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      in Environment

      MIT J-WAFS announces 2022 seed grant recipients

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      The Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (J-WAFS) at MIT has awarded eight MIT principal investigators with 2022 J-WAFS seed grants. The grants support innovative MIT research that has the potential to have significant impact on water- and food-related challenges.

      The only program at MIT that is dedicated to water- and food-related research, J-WAFS has offered seed grant funding to MIT principal investigators and their teams for the past eight years. The grants provide up to $75,000 per year, overhead-free, for two years to support new, early-stage research in areas such as water and food security, safety, supply, and sustainability. Past projects have spanned many diverse disciplines, including engineering, science, technology, and business innovation, as well as social science and economics, architecture, and urban planning. 

      Seven new projects led by eight researchers will be supported this year. With funding going to four different MIT departments, the projects address a range of challenges by employing advanced materials, technology innovations, and new approaches to resource management. The new projects aim to remove harmful chemicals from water sources, develop drought monitoring systems for farmers, improve management of the shellfish industry, optimize water purification materials, and more.

      “Climate change, the pandemic, and most recently the war in Ukraine have exacerbated and put a spotlight on the serious challenges facing global water and food systems,” says J-WAFS director John H. Lienhard. He adds, “The proposals chosen this year have the potential to create measurable, real-world impacts in both the water and food sectors.”  

      The 2022 J-WAFS seed grant researchers and their projects are:

      Gang Chen, the Carl Richard Soderberg Professor of Power Engineering in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, is using sunlight to desalinate water. The use of solar energy for desalination is not a new idea, particularly solar thermal evaporation methods. However, the solar thermal evaporation process has an overall low efficiency because it relies on breaking hydrogen bonds among individual water molecules, which is very energy-intensive. Chen and his lab recently discovered a photomolecular effect that dramatically lowers the energy required for desalination. 

      The bonds among water molecules inside a water cluster in liquid water are mostly hydrogen bonds. Chen discovered that a photon with energy larger than the bonding energy between the water cluster and the remaining water liquids can cleave off the water cluster at the water-air interface, colliding with air molecules and disintegrating into 60 or even more individual water molecules. This effect has the potential to significantly boost clean water production via new desalination technology that produces a photomolecular evaporation rate that exceeds pure solar thermal evaporation by at least ten-fold. 

      John E. Fernández is the director of the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative (ESI) and a professor in the Department of Architecture, and also affiliated with the Department of Urban Studies and Planning. Fernández is working with Scott D. Odell, a postdoc in the ESI, to better understand the impacts of mining and climate change in water-stressed regions of Chile.

      The country of Chile is one of the world’s largest exporters of both agricultural and mineral products; however, little research has been done on climate change effects at the intersection of these two sectors. Fernández and Odell will explore how desalination is being deployed by the mining industry to relieve pressure on continental water supplies in Chile, and with what effect. They will also research how climate change and mining intersect to affect Andean glaciers and agricultural communities dependent upon them. The researchers intend for this work to inform policies to reduce social and environmental harms from mining, desalination, and climate change.

      Ariel L. Furst is the Raymond (1921) and Helen St. Laurent Career Development Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT. Her 2022 J-WAFS seed grant project seeks to effectively remove dangerous and long-lasting chemicals from water supplies and other environmental areas. 

      Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), a component of Teflon, is a member of a group of chemicals known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). These human-made chemicals have been extensively used in consumer products like nonstick cooking pans. Exceptionally high levels of PFOA have been measured in water sources near manufacturing sites, which is problematic as these chemicals do not readily degrade in our bodies or the environment. The majority of humans have detectable levels of PFAS in their blood, which can lead to significant health issues including cancer, liver damage, and thyroid effects, as well as developmental effects in infants. Current remediation methods are limited to inefficient capture and are mostly confined to laboratory settings. Furst’s proposed method utilizes low-energy, scaffolded enzyme materials to move beyond simple capture to degrade these hazardous pollutants.

      Heather J. Kulik is an associate professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at MIT who is developing novel computational strategies to identify optimal materials for purifying water. Water treatment requires purification by selectively separating small ions from water. However, human-made, scalable materials for water purification and desalination are often not stable in typical operating conditions and lack precision pores for good separation. 

      Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are promising materials for water purification because their pores can be tailored to have precise shapes and chemical makeup for selective ion affinity. Yet few MOFs have been assessed for their properties relevant to water purification. Kulik plans to use virtual high-throughput screening accelerated by machine learning models and molecular simulation to accelerate discovery of MOFs. Specifically, Kulik will be looking for MOFs with ultra-stable structures in water that do not break down at certain temperatures. 

      Gregory C. Rutledge is the Lammot du Pont Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT. He is leading a project that will explore how to better separate oils from water. This is an important problem to solve given that industry-generated oil-contaminated water is a major source of pollution to the environment.

      Emulsified oils are particularly challenging to remove from water due to their small droplet sizes and long settling times. Microfiltration is an attractive technology for the removal of emulsified oils, but its major drawback is fouling, or the accumulation of unwanted material on solid surfaces. Rutledge will examine the mechanism of separation behind liquid-infused membranes (LIMs) in which an infused liquid coats the surface and pores of the membrane, preventing fouling. Robustness of the LIM technology for removal of different types of emulsified oils and oil mixtures will be evaluated. César Terrer is an assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering whose J-WAFS project seeks to answer the question: How can satellite images be used to provide a high-resolution drought monitoring system for farmers? 

      Drought is recognized as one of the world’s most pressing issues, with direct impacts on vegetation that threaten water resources and food production globally. However, assessing and monitoring the impact of droughts on vegetation is extremely challenging as plants’ sensitivity to lack of water varies across species and ecosystems. Terrer will leverage a new generation of remote sensing satellites to provide high-resolution assessments of plant water stress at regional to global scales. The aim is to provide a plant drought monitoring product with farmland-specific services for water and socioeconomic management.

      Michael Triantafyllou is the Henry L. and Grace Doherty Professor in Ocean Science and Engineering in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He is developing a web-based system for natural resources management that will deploy geospatial analysis, visualization, and reporting to better manage and facilitate aquaculture data.  By providing value to commercial fisheries’ permit holders who employ significant numbers of people and also to recreational shellfish permit holders who contribute to local economies, the project has attracted support from the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries as well as a number of local resource management departments.

      Massachusetts shell fisheries generated roughly $339 million in 2020, accounting for 17 percent of U.S. East Coast production. Managing such a large industry is a time-consuming process, given there are thousands of acres of coastal areas grouped within over 800 classified shellfish growing areas. Extreme climate events present additional challenges. Triantafyllou’s research will help efforts to enforce environmental regulations, support habitat restoration efforts, and prevent shellfish-related food safety issues. More

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      in Environment

      Strengthening students’ knowledge and experience in climate and sustainability

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      Tackling the climate crisis is central to MIT. Critical to this mission is harnessing the innovation, passion, and expertise of MIT’s talented students, from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds. To help raise this student involvement to the next level, the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium (MCSC) recently launched a program that will engage MIT undergraduates in a unique, year-long, interdisciplinary experience both developing and implementing climate and sustainability research projects.

      The MCSC Climate and Sustainability Scholars Program is a way for students to dive deeply and directly into climate and sustainability research, strengthen their skill sets in a variety of climate and sustainability-related areas, build their networks, and continue to embrace and grow their passion.The MCSC Climate and Sustainability Scholars Program is representative of MIT’s ambitious and bold initiatives on climate and sustainability — bringing together faculty and students across MIT to collaborate with industry on developing climate and sustainability solutions in the context of undergraduate education and research.

      The program, open to rising juniors and seniors from all majors and departments, is inspired by MIT’s SuperUROP program. Students will enroll in a year-long class while simultaneously engaging in research. Research projects will be climate- and sustainability-focused and can be on or off campus. The course will be initially facilitated by Desiree Plata, the Gilbert W. Winslow Career Development Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Elsa Olivetti, the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Associate Professor in Materials Science and Engineering and MCSC co-director.“Climate and sustainability challenges face real barriers in science, technology, policy, and beyond,” says Plata, who also serves on the MCSC’s Faculty Steering Committee. “We need to motivate an all-hands effort to bring MIT talent to bear on these challenges, and we need to give our students the tools to make tangible benefits within and between their disciplines. This was our goal in designing the MCSC Scholars Program, and it’s what I’m most excited about.”

      The Climate and Sustainability Scholars Program has relevance across all five schools, and the number of places the course is cross-listed continues to grow. As is the broader goal of the MCSC, the Climate and Sustainability Scholars Program aims to amplify and extend MIT’s expertise — through engaging students of all backgrounds and majors, bringing in faculty mentors and instructors from around the Institute, and identifying research opportunities and principal investigators that span disciplines. The student cohort model will also build off of the successful community-building endeavors by the MIT Energy Initiative and Environmental Solutions Initiative, among others, to bring students with similar interests together into an interdisciplinary, problem-solving space.The program’s fall semester will focus on key climate and sustainability topics, such as decarbonization strategies, policy, environmental justice, and quantitative methods for evaluating social and environmental impacts, and humanities-based communication of climate topics, all while students engage in research. Students will simultaneously develop project proposals, participate in a project through MIT’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, and communicate their work using written and oral media. The spring semester’s course will focus on research and experiential activities, and help students communicate their outputs in entrepreneurial or policy activities that would enable the research outcomes to be rapidly scaled for impact.Throughout the program, students will engage with their research mentors, additional mentors drawn from MCSC-affiliated faculty, postdoctoral Impact Fellows, and graduate students — and there will also be opportunities for interaction with representatives of MCSC member companies.“Providing opportunities for students to sharpen the skills and knowledge needed to pioneer solutions for climate change mitigation and adaptation is critical,” says Olivetti. “We are excited that the Climate and Sustainability Scholars Program can contribute to that important mission.” More

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      in Energy

      Q&A: Climate Grand Challenges finalists on building equity and fairness into climate solutions

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      Note: This is the first in a four-part interview series that will highlight the work of the Climate Grand Challenges finalists, ahead of the April announcement of several multiyear, flagship projects.

      The finalists in MIT’s first-ever Climate Grand Challenges competition each received $100,000 to develop bold, interdisciplinary research and innovation plans designed to attack some of the world’s most difficult and unresolved climate problems. The 27 teams are addressing four Grand Challenge problem areas: building equity and fairness into climate solutions; decarbonizing complex industries and processes; removing, managing, and storing greenhouse gases; and using data and science for improved climate risk forecasting.  

      In a conversation prepared for MIT News, faculty from three of the teams in the competition’s “Building equity and fairness into climate solutions” category share their thoughts on the need for inclusive solutions that prioritize disadvantaged and vulnerable populations, and discuss how they are working to accelerate their research to achieve the greatest impact. The following responses have been edited for length and clarity.

      The Equitable Resilience Framework

      Any effort to solve the most complex global climate problems must recognize the unequal burdens borne by different groups, communities, and societies — and should be equitable as well as effective. Janelle Knox-Hayes, associate professor in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, leads a team that is developing processes and practices for equitable resilience, starting with a local pilot project in Boston over the next five years and extending to other cities and regions of the country. The Equitable Resilience Framework (ERF) is designed to create long-term economic, social, and environmental transformations by increasing the capacity of interconnected systems and communities to respond to a broad range of climate-related events. 

      Q: What is the problem you are trying to solve?

      A: Inequity is one of the severe impacts of climate change and resonates in both mitigation and adaptation efforts. It is important for climate strategies to address challenges of inequity and, if possible, to design strategies that enhance justice, equity, and inclusion, while also enhancing the efficacy of mitigation and adaptation efforts. Our framework offers a blueprint for how communities, cities, and regions can begin to undertake this work.

      Q: What are the most significant barriers that have impacted progress to date?

      A: There is considerable inertia in policymaking. Climate change requires a rethinking, not only of directives but pathways and techniques of policymaking. This is an obstacle and part of the reason our project was designed to scale up from local pilot projects. Another consideration is that the private sector can be more adaptive and nimble in its adoption of creative techniques. Working with the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium there may be ways in which we could modify the ERF to help companies address similar internal adaptation and resilience challenges.

      Protecting and enhancing natural carbon sinks

      Deforestation and forest degradation of strategic ecosystems in the Amazon, Central Africa, and Southeast Asia continue to reduce capacity to capture and store carbon through natural systems and threaten even the most aggressive decarbonization plans. John Fernandez, professor in the Department of Architecture and director of the Environmental Solutions Initiative, reflects on his work with Daniela Rus, professor of electrical engineering and computer science and director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and Joann de Zegher, assistant professor of Operations Management at MIT Sloan, to protect tropical forests by deploying a three-part solution that integrates targeted technology breakthroughs, deep community engagement, and innovative bioeconomic opportunities. 

      Q: Why is the problem you seek to address a “grand challenge”?

      A: We are trying to bring the latest technology to monitoring, assessing, and protecting tropical forests, as well as other carbon-rich and highly biodiverse ecosystems. This is a grand challenge because natural sinks around the world are threatening to release enormous quantities of stored carbon that could lead to runaway global warming. When combined with deep community engagement, particularly with indigenous and afro-descendant communities, this integrated approach promises to deliver substantially enhanced efficacy in conservation coupled to robust and sustainable local development.

      Q: What is known about this problem and what questions remain unanswered?

      A: Satellites, drones, and other technologies are acquiring more data about natural carbon sinks than ever before. The problem is well-described in certain locations such as the eastern Amazon, which has shifted from a net carbon sink to now a net positive carbon emitter. It is also well-known that indigenous peoples are the most effective stewards of the ecosystems that store the greatest amounts of carbon. One of the key questions that remains to be answered is determining the bioeconomy opportunities inherent within the natural wealth of tropical forests and other important ecosystems that are important to sustained protection and conservation.

      Reducing group-based disparities in climate adaptation

      Race, ethnicity, caste, religion, and nationality are often linked to vulnerability to the adverse effects of climate change, and if left unchecked, threaten to exacerbate long standing inequities. A team led by Evan Lieberman, professor of political science and director of the MIT Global Diversity Lab and MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives, Danielle Wood, assistant professor in the Program in Media Arts and Sciences and the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and Siqi Zheng, professor of urban and real estate sustainability in the Center for Real Estate and the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, is seeking to  reduce ethnic and racial group-based disparities in the capacity of urban communities to adapt to the changing climate. Working with partners in nine coastal cities, they will measure the distribution of climate-related burdens and resiliency through satellites, a custom mobile app, and natural language processing of social media, to help design and test communication campaigns that provide accurate information about risks and remediation to impacted groups. 

      Q: How has this problem evolved?

      A: Group-based disparities continue to intensify within and across countries, owing in part to some randomness in the location of adverse climate events, as well as deep legacies of unequal human development. In turn, economically and politically privileged groups routinely hoard resources for adaptation. In a few cases — notably the United States, Brazil, and with respect to climate-related migrancy, in South Asia — there has been a great deal of research documenting the extent of such disparities. However, we lack common metrics, and for the most part, such disparities are only understood where key actors have politicized the underlying problems. In much of the world, relatively vulnerable and excluded groups may not even be fully aware of the nature of the challenges they face or the resources they require.

      Q: Who will benefit most from your research? 

      A: The greatest beneficiaries will be members of those vulnerable groups who lack the resources and infrastructure to withstand adverse climate shocks. We believe that it will be important to develop solutions such that relatively privileged groups do not perceive them as punitive or zero-sum, but rather as long-term solutions for collective benefit that are both sound and just. More

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      in Energy

      Bringing climate reporting to local newsrooms

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      Last summer, Nora Hertel, a reporter for the St. Cloud Times in central Minnesota, visited a farm just northeast of the Twin Cities run by the Native American-led nonprofit Dream of Wild Health. The farm raises a mix of vegetables and flowering plants, and has a particular focus on cultivating rare heirloom varieties. It’s also dealing with severely depleted soil, inherited from previous owners who grew corn on the same land. Hertel had come to learn about the techniques the farm was using to restore its soil, many of which were traditional parts of Indigenous farming practice, including planting cover crops over the winter and incorporating burnt wood and manure into the earth.

      The trip was part of a multi-part reporting project that Hertel undertook as an inaugural fellow in a new program from the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative (ESI). The ESI Journalism Fellowship was created to help local reporters around the United States connect climate change science and solutions with issues that are already of importance to their audiences — particularly in areas where many people are still unclear or unsure about climate change. For Hertel, that meant visiting 10 farms and forest lands across Minnesota to understand how natural climate solutions are taking shape in her state. The practices she saw at the Dream of Wild Health farm not only helped to restore soil, but also helped slow climate change by taking carbon dioxide out of the air and storing it in soils and plants.

      “There is enthusiasm for natural climate solutions,” Hertel says, but these practices can be expensive and difficult to adopt. She wanted to explain the benefits and the hurdles, especially for farmers and land managers considering new agricultural techniques.

      Hertel produced six news pieces for the St. Cloud Times as part of her project, as well as a six-episode podcast series and two videos. To conclude the series, she ran a public event where 130 attendees — including conventional farmers, regenerative farmers, state senators, the St. Cloud mayor, and other community stakeholders — gathered outside in the 40-degree Fahrenheit cold to discuss carbon markets in Minnesota. The stories were republished in 12 additional outlets, including USA Today, Associated Press, Yahoo News, and US News & World Report. 

      “I had been hoping to write about cover crops and carbon markets for about two years before I pitched my project to ESI,” says Hertel. “I hadn’t been able to take the time and resources with all my other responsibilities. Joining the fellowship allowed me to focus on those topics and dive in deep to understand how much is uncertain and changing in the field right now.”

      Supporting local climate reporting

      In today’s news landscape, local coverage is dwindling, which has major effects on the ways people hear about climate change. At times, the only in-depth climate coverage available is covered by specialty or national publications, which can miss the opportunity to understand the nuances of the communities they are parachuting into.

      “Climate change is or will impact all of us, but many Americans don’t see it as relevant to their lives,” says Laur Hesse Fisher, program director at the ESI, who created and manages the fellowship program. “We’re working to help change that.”

      In this first year of the fellowship, five local journalists were selected from around the country to pursue long-form or serial climate-focused reporting. Fellows received funding and stipends to help them dedicate extra time and resources to their projects. They gathered virtually for workshops and were connected with MIT experts in a variety of relevant fields: scientists such as Adam Schlosser, senior research scientist and deputy director for science research at the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change; economists and policy experts such as Joshua Hodge, executive director of the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEPR); and journalism experts from the MIT Knight Science Journalism Program.

      Fellows were also given full access to MIT’s extensive library databases and geographic data visualization tools, along with tools focused specifically on climate science and policy like the MIT Socio-Environmental Triage platform and CEEPR’s working papers. All these resources aimed to give the journalism fellows the backing they needed to undertake ambitious projects on climate issues their audiences might otherwise never have known were playing out right in their backyards.

      Stories around the country

      The result was five distinct reporting projects spread across the United States.

      ESI Fellow Tristan Baurick is an environment reporter for the Times Picayune | New Orleans Advocate, Louisiana’s largest newspaper. His multi-part series, “Wind of Change: How the Gulf of Mexico could be the next offshore wind powerhouse,” ran on the front page of the Thanksgiving print edition of the paper. It explores how the state’s offshore oil companies are pivoting to support the emerging wind energy industry, as well as the outcomes of the U.S.’s first offshore wind farm in Rhode Island, which Baurick visited on an extended reporting trip. The series looks at the history of Louisiana, which, despite being a hub for wind engineering technology production, has seen most of that technology exported. “The project relied on experts from the oil and gas industry to introduce the idea of offshore wind energy and the opportunities it could offer the region,” says Baurick. “This approach made readers who are skeptical of climate change and renewable energy let their guard down and consider these topics with a more open mind.”

      Oregon-based environmental journalist Alex Schwartz explored water rights and climate change within the Klamath River Basin for the Herald & News. The result was a five-part digital series that examines the many stakeholders, including Indigenous groups, farmers, fishers, and park managers, who depend on the Klamath River for water even as the region enters a period of extended climate change-induced drought. “The fellowship provided me with financial resources to be able to execute a project at this scale,” says Schwartz. “We never would have been able to take the time off and travel throughout the basin without the support of the fellowship.”

      Melba Newsome is a North Carolina-based independent reporter. Her two-part series for NC Health News focuses on Smithfield’s Foods, whose hog houses continue to have lasting health and environmental implications for majority Black communities in the southeastern part of the state. The series, which has been republished by Indy Weekly, the Daily Yonder, and others, interviews residents and activists to untangle a history of legal battles, neglect, and accusations of environmental racism — while noting that sea-level rise has made the region increasingly vulnerable to dangerous releases of waste from its growing factory farms.

      The final project supported by the fellowship came from Wyoming, famous for its vast outdoors and coal industry. In his three-part series for WyoFile, journalist Dustin Bleizeffer — whose beat shifted from education to energy and climate in part as a result of his fellowship — spoke to local residents to capture their personal experiences of warming temperatures and changing landscapes. “[Of] the people I interviewed and featured in my reporting … all but one are climate skeptics, but they spoke in detail about climate changes they’ve observed, and very eloquently described their concerns,” says Bleizeffer. “I’m still receiving comments and enthusiasm to keep the conversation going.” He also looked at how two Wyoming counties, Gillette and Campbell, are faring through the coal industry’s decline. His series provided a boost to efforts by grassroots organizations and conservation groups that are trying to open “the climate conversation” in the state.

      Lessons for climate conversations

      All five fellows joined ESI for a wrap-up event on Nov. 4, Connecting with Americans on Climate Change, which both showcased their work and gave them the opportunity to publicly discuss ways to engage Americans across the political spectrum on climate change.

      The event was joined by sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild, author of the bestselling “Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right,” who had earlier joined the fellows in one of their workshops to offer her own experience engaging with people who feel ill-served by the national media. Her book, which followed members of the Tea Party in Louisiana for five years, illustrates the importance of deep listening to bridging America’s social and political divides. Hochschild applied this insight to climate change in talking with the fellows and event attendees about strategies to understand and respond to local perspectives on what is often framed as a contentious political issue. “Sociology gives us forgiveness; [it] gets blame and guilt out of the picture,” said Hochschild.

      That was an insight echoed by several of the journalism fellows. “I think rural people feel blamed a lot for every problem,” said Schwartz. “If we were to take the carbon footprint of the Klamath River Basin, it would be minuscule compared to any corporation, right? … We have to create that safety net for our communities to be able to bear the brunt of these cascading disasters that are already occurring and are just going to get worse in the future. Focusing on the adaptation side was really helpful in terms of just getting people to talk about climate change.”

      Other fellows had their own strategies for opening conversations about climate change — and by responding to their audiences’ concerns, they did see opportunities for change in their reporting. In Wyoming, Bleizeffer talked about the need to retain young people in the state, and about changes to landscapes residents loved. Newsome emphasized that people need to see climate change as not someone else’s problem — for her audience, it illustrated and exacerbated injustices they were already feeling.

      And Hertel, speaking of the conventional farmers, everyday people, and local government officials featured in her series, left event attendees with one more insight about effective climate reporting. “Don’t expect people to change on a dime,” she said. “You must bring people [along] on the journey.”

      ESI will be opening journalism fellowship applications for its second cohort later this year. Experienced reporters are encouraged to apply. If you are interested in supporting this fellowship or are curious about opportunities for partnerships, please contact Laur Hesse Fisher. More