Institute for Computational Sustainability

The US News and World Report is featuring a new video, which highlights the work of two Expedition in Computing awards - that of the Institute for Computational Sustainability (led by Carla Gomes) and of a team at Harvard University - as an "Innovations and Discoveries" video in the science section of its website (see "What's Next for Computers"). The video was developed by the NSF to highlight successful Expeditions in Computing awards as it announces this year's new awards. The video is also featured on the NSF's Science 360 News Service.

The Winter 2009 edition of the National Academy of Engineering's publication, The Bridge, features the article "Computational Sustainability: Computational Methods for a Sustainable Environment, Economy and Society" authored by ICS Director Carla Gomes. The Bridge presents thoughtful opinion and analysis on engineering research, education, and practice; science and technology policy; and the roles of engineering and technology in all aspects of society. The intent is to stimulate debate and dialogue within the NAE membership and the broader outside community of policymakers, educators, business leaders and other interested citizens.

The conference focuses on computational methods for balancing environmental, economic, and societal needs for a sustainable future. Through talks, discussions, poster sessions, and workshops, the conference program will investigate the major problem domains that impact global sustainability, those technologies and processes that offer the greatest opportunity to increase sustainability in these domains, and the fundamental computational methods that support these technologies and processes. Participants include representatives from national and international research institutions and government agencies.

Communications of the ACM, the leading print and online publication for the computing and information technologyfields, reports on the 1st International Conference on Computational Sustainability. Reporter Karen Frankel notes that the conference enabled conservationists and environmental scientists to expand their knowledge of computational techniques applicable to the problems they want to solve, while raising awareness among computer scientists and mathematicians regarding the the way ecological problems often translate into interesting computational problems. Throughout the conference, environmental scientists encouraged computer scientists to collaborate with them, and steps were taken to achieve the goal of establishing and developing a research community around the field of computational sustainability.

ICS team member Chris Barrett will lead the new NSF-sponsored Food Systems and Poverty Reduction Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training (IGERT) program, administered through the Cornell International Institute for Food, Agriculture and Development. Open to U.S. citizens and permanent residents, the program is scheduled to begin in August 2010 with more than 20 graduate fields participating. The program will train a cadre of graduate students to use interdisciplinary approaches to tackle food systems and agricultural problems that contribute to extreme poverty. The curriculum will include a seminar series; field research in Kenya and Ethiopia to study both highland and dryland agricultural systems in collaboration with partners at Bahir Dar University in Ethiopia and the International Livestock Research Institute; and a three-semester core course sequence that takes interdisciplinary approaches to addressing such problems as water shortages, climate change and vulnerability to food systems, soil degradation, pests and diseases, and food supply chains. The NSF IGERT grant is funded through federal stimulus money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, intended to spur economic development by expanding educational opportunities, among other things.

On March 19, 2009, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar released the first ever comprehensive report on bird populations in the United States, showing that nearly a third of the nation’s 800 bird species are endangered, threatened or in significant decline due to habitat loss, invasive species, and other threats. The report also highlights examples, including many species of waterfowl, where habitat restoration and conservation have reversed previous declines, offering hope that it is not too late to take action to save declining populations. ICS member Kenneth Rosenberg served as a member of the project's science team. The website, video, and printed report were produced for the partnership by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.