The Sustainability Institute at Ohio State has announced the winners of its 2021 Sustainability Research Seed Grants, a program designed to build capacity in sustainability and resilience research at the university.
Partnering with colleagues across colleges at Ohio State, the interdisciplinary research teams will explore topics including healthy air, sustainable agriculture, community resilience and sustainable energy transition. Research team members include Ohio State faculty from 14 different academic departments as well as University Libraries and multiple Ohio State Extension educators and community partners.
The seed grant program fosters this research at Ohio State by supporting new interdisciplinary research teams. Proposals were required to provide new teams of scholars from two or more distinct disciplines and support junior or early career faculty.
Winning proposals:
- Accelerated discovery of long-life organic electrode materials for sustainable energy storage with active machine learning: This project aims to use state-of-the-art active machine learning methods to accelerate the discovery of new battery materials based on abundant elements, such as carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and sulfur, which can provide a more economical and sustainable route to renewable energy storage.
Researchers: Shiyu Zhang (principal investigator), assistant professor, chemistry and biochemistry, and Joel Paulson, assistant professor, chemical and biomolecular engineering
- Assessing the impacts of cover crops on the sustainability of agricultural production system using remote sensing and machine learning: This interdisciplinary project leverages satellite-based remote sensing and in-situ crop and soil data to assess the role of cover crops on the sustainability of agricultural production system under varying weather and management conditions. This study ties together many pieces in the areas of best management practices and nutrient cycling.
Researchers: Sami Khanal (principal investigator), assistant professor, food, agricultural and biological engineering; Steve Culman, associate professor, environment and natural resources; Matthew Romanko, research associate and Ohio State Extension associate, Sandusky County; Alison Bennett, assistant professor, evolution, ecology and organismal biology; Brigitte Moneymaker, research associate and Ohio State Extension associate, Auglaize County; Christopher Stewart, associate professor, computer science and engineering; Boden Fisher, research associate and Ohio State Extension associate, Putnam County; and Breann Hohman, watershed coordinator, Firelands Coastal Tributaries, Erie Conservation District.
- Estimating exposure and health impacts of traffic-related air pollution during daily travel: Few studies have investigated the health impacts of on-/near-road PM2.5, or inhalable particles generally 2.5 micrometers and smaller, during daily mobility due to the lack of fine-grained spatio-temporal data. This project proposes measuring and predicting PM2.5 concentrations and surveying health outcomes of 250 participants in Columbus to estimate the physical and mental health impacts from everyday exposure to on-/near-road PM2.5.
Researchers: Huyen T.K. Le (principal investigator), assistant professor, geography; Andrew A. May, assistant professor, civil, environmental and geodetic engineering; Joseph B. Bayer, assistant professor, communication; Harvey J. Miller, professor, geography; and Rachel C. Nethery, public health, Harvard University.
- Ohio’s coal transition: pathways for community resilience: Combining social science, engineering, theatre and art, this project proposes to document and understand impacts of the transition away from coal on three Ohio case study communities. The academic, applied and creative outputs will inform policies, planning, programs and design aimed at bolstering community resilience in these communities and beyond. The Pomerene Center for the Arts in Coshocton, Ohio, is the community partner for the project.
Researchers: Jeffrey Jacquet (principal investigator), assistant professor, environment and natural resources; Tom Dugdale, assistant professor, theatre; Mandy Fox, associate professor, theatre; Courtney Hunt, assistant professor and art and design librarian, University Libraries; Jeffrey M. Bielicki, associate professor, public affairs and civil, environmental and geodetic engineering; Daniel Marcus, lecturer, history of art, and associate curator, Wexner Museum of Art; Kevin McClatchy, associate professor, theatre; Max D. Woodworth, associate professor, geography; and Gwynn Stewart, Ohio State Extension educator, Noble County. Also involved in the research project are master’s student Katie Finneran, environment and natural resources; doctoral student Brian Capobianco, environment and natural resources and EmPOWERment; undergraduate honor's student Elena Musser, environment and natural resources and theater.
- Sustainability assessment of upcycling anaerobically digested organic waste into sustainable Na-ion battery materials for distributed power solutions: This project evaluates the sustainability of an innovative distributed power generation and storage solution integrating an aerobic digestion and combined heat and power system with hydrothermal carbonization and sodium-ion battery systems to utilize community-generated organic wastes to produce heat and electricity and store the excess power for community use.
Researchers: Ajay Shah (principal investigator), associate professor, food, agricultural and biological engineering; Vicky Doan-Nguyen, assistant professor, materials science and engineering and mechanical and aerospace engineering; and Ashish Manandhar, post-doctoral scholar, food, agricultural and biological engineering
More than $161,000 was awarded to the seed grant proposals.
The seed grant program aims to lay a foundation for convergence research, a means of solving vexing research problems, particularly complex problems focusing on societal needs. This entails integrating knowledge, methods and expertise from different disciplines and forming novel frameworks to catalyze scientific discovery and innovation.