In an effort to advance learning and research in sustainability, The George Washington University is launching a university-wide institute.
The Institute for Sustainability Research, Education and Policy will focus on four key areas of sustainability: global climate change, sustainable organizations, sustainable communities and infrastructure and urban sustainability.
Led by Mark Starik, department chair and professor of strategic management and public policy in the School of Business, the institute will promote, initiate and evaluate GW sustainability research. GW faculty in all nine schools will be encouraged to increase the quality and quantity of sustainability-oriented courses, programs and extracurricular activities. There are more than 70 faculty members, who teach a sustainability-related course or are conducting sustainability research.
The institute will analyze and disseminate information about sustainability-related policies to government, businesses and nonprofit organizations.
“This new institute will help support the excellent work on sustainability that is already being done by faculty members and their students across the university,” says GW President Steven Knapp.
The institute is awarding 10 summer research grants of $10,000 each to GW faculty members and doctoral students.
“I’m very pleased that one of our initial Institute for Sustainability activities is generating interest in sustainability research across the university. Grant applicants represented nearly all GW schools and many departments within them and included both full-time and part-time faculty and doctoral students,” says Dr. Starik. ”We hope that this is just the beginning of a flourishing of sustainability research at GW and that the outcomes of our research are influential in advancing the study and practice of sustainability within the university and beyond.”
The following GW faculty and doctoral students received the grants and will conduct research on global climate change, sustainable organizations, sustainable communities and infrastructure and urban sustainability:
- Adele Ashkar, associate professor, College of Professional Studies
- Liesl Baumann, chemistry doctoral student, and John Houston Miller, chemistry professor, Columbian College of Arts and Sciences
- Patricia Kanashiro, doctoral student, School of Business
- Melissa Keeley, assistant professor of geography, public policy and public administration, Columbian College of Arts and Sciences
- Ivy Ken, associate professor of sociology, Columbian College of Arts and Sciences
- Amanda Matthews, doctoral student, School of Medicine and Health Sciences
- Baoxia Mi, assistant professor of civil engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
- Andrea Sarzynski, assistant research professor of public policy, Columbian College of Arts and Sciences
- Kelly Scanlon, doctoral student, School of Public Health and Health Services
- Ellen Scully-Russ, assistant professor of human and organizational learning, James Leslie, visiting professor of human and organizational learning, and Neal Chalofsky, assistant professor of human and organizational learning, Graduate School of Education and Human Development