By: Meredith Oglesby
Six new members have been hired as Core Faculty of the Sustainability Institute at Ohio State, and two current faculty have joined the institute’s Faculty Advisory Board.
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Huyen T.K. Le, Department of Geography; College of Arts and Sciences
Urban Sustainability
Le’s research lies at the intersection of transportation, environment, health and well-being. This includes planning for sustainable transportation, such as bicycling, walking and public transit. Her research focuses on three major themes: managing and modeling urban transportation demand; impacts of information and communications technology on transportation, energy efficiency, and other environmental outcomes; and physical and mental health outcomes resulting from daily travel and activities.
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Joel Paulson, Department of Chemical and Bimolecular Engineering; College of Engineering
Sustainable Manufacturing
Paulson’s research aims to improve the quality, efficiency and sustainability of engineered products and processes through the development and application of advanced decision-making strategies in the presence of uncertainty.
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Judit Puskas, Department of Food, Agricultural, and Biological Engineering; College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences
Biomaterials/Biopolymer Engineering
Puskas is based at the Wooster campus, where she specializes in green polymer chemistry, aiming to make rubber, plastics and similar materials using environmentally friendly practices, biomaterials and polymer-based cancer diagnostic and therapeutic agents. She also is developing more fuel-efficient tires and a sustainable university-based innovation ecosystem to move inventions toward commercialization.
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Yue Qin, Department of Geography; College of Arts and Sciences
Urban Sustainability
Qin’s research focuses on air quality, carbon and water synergies and tradeoffs of energy transition pathways; the feedback of the natural environment on human society; and the food-energy-water nexus.
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Christopher Rea, John Glenn College of Public Affairs
Regulation and Public Policy
Rea studies the politics and economics of environmental governance and regulation. His research also includes markets, regulations, institutional emergence, organizational change, health policy, science and technology.
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Xiaoxue Wang, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering; College of Engineering
Sustainable Reaction Engineering and Energy
Wang’s Research interest is to develop flexible and stretchable electronics and optoelectronics with advanced soft materials, as well as to design new materials using computational methods. The target applications include flexible display, soft robotics, “point-of-care” biosensing devices and biocompatible optogenetics devices.
Two new members have joined the Sustainability Institute Faculty Advisory Board.
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Darrick Hamilton, John Glenn College of Public Affairs
Sustainability Institute Faculty Advisory Board
Hamilton’s research is in the area of stratification economics, which fuses social science methods to examine the causes and consequences of inequalities in education, economic and health outcomes. His work involves brainstorming and implementing innovative routes and policies that break down social hierarchy and empower people.
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Darla Munroe, Department of Geography, College of Arts and Sciences
Sustainability Institute Faculty Advisory Board
Munroe’s studies focus on the urban-rural interface, examining how changing connections between rural and urban systems manifest in changing forest cover. This includes looking at how changes in land-use systems affect forests and forest characteristics. Her research also includes the role of land institutions such as protected areas in enhancing and maintaining forest cover.
Meredith Oglesby is a student communications assistant at the Sustainability Institute at Ohio State.