MIT Climate & Sustainability Consortium (MCSC)

Mitali Chowdhury, recent MIT graduate and Climate & Sustainability Scholar, traveled to Nepal for 6 weeks to continue an MCSC-supported project on?sustainable and low-cost E. coli testing for drinking water. With guidance from mentors, Benedetto Marelli and Susan Murcott, and informed by research done in the MCSC Scholars program, Mitali was inspired by the opportunity to learn from the local Nepali communities and organizations who are working hard to address the need for quick-acting and readily available water testing. Read more about Mitali's research at MIT and beyond: https://lnkd.in/dP4KbZDS

Bringing people together across industry and academia is central to the MCSC’s mission—and is seen in action in a new study that aims to help heavy-duty #trucking stakeholders make informed decisions in their transition to zero-emissions. “The whole issue [of decarbonizing trucking] is like a very big, messy pie. One of the things we can do, from an academic standpoint, is quantify some of those pieces of pie with modeling, based on information and experience we’ve learned from industry stakeholders,” says?ZhiYi Liang, PhD student on the renewable hydrogen team at the?MIT K. Lisa Yang Global Engineering and Research Center?(GEAR) and lead author of the study, which credits the MCSC for helping to make the relevant industry connections. Co-authored by?Bryony DuPont, visiting scholar at GEAR, and?Amos G. Winter, the Germeshausen Professor in the MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering, the paper outlines operational and #socioeconomic factors that need to be considered in efforts to #decarbonize heavy-duty vehicles (HDVs). Read more about their work and why cross-sector #collaboration is needed here: https://lnkd.in/eS8ge2sH

MCSC Executive Director, Jeremy Gregory, will be one of the keynote speakers at the MIT Energy & Climate Club Energy and Climate Night this Friday November 8th. Register here: https://ow.ly/PGEK50TZQeK

Eighteen undergraduate students, passionate about climate and sustainability, are joining the MCSC community to explore and strengthen their interests and skills, while implementing research projects directly supported by faculty and principal investigators across MIT. The students, from all five of MIT's schools, are eager to gain exposure to new angles of #climate and #sustainability, share ideas with peers, and continue making a positive impact. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/d4vqfw6v Find the list of Climate Scholars below! ?? Akorfa Dagadu ?? Deepta Gupta ?? Delphine Protopapas ?? Eldar Urkumbayev ?? Franklin Nguyen ?? Grace DeMartino ?? Janka Hamori ?? Joanna Chen ?? Julia Casey ?? Kaleigh Spears ?? Kannammai "Kanna" Pichappan ?? Kanokwan Tungkitkancharoen ?? Kristine Nguyen ?? Lauren Aguilar ?? Quan Nguyen ?? Samuel Packman ?? Sarah Hernandez ?? Wendy Zhang

Thank you to the MIT Industrial Liaison Program for showcasing MCSC project highlights at the 2024 MIT Sustainability Conference! Executive Director Jeremy Gregory introduced the panelists, Impact Fellows Danika MacDonell and Noman Bashir along with Bj?rn Lütjens, postdoctoral associate in MIT Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, who gave lightning talks on how they are driving sustainability in their respective fields. ?? Danika: Collaborative Development of an Interactive Decision Support Tool for Trucking Fleet Decarbonization ?? Noman: The Climate and Sustainability Implications of Generative AI ?? Bj?rn: A Cautionary Tale about Deep Learning-Based Climate Emulators

The MCSC will provide over $1 million to fund nine one-year projects, led by principal investigators across MIT’s schools and the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, through the?2024 Seed Awards program.?Winning projects?represent emerging solutions with promise for rapid scalability in addressing #climate and #sustainability issues across a variety of sectors, from #agriculture and #architecture to employing #AI in mechanical #recycling systems. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/dHmpC9ui

Register at this link to join MCSC Strategic Advisor Elsa Olivetti in a webinar for the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub on October 24th at 11:00 am. https://lnkd.in/eQXBKTUQ

In 2022, Michael Short, associate professor in the MIT Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, teamed up with anthropology professor Manduhai Buyandelger to launch Anthro-Engineering Decarbonization at the Million-Person Scale — an initiative intended to advance a prototype molten salt heat bank in Mongolia. This project, supported by the MCSC's inaugural Seed Awards, is now in its third year and demonstrating promising potential as a scalable clean heat source in challenging sites. Read more about how bringing together multiple disciplines creates new space for innovation in this brief interview with Buyandelger and anthropology research scientist and lecturer Lauren Bonilla, who joined the project to lead student trips to Mongolia as part of the initiative.

The MCSC is delighted to introduce three new Impact Fellows who joined the consortium this fall! ? ?? Michelle Westerlaken, PhD. in Interaction Design ?? Mary Kate Lane, PhD in Chemical and Environmental Engineering ?? Laurent Lioté, PhD in Engineering and Public Policy Their cross-disciplinary perspectives will be leveraged within the MIT community and by our member companies as we continue to move climate and sustainability solutions forward. Read more below.

We are #hiring a #postdoctoral Impact Fellow! MCSC Impact Fellows transcend academia and industry to apply their expertise to near-term change for a more #sustainable future, collaborating with MIT researchers, consortium industry members, external organizations, and communities. The Sustainability Assessments Impact Fellow will leverage knowledge of current #carbon, #water, and #biodiversity accounting, along with GHG target-setting standards, to collaborate with MIT researchers and MCSC member companies in shaping the next generation of sustainability #assessments. Find out more about the position on our website: