Release Date:
7/15/2015
Ten post-doctoral scholars have been selected to join the Dow Sustainability Fellows Program this fall. Selected from among 139 applicants, their research areas span the social sciences, humanities and the natural, physical and engineering sciences. As with past cohorts, this diversity of disciplines will play an important role in helping them to address some of the world’s most pressing sustainability challenges.
All fellows will be mentored by designated faculty members in their home academic units during their two-year appointment.
“The selected scholars offer diverse perspectives on the sustainability challenges facing our planet and will be crucial to bringing the collaborative nature of the program together to help develop real solutions,” said Professor Don Scavia, special counsel to the president for sustainability, who directs the program on the university's behalf.
The scholars, their U-M academic units and research topics are as follows:
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Jessica Axson will be working in the School of Public Health in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences where she will study the impact of harmful algal blooms and aerosol production on air quality.
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Muhammad Farhan Ul Haque will be in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the College of Engineering, where he will continue work on a highly efficient bioconversion of methane to liquid biofuels.
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Also at the College of Engineering's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Sarah-Jane Haig will be exploring the link between drinking water microbiome to human health.
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Joonghyeo (Joon) Heo will be researching the environmental changes associated with land-use impacts, terrestrial carbon cycle and renewable energy at the U-M Energy Institute
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Coming from the University of Southern California in Berkeley, Sarah Knuth will be working in the Urban and Regional Planning department at the at the Taubman College where she will explore the urban financial innovations which are emerging in response to environmental change and sustainability initiatives.
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At the College of Engineering in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Yashen Lin will be investigating the environmental impacts resulting from the introduction of distributed energy storage into the power system.
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Chad Monfreda is coming from Arizona State University to the Ford School of Public Policy, where he will be exploring pathways for sustainable transformations at the interface of energy and agricultural systems.
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Shen Qu at the School of Natural Resources and Environment, will be evaluating the risks posed by climate change for industries with global supply chains.
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Todd Schifeling will be working with the Erb Institute at the Ross School of Business and School of Natural Resources and Environment, where he will evaluate the efficacy of different types of green marketing claims.
- Titlayo Shodiya will be exploring the novel electrochemical liquid-liquid-solid disposition of semiconductor materials in the Department of Chemistry within the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts.
In addition to conducting their sustainability related research, the postdoctoral fellows will participate in the program’s co-curricular activities, such as skills building workshops, seminars, and joint presentations with U-M’s Distinguished Faculty Fellows in Sustainability.
Support
Made possible by The Dow Chemical Company, the Dow Sustainability Fellows Program at the University of Michigan supports full-time graduate students and postdoctoral scholars at the university who are committed to finding interdisciplinary, actionable, and meaningful sustainability solutions on local-to-global scales. The program prepares future sustainability leaders to make a positive difference in organizations worldwide. Click here for more information about the Dow Sustainability Fellows Program.