RESEARCH
The Villanova Strategic Initiative on Climate, Justice and Sustainability (SICJS) fosters sustainability research and teaching across all disciplines and all six colleges at the University.
GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE FOR DIVERSE URBAN NEEDS
Project Lead: Virginia Smith, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Virginia Smith, PhD, is a scholar of water resource engineering dedicated to advancing sustainable urban development. One focus of her research is on understanding the global potential for different types of green infrastructure (GI) tailored to diverse urban needs and objectives. As climate change exacerbates environmental challenges associated with development in urban communities, agricultural and environmental management, GI systems are becoming a prevalent mitigation strategy to address these challenges. While GI are increasingly including in urban plans and watershed management plans, these programs are limited by a lack of knowledge of GI life-cycle dynamics, as well as a lack of consideration of social equity and the impact of community dynamics on GI performance. Her work aims to develop innovative, interdisciplinary approaches to designing and implementing green infrastructure. Dr. Smith is also a leader on tangential grant funded projects, as well as Director of the Urban Rivers Lab, PI of the Villanova Urban Stormwater Partnership and Villanova’s Center for Resilient Water Systems.
Recent Grants: National Science Foundation (SCC, DISES, Global Centers, CSD&E) and the U.S. Army.
Other Partners: Dr. Xun Jiao, Dr. Bridget Wadzuk, Dr. Peleg Kremer, Dr. Chenfeng Xiong
MITIGATING THE ENVIRONMENTAL BURDENS OF DATA CENTER FACILITIES
Project Description: Data centers are potentially large (up to hundreds of megawatts) facilities containing information technology (IT) equipment for cloud services, high performance computing and online applications. These facilities consume large quantities of power and water, so our research focuses on quantifying and mitigating the environmental burden of data centers, with a specific emphasis on reducing water stress impact and carbon footprint.
Project Lead: Aaron Wemhoff, PhD, and Alfonso Ortega, PhD, Department of Mechanical Engineering
Recent Grants: NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research Center (I/UCRC) in Energy-Smart Electronic Systems (ES2)
Other Funders: Villanova Freshmen Match Program, Villanova Mechanical Engineering Sophomore Match Program, NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU), Villanova Undergraduate Research Fellows (VURF)
Other Partners: Cadence, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Vertiv, the Open Compute Project (OCP)
SOCIAL RELATIONS AND CULTURAL PRACTICES AROUND "GARBAGE"
Project Lead: Agnese Codebò, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Department of Spanish
2024-25 SICJS Faculty Fellow Agnese Codebò, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Department of Spanish, will use her Fellowship award to further her investigation of the social relations and cultural practices around “garbage” in Argentina and Brazil and explore the question of how garbage matters culturally and socially in these countries. Her work challenges the dominant narratives that portray waste as undesirable and useless and instead looks to culture, activism and urban space to show how these cultures coexist with waste despite our environmental crises.
BROADENING DIVERSITY IN THE ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES THROUGH A HIGH SCHOOL RESEARCH EXPERIENCE
Project: Broadening Diversity in the Environmental Sciences Through a High School Environmental Justice Focused Research Experience
Project Lead: Steven Goldsmith, PhD, associate Professor, Geography and the Environment
Urban communities often suffer the greatest damage from poor water, air, and soil quality. Geoscience programs, including the environmental sciences, are the foundation for jobs tasked with remedying these problems; however, the racially minoritized residents who disproportionately experience environmental burdens are vastly underrepresented in these fields.
This partnership with Walter B. Saul High School in Philadelphia uses and immersive, locally based, culturally responsive research experience in urban environmental geochemistry, through an environmental justice lens, to broaden a pathway to the geosciences for underrepresented minoritized students. Students are engaged though both school-based active learning modules and a solutions-based summer research experience carried out alongside Villanova undergraduate students.
REVOLUTIONIZING SUSTAINABLE AND FAIR GREEN STORMWATER INFRASTRUCTURE THROUGH AI
Research team: Dr. Virginia Smith (CEE-VCRWS), Dr. Xun Jiao (ECE), Dr. Bridget Wadzuk (CEE-VCRWS), Dr. Peleg Kremer (GEV)
Goals: Leverage novel datasets and AI technology to deepen understanding of green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) dynamics to impact infrastructure planning, development, and management
Impact: An interdisciplinary approach to mitigating the effects of urbanization and climate change while addressing issues of social equity in urban infrastructure.
The last five years were the hottest years on record further complicating flooding, which has an annual cost of $2.9 billion.
ECOLOGICAL AND INDIGENOUS ETHICS
Research team: Dr. Paul Rosier, Mary M. Birle Chair in American History
Proposed Research Project: “Indigenous Ecological Ethics in an Age of Environmental Crisis: Native People’s Engagement with Climate Change and the Implications for a Sustainable Future.” A scholarly history of the engagement of North American native peoples in the environmental movement.
Dr. Rosier is the winner of the 2013 Veritas Award for Research Excellence and the Labriola Center American Indian National Book Award (for Serving Their Country: American Indian Politics and Patriotism in the Twentieth Century, Harvard UP, 2010).
His previous publications include:
- “Surviving in the 20th Century, 1890-1960,” in Oxford Handbook of American Indian History, Ed. Frederick E. Hoxie (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016).
- "Crossing New International and Historiographical Boundaries: American Indians and Twentieth Century American Foreign Policy," Diplomatic History 39 (October 2015): 955-966.
- Sylvia Washington, Paul C. Rosier, and Heather Goodall, eds. Echoes from the Poisoned Well: Global Memories of Environmental Injustice. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006.
- Native American Issues. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2003.
- Rebirth of the Blackfeet Nation, 1912-1954. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001.
CAMPUS LIVING LABORATORY FOR CLIMATE IMPACT AND SUSTAINABLE PROCESSES AND PRACTICES
Opportunity: The Villanova campus is a microcosm of a community of people utilizing infrastructure to enable productive and meaningful lives
Goal: Use the campus as a Living Laboratory allowing Institute researchers to conduct studies with data from people, buildings, grounds, and facilities
- Assessment of the University’s Climate Footprint and its reduction
- Stormwater and mitigation of climate-accelerated flooding
- Examining Campus Biodiversity and the impact of climate
DEVELOPING A CASE DEFINITION OF CLIMATE CHANGE-RELATED MORTALITY
Research team: Ruth McDermott-Levy, PhD, RN, MPH, FAAN (FCN), Madeline Scolio (VURF, CLAS ‘23), Kabindra Shakya, PhD (GEV) & Caroline Moore (FCN, PhD student)
Goal: Conduct a systematic review of the scientific literature to develop a case definition of climate change-related mortality.
Impact: Definition will be used to review Pennsylvania Dept of Health mortality data to identify and quantify climate change-related mortality in the Commonwealth. This will serve as a pilot for a national climate mortality study.
