In some cases, interns have proposed new projects and ideas themselves. The support from the PKG Center for us to host these interns has been critical, especially for these new explorations.”

      Anne Carrington Hayes, associate professor and executive director of the Global Leadership and Interdisciplinary Studies program at Bennett College, calls the MIT interns she’s worked with since 2021 “all stars.” The work Sharaf and three other students performed has culminated in a draft climate action plan that will inform campus renovations and other measures that will be implemented at the college in the coming years.

      “They have been foundational in helping me to research, frame, collect data, and engage with our students and the community around issues of environmental justice and sustainability, particularly from the lens of what would be impactful and meaningful for women of color at Bennett College,” she says.

      Balancing supply and demand

      Bassett says that the social impact internship program has grown exponentially in the past few years. Before the pandemic, the program served five students from summer 2019 to spring 2020; it now serves about 125 students per year. Over that time, funding has become a significant limiting factor; demand for internships was three times the number of available internships in summer 2022, and five times the supply during IAP 2023.

      “MIT students have no shortage of opportunities available to them in the private sector, yet students are seeking social impact internships because they want to apply their skills to issues that they care about,” says Julie Uva, the PKG Center’s program administrator for social impact internships and employment. “We want to ensure every student who wants a social impact internship can access that experience.”

      MIT has taken note of this financial shortfall: the Task Force 2021 report recommended fundraising to alleviate the under-supply of social impact experiential learning opportunities (ELOs), and MIT’s Fast Forward Climate Action Plan called on the Institute to make a climate or clean-energy ELOs available to every undergraduate who wants one. As a result, the Office of Experiential Learning is working with Resource Development to raise new funding to support many more opportunities, which would be available to students not only through the PKG Center but also other offices and programs, such as MIT D-Lab, Undergraduate Research Opportunity Programs, MISTI, and the Environmental Solutions Initiative, among others.

      That’s welcome news to Salomé Otero. She’s familiar with the Institute’s fundraising efforts, having worked as one of the Alumni Association’s Tech Callers. Now, as an alumna herself and a former social impact intern, she has an appreciation for the power of philanthropy.

      “MIT is ahead of the game compared to so many universities, in so many ways,” she says. “But if they want to continue to do that in the most impactful way possible, I think investing in ideas and missions like the PKG Center is the way to go. So when that call comes, I’ll tell whoever is working that night shift, ‘Yeah, I’ll donate to the PKG Center.’” More

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      in Energy

      Six ways MIT is taking action on climate

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      From reuse and recycling to new carbon markets, events during Earth Month at MIT spanned an astonishing range of ideas and approaches to tackling the climate crisis. The MIT Climate Nucleus offered funding to departments and student organizations to develop programming that would showcase the countless initiatives underway to make a better world.

      Here are six — just six of many — ways the MIT community is making a difference on climate right now.

      1. Exchanging knowledge with policymakers to meet local, regional, and global challenges

      Creating solutions begins with understanding the problem.

      Speaking during the annual Earth Day Colloquium of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) about the practical challenges of implementing wind-power projects, for instance, Massachusetts State Senator Michael J. Barrett offered a sobering assessment.

      The senate chair of the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy, Barrett reported that while the coast of Massachusetts provides a conducive site for offshore wind, economic forces have knocked a major offshore wind installation project off track. The combination of the pandemic and global geopolitical instability has led to such great supply chain disruptions and rising commodity costs that a project considered necessary for the state to meet its near-term climate goals now faces delays, he said.

      Like others at MIT, MITEI researchers keep their work grounded in the real-world constraints and possibilities for decarbonization, engaging with policymakers and industry to understand the on-the-ground challenges to technological and policy-based solutions and highlight the opportunities for greatest impact.

      2. Developing new ways to prevent, mitigate, and adapt to the effects of climate change

      An estimated 20 percent of MIT faculty work on some aspect of the climate crisis, an enormous research effort distributed throughout the departments, labs, centers, and institutes.

      About a dozen such projects were on display at a poster session coordinated by the Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (J-WAFS), Environmental Solutions Initiative (ESI), and MITEI.

      Students and postdocs presented innovations including:

      Graduate student Alexa Reese Canaan describes her research on household energy consumption to Massachusetts State Senator Michael J. Barrett, chair of the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy.

      Photo: Caitlin Cunningham

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      3. Preparing students to meet the challenges of a climate-changed world

      Faculty and staff from more than 30 institutions of higher education convened at the MIT Symposium on Advancing Climate Education to exchange best practices and innovations in teaching and learning. Speakers and participants considered paths to structural change in higher education, the imperative to place equity and justice at the center of new educational approaches, and what it means to “educate the whole student” so that graduates are prepared to live and thrive in a world marked by global environmental and economic disruption.

      Later in April, MIT faculty voted to approve the creation of a new joint degree program in climate system science and engineering.

      4. Offering climate curricula to K-12 teachers

      At a daylong conference on climate education for K-12 schools, the attendees were not just science teachers. Close to 50 teachers of arts, literature, history, math, mental health, English language, world languages, and even carpentry were all hungry for materials and approaches to integrate into their curricula. They were joined by another 50 high school students, ready to test out the workshops and content developed by MIT Climate Action Through Education (CATE), which are already being piloted in at least a dozen schools.

      The CATE initiative is led by Christopher Knittel, the George P. Shultz Professor of Energy Economics at the MIT Sloan School of Management, deputy director for policy at MITEI, and faculty director of the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research. The K-12 Climate Action and Education Conference was hosted as a collaboration with the Massachusetts Teachers Association Climate Action Network and Earth Day Boston.

      “We will be honest about the threats posed by climate change, but also give students a sense of agency that they can do something about this,” Knittel told MITEI Energy Futures earlier this spring. “And for the many teachers — especially non-science teachers — starved for knowledge and background material, CATE offers resources to give them confidence to implement our curriculum.”

      High school students and K-12 teachers participated in a workshop on “Exploring a Green City,” part of the Climate Action and Education Conference on April 1.

      Photo: Tony Rinaldo

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      5. Guiding our communities in making sense of the coming changes

      The arts and humanities, vital in their own right, are also central to the sharing of scientific knowledge and its integration into culture, behavior, and decision-making. A message well-delivered can reach new audiences and prompt reflection and reckoning on ethics and values, identity, and optimism.

      The Climate Machine, part of ESI’s Arts and Climate program, produced an evening art installation on campus featuring dynamic, large-scale projections onto the façade of MIT’s new music building and a musical performance by electronic duo Warung. Passers-by were invited to take a Climate Identity Quiz, with the responses reflected in the visuals. Another exhibit displayed the results of a workshop in which attendees had used an artificial intelligence art tool to imagine the future of their hometowns, while another highlighted native Massachusetts wildlife.

      The Climate Machine is an MIT research project undertaken in collaboration with record label Anjunabeats. The collaborative team imagines interactive experiences centered on sustainability that could be deployed at musical events and festivals to inspire climate action.

      Dillon Ames (left) and Aaron Hopkins, known as the duo Warung, perform a live set during the Climate Machine art installation.

      Photo: Caitlin Cunningham

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      6. Empowering students to seize this unique policy moment

      ESI’s TILclimate Podcast, which breaks down important climate topics for general listeners, held a live taping at the MIT Museum and offered an explainer on three recent, major pieces of federal legislation: the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill of 2021, and the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022.

      The combination of funding and financial incentives for energy- and climate-related projects, along with reinvestment in industrial infrastructure, create “a real moment and an opportunity,” said special guest Elisabeth Reynolds, speaking with host Laur Hesse Fisher. Reynolds was a member of the National Economic Council from 2021 to 2022, serving as special assistant to the president for manufacturing and economic development; after leaving the White House, Reynolds returned to MIT, where she is a lecturer in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning.

      For students, the opportunities to engage have never been better, Reynolds urged: “There is so much need. … Find a way to contribute, and find a way to help us make this transformation.”

      “What we’re embarking on now, you just can’t overstate the significance of it,” she said.

      For more information on how MIT is advancing climate action across education; research and innovation; policy; economic, social, and environmental justice; public and global engagement; sustainable campus operations; and more, visit Fast Forward: MIT’s Climate Action Plan for the Decade. The actions described in the plan aim to accelerate the global transition to net-zero carbon emissions, and to “educate and empower the next generation.” More

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      in Environment

      Envisioning education in a climate-changed world

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      What must colleges and universities do differently to help students develop the skills, capacities, and perspectives they’ll need to live, lead, and thrive in a world being remade by the accelerating climate crisis?

      That question was at the heart of a recent convening on MIT’s campus that brought together faculty and staff from more than 30 institutions of higher education. Over two days, attendees delved into the need for higher education to align structurally and philosophically with the changing demands of the coming decades.

      “We all know that there is more to do to educate and to empower today’s students, the young people who rightly feel the threat of climate change most acutely,” said MIT Chancellor Melissa Nobles. “They are our future leaders, the generation that will inherit the full weight of the problem and the responsibility for trying to solve it.”

      The MIT Symposium for Advancing Climate Education, held on April 6 and 7, was hosted by MIT’s Climate Education Working Group, one of three working groups established under the Institute’s ambitious Fast Forward climate action plan. The Climate Education Working Group is tasked with finding ways to strengthen climate- and sustainability-related education at the Institute, from curricular offerings to experiential learning opportunities and beyond.

      “We began working as a group about a year ago, and we quickly realized it would be important to expand the conversation across MIT and to colleagues at other institutions who … are thinking broadly,” says Professor David McGee, co-chair of the Climate Education Working Group.

      Co-chair Professor David Hsu encouraged attendees to build lasting relationships, adding, “There is a true wealth of knowledge spread throughout the room. Every university has pieces of the puzzle, but I don’t think we can point to a single one that right now exemplifies all of what we want to achieve.”

      The symposium featured keynotes by Nobles; Kim Cobb, director of the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society; and Reverend Mariama White-Hammond, founder of the New Roots AME Church in Dorchester, who is also chief of environment, energy, and open space for the City of Boston.

      On the first morning of the event, participants engaged in roundtable discussions, exchanging ideas, successes, and pain points. They also identified and read out close to a dozen unsolved challenges, among them: “How do we meet the fear and anger that students are feeling, and the desire to ‘do’ that students are expressing?” “How do we support people who challenge the status quo?” “As we create these new educational experiences, how do we ensure that a diversity of students can participate in them?” “How do we align tenure and power structures to center communities in the development of this work?” and “How radical a change is MIT willing to make?”

      Kate Trimble, senior associate dean and director of the Office of Experiential Learning, remarked on the thorniness of those questions in closing, wryly adding, “We’ll answer every last one of them before we leave here tomorrow.”

      But in sharing best practices and lessons learned, the tone was overwhelmingly hopeful. Trimble, for example, led a series of discussions highlighting 10 climate education programs already developed at MIT, the University of California at Davis, the University of Michigan, Swarthmore College, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and McGill University, among others. Each offered new models by which to weave climate justice, community partnerships, and cross-disciplinary teaching into classroom-based and experiential learning.

      Maria Zuber, MIT’s vice president for research, opened the symposium on the second day. Invoking the words of U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres upon publication of the IPCC’s sixth synthesis report last month, she said, “the global response needs to be ‘everything, everywhere, all at once.’”

      She pointed to a number of MIT research initiatives that are structured to address complex problems, among them the Climate Grand Challenges projects — the proposals for which came from researchers across 90 percent of MIT departments — as well as the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium and the MIT Energy Initiative’s Future Energy Systems Center.

      “These initiatives recognize that no sector, let alone any single institution, can be effective on its own — and so they seek to engage from the outset with other research institutions and with government, industry, and civil society,” Zuber said.

      Cobb, of Brown University, also spoke about the value of sustained action partnerships built on transdisciplinary research and collaborations with community leaders. She highlighted Brown’s participation in the Breathe Providence project and Georgia Tech’s involvement in the Smart Sea Level Sensors project in Savannah.

      Several speakers noted the importance of hands-on learning opportunities for students as a training ground for tackling complex challenges at scale. Students should learn how to build a respectfully collaborative team and how to connect with communities to understand the true nature and constraints of the problem, they said.

      Engineering professor Anne White, who is co-chair of the MIT Climate Nucleus, the faculty committee charged with implementing the Fast Forward plan, and MIT’s associate provost and associate vice president for research administration, moderated a career panel spanning nonprofit and corporate roles.

      The panelists’ experiences emphasized that in a world where no sector will be untouched by the impacts of climate change, every graduate in every field must be informed and ready to engage.

      “Education is training; it’s skills. We want the students to be smart. But what I’m hearing is that it’s not just that,” White reflected. “It’s these other qualities, right? It’s can they be brave … and can they be kind?”

      “Every job is a climate job in this era,” declared MIT graduate student Dyanna Jaye, co-founder of the Sunrise Movement.

      John Fernández, director of the Environmental Solutions Initiative at MIT, moderated a panel on structural change in higher education, speaking with Jim Stock, vice provost for climate and sustainability at Harvard University; Toddi Steelman, dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University; and Stephen Porder, assistant provost for sustainability at Brown.

      Steelman (who is also a qualified wildland firefighter — a useful skill for a dean, she noted) described a popular course at Duke called “Let’s Talk About Climate Change” that is jointly taught by a biogeochemist and a theologian. The course enrolled around 150 students in the fall who met for contemplative breakout discussions. “Unless we talk about our hearts and our minds,” she said, “we’re not going to make progress.”

      White-Hammond highlighted one trait she believes today’s students already have in abundance.

      “They’re willing to say that the status quo is unacceptable, and that is an important part of being courageous in the face of this climate crisis,” she said. She urged institutions to take that cue.

      “If we have to remake the world, rebuild it on something radically different. Why would we bake in racial injustice again? Why would we say, let’s have an equally unequal economic system that just doesn’t burn as many fossil fuels? I think we have an opportunity to go big.”

      “That,” she added, “is the work I believe higher education should be taking on, and not from an ivory tower, but rooted in real communities.”

      The MIT Symposium for Advancing Climate Education was part of Earth Month at MIT, a series of climate and sustainability events on campus in April. More