Sustainability Scholars

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Ellen Ketterson, Department of Biology, Co-Director of the Midwest Center for Biodiversity

Migratory behavior in birds is changing. Some species have stopped migrating and some are short-stopping, which means they travel shorter distances than they once did. The likely cause is climate change. The species we study, the dark-eyed junco, breeds in Canada and migrates to the eastern U.S. in autumn, returning in the spring. Historically, prior to climate change, female dark-eyed juncos made longer migrations than males, outnumbering males at southern sites. But we have reason to question whether that is still the case and wish to pursue it further. To do so, we will sample winter populations near Bloomington, and possibly further south and north, to determine present-day sex ratios.

Student opportunity: We are seeking a scholar or two to participate in the research, which will involve fieldwork banding birds off-campus. The scholar will learn to set up nets, process birds, collect blood samples to determine sex, and make other morphological measurements.

Interests: Conservation, biodiversity, field research

Aptitude: Highly responsible and cold-hardy

Other requirements:  

• Vehicle  
• Time to do the work 
• Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC approval), which requires a few trainings

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Jessica Eise, School of Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health 

In 2022, our research team collected data in the Andean mountains with Indigenous Peruvian farmers. These took the form of 80 in-depth, one-on-one interviews. In 2023, we transcribed and translated the data. This year, we will analyze the data and write publications. For this project, the goal is to understand the farmers’ experience under climate change through their own words and perspective. This will be done using line-by-line coding and constant comparative techniques. See this journal article as the blueprint, which we will be replicating and refining.  

Student opportunity: For this project, the undergraduate research assistant will work with the project's first author Dr. Jessica Eise to analyze the data and write the publication. This will involve a weekly meeting with Dr. Eise who will train the research assistant on analytical techniques, performing the analysis and assisting in the writing of the research article. The expected outcome is a publication that the research assistant will be a coauthor on if they fulfill the listed duties.  

Interests: Acquiring research experience and gaining a publication, data analysis, agriculture 

Skills: Strong writing and reading comprehension skills are essential to success on this research project, particularly the abilities to:  

• Write and analyze existing publications 
• Write, edit, and synthesize existing materials 

Aptitude: Meticulous attention to detail, commitment to maintaining data’s integrity 

Other details: Familiarity with agriculture is helpful but not required

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Jessica Eise, School of Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health 

In 2022, our research team collected data in the Andean mountains with Indigenous Peruvian farmers. These took the form of 80 in-depth, one-on-one interviews. In 2023, we transcribed and translated the data. This year, we will analyze the data and write publications. For this project, the article seeks to capture a broad range of factors that influence the success or failure of climate change adaptability in a population. See this journal article as the blueprint for this paper.  

Student opportunity: For this project, the undergraduate research assistant will work with the project's first author Dr. Jessica Eise to analyze the data and write the publication. This will involve a weekly meeting with Dr. Eise who will train the research assistant on analytical techniques, performing the analysis and assisting in the writing of the research article. The expected outcome is a publication that the research assistant will be a coauthor on if they fulfill the listed duties.  

Interests: Acquiring research experience and gaining a publication, data analysis, agriculture 

Skills: Strong writing and reading comprehension skills are essential to success on this research project, particularly the abilities to:  

• Write and analyze existing publications 
• Write, edit, and synthesize existing materials 

Aptitude: Meticulous attention to detail, commitment to maintaining data’s integrity 

Other details: Familiarity with agriculture is helpful but not required

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Titus Schleyer, School of Medicine, School of Public Health, Luddy School 

Bugs, such as mosquitoes and ticks, can make us sick. With climate change, we will have more and different bugs in Indiana. That will have an increasingly bad effect on human health. We are working on research to connect data about bugs to human cases of infectious disease, such as West Nile, malaria, and Lyme disease. Our end goal is to develop systems that track and predict trends for these diseases by connecting data about the climate, bugs, and human health.  

Student opportunity (REMOTE): Your job would be to help us understand what data we have about these areas, how to connect them, and what kind of research and applied questions we could ask. You will be part of a multidisciplinary research team that is working on that. By spring of 2025, we are planning to produce a concept paper for the system we envision.  

Interests: Climate change; human health; ideally, biology; and even more ideally, entomology 

Essential skills: Good literature research, critical thinking and writing skills are essential 

Preferred: Ability to work with different data and think conceptually

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Jennifer Lau, Professor, Department of Biology and the Environmental Resilience Institute 

Bryan Guevara, PhD Student, Department of Biology

The world is changing rapidly. Heat waves and droughts are becoming more frequent, while nutrient pollution is increasing. Whether plant populations will be able to survive these changes will depend on plants’ ability to cope with those conditions, migrate to new environments, or adapt. The Lau Lab investigates these possibilities. 

Student opportunity: The Scholar will work with the Lau Lab on a greenhouse experiment to answer one of these four questions:  

1. Have plants evolved in response to global changes?
2. Can plant phenotypic plasticity (the ability to shift traits in response to the environment) buffer plants from climate variability?
3. Can bet-hedging buffer plants from climate variability (e.g., bet-hedging can take many forms, including increased seed dormancy so not all seeds germinate in a single year)?
4. Have plants evolved in response to nutrient addition within a time frame that is short by most standards?  

Key tasks will involve measuring phenotypic parameters of plants such as specific leaf area, height, chlorophyll content, growth rate, and more to understand how plant populations are responding to such climatic changes. Students can discover and explore a research topic related to their interests. Students will also learn to clean and analyze data and generate descriptive results and figures to present their findings. By January, students will have data in hand to analyze during the spring semester for spring and summer poster presentations and conferences. 

Interests: Ecology, botany, or global change biology 

Skills/aptitude: Careful attention to detail and good organizational skills to keep track of the hundreds of samples used in the described experiment 

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Timothy L. Fort, JD, Kelley School of Business 

Carbon credits, though controversial, have been used as a mechanism to manage a kind of equilibrium regarding the release of greenhouse gases. This project builds on the idea of carbon credits, but with a specific aim of creating “peace credits.” One possible way of doing this is to estimate the amount of greenhouse gases that would not be generated if munitions were not exploded.  

Dr. Fort is one of the founders of the 25-year-old business and peace academic community and seeks to explore: 

• Whether one could calculate the amount of emissions that could be saved if peace rather than war obtained (Dr. Fort has preliminary data) 
• Who would be in a position to “sell” such credits 
• Who would be in a position to “buy” such credits 
• How such an economic tool/contract could be enforced 

Student opportunity:  

• Data collection
• Reading, analyzing, and synthesizing primary and secondary sources
• Possible co-authoring of an article, though the professor has not identified a particular outlet
• Possible presentation to people in the field

Interests: Ideas of business and peace; how to leverage current understandings of carbon credits to create such an instrument 

Skills: Basic research and math skills 

Preferred: Some expertise in strategic marketing would be very useful 

Faculty Mentor: Dr. André Franco, Assistant Professor, O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs  

Gwendolyn Lloyd, Postdoctoral Researcher, O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs 

Earth’s soils are threatened by intensive agriculture and misuse of land, with human-induced soil degradation affecting most of the world’s croplands and pastures, resulting in food insecurity for billions of people. This has resulted in a push toward regenerative agriculture, which focuses on soil health through practices that reduce soil disturbance and increase crop diversity. Soil is the most biodiverse habitat on Earth, and rich biological communities provide key functions of a healthy soil.  

Advancing biological indicators of soil health that effectively inform regenerative farming strategies can help stop the widespread loss of soil biodiversity and resulting soil health depletion.  

This project is part of a larger overarching study addressing the role that soil biodiversity plays in soil health and agricultural outcomes in regenerative systems. Midwestern farmers are seeking metrics of soil health that consider both its biological and abiotic components. Quickly identifying which organisms are present in the soil will let farmers understand changes to community structures (food webs) and ecosystem services.  

This project consists of collecting and comparing data using current established methods, and a novel device that identifies soil arthropods using AI. We'll use soil samples collected in Fall 2024 at Kellogg Biological Station in Michigan. There, a long-term field experiment is comparing conventional corn-soybean rotations observed across Michigan and Indiana, with an aspirational restorative agricultural method involving greater crop diversity, cover-cropping, and no-till.

Student opportunity: The student will compare:  

1. Extraction methods using AI identification with existing methodology  
2. Biodiversity of soil arthropod communities found within traditional and regenerative farming practices 

This data will help quantify the impacts of regenerative agriculture on soil biodiversity and integrate biological indicators into the soil health framework to inform agricultural management decision-making. 

Day to day, this individual will learn methods related to soil invertebrate collection and identification, in addition to the new AI technology. They will also learn about regenerative agriculture and soil health through reading journal articles. This individual will learn to analyze and interpret statistical analyses conducted using R Studio. 

Interests: Biodiversity or sustainable agriculture 

Skills: Basic understanding of statistics; a willingness to work with soil samples and learn new technologies 

Preferred: Some background knowledge of invertebrate taxonomy (though not required)

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Dawn Kutza, Kelley School of Business, Department of Communication and Professional Skills

While the United States faces significant conservation challenges, including habit loss and climate change impacts, we have high overall biodiversity due to our nation’s larger size, range of climates, and ecosystems.  

In contrast, New Zealand's biodiversity is unique in that it is more vulnerable to invasive species due to their historical isolation and lack of natural predators, and it holds a much higher proportion of endemic species. Equally important is their government’s strong support and approach to transitioning to a sustainable economy, as outlined in their national Wellbeing Budget, which was founded on the idea that financial prosperity alone (e.g., GDP) is not a sufficient measure of what really matters to human quality of life and the planet.  

New Zealand’s approach to protecting its unique flora and fauna involves collaboration between government, nonprofits, local communities, and indigenous groups. These focused efforts have changed the consciousness and behavior of New Zealanders in prosocial ways that benefit overall wellbeing for humans and the environment—making them an interesting case study on creating sustainability movements. 

• Research two major conservation efforts underway in New Zealand, namely: 
  1. Predator Free 2050  
  2. Te Mana o Te Taiao (Aotearoa New Zealand Biodiversity Strategy 2020) 
• Explore New Zealand’s approach to driving sustainability from political, economic, educational, and psychological perspectives, and how that approach:  
  • Develops a collectivist sustainability mindset among the majority of New Zealanders 
  • Impacts individual and societal wellbeing through a positive relationship with nature 
• With professor support, design a college-level curriculum unit that 
  • Compares and contrasts New Zealand’s environmental challenges and sustainability efforts to those in the U.S.  
    • Student will identify similar programs underway in the U.S. 
  • Offers actions that can be taken at various levels to help Americans better appreciate and care for nature

Student will gain research and course design experience.

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Michael Hamburger, Department of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences 

This project is an outgrowth of a collaboration with the U.S. Consulate in Vancouver, British Columbia. One of U.S. embassies’ and consulates’ primary responsibilities is to support U.S. citizens overseas in the case of a natural (or human-made) disaster. At any given time, several hundred thousand Americans may be in Canada, many of them as tourists or short-term visitors. Among the major concerns of the U.S. Consulate is the occurrence of a major earthquake along the seismically active area of western Canada—and the relative lack of visiting Americans’ preparedness.  

This project could help the Consulate take advantage of one of the most important new technological developments in disaster risk reduction: the development of earthquake early warning (EEW) systems. These EEW systems provide a few seconds’ advance notice of arriving earthquake waves, based on new technologies that provide rapid location and magnitude determination for major earthquakes. EEW systems have been in place for several years in earthquake-vulnerable countries like Japan, New Zealand, and Mexico, and parts of the western United States have recently adopted a similar system.  

Over the past few years, Canada has developed its own EEW system, which is being implemented in western Canada this year. Our colleagues at the U.S. Consulate have little technical expertise related to earthquake hazard mitigation and little time to learn how the new tech might work for temporary visitors to Canada.  

This project aims to learn more about the following:  

• Implementation of the new Canadian EEW system 
• Planned rollout of cellphone and other warning distribution plans  
• Short-term visitors’ opportunities or limitations to access these systems 
• Options to communicate with visitors about how to access and respond to the Canadian EEW system 

Student opportunity: Student's research will help inform our recommendations to the U.S. Consulate in Canada on how to best communicate with Americans about accessing this system—before a disaster strikes.

Interests: Earth science, disaster communication, social science research 

Skills: Ability to understand technical aspects of cell phone emergency communication systems, social science research on disaster response, and some experience with web-based and social media communication platforms

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Michael Hamburger, Department of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences 

Earthquake-induced landslides (EQIL) are among the most devastating secondary effects of large earthquakes. Over the last 250 years, they have been responsible for over 130,000 deaths worldwide. EQIL are notoriously difficult to predict, and their hazards are particularly widespread in the developing world, where growing populations are increasingly concentrated in vulnerable areas of the urban-rural interface and where mitigation and disaster preparedness are notably low.  

This project seeks to extend a global database of EQIL, originally developed by IU students and collaborators from the U.S. Geological Survey, through the past several years. Our database includes technical information about the sources of landslide-triggering earthquakes, information about the number and distribution of landslides triggered by those earthquakes, and their impacts on surrounding communities. It's been over two years since the database was published. Since then, notable earthquakes have occurred in Japan, Alaska, Mexico, and South America that may contribute to an updated global database. These data can contribute to more effective prediction of the location of EQIL and methods of mitigation and community resilience to these disasters. Find out more about the current database. 

Student opportunity: Student willanalyze diverse data sets from government agencies, international organizations, and research groups, including spreadsheets and statistical data. They’ll also do media research. This will help us decide what updates the student will make to the database.

Interests: Earth sciences, natural disasters 

Skills and Interests. Ability to work with diverse data sets; ability to work with spreadsheets and statistical data, and do media research

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Brian Forist (he/him/his), School of Public Health, Department of Health & Wellness Design/Parks, Recreation, and the Outdoors

This project, while primarily involving historical research, will also discern lessons for contemporary community sustainability and public health applications, including those in heritage interpretation and museum management.

During the Great Depression, nationwide unemployment was about 25%. This was true throughout Indiana as well. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal included many programs designed to put people to work and improve community life and economic conditions. New Deal programs employing women are not well researched.

Student opportunity: Through research in the IU Archives and other sources, including historical newspapers and analysis of U.S. Census data, this research project is designed to understand the following: 

• The range of Works Progress Administration (WPA) projects employing women at and around Indiana University 
• The economic benefits this afforded to women, their families, and communities 
• Sustainability lessons for today

This project is intended to result in academic and practitioner-focused manuscripts that the Sustainability Scholar would co-author. 

(This project extends related research on women’s employment on Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula.) 

Interests: History, archival research, women’s experiences 

Aptitude: Interdisciplinary thinker, flexible, creative, detail-oriented 

Skills: Ability to work independently; ability to use variety of resources, such as newspaper archives and U.S. Census data; ability to carefully read and summarize academic and other literature

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Dacia Charlesworth, Kelley School of Business, Department of Communication, Professional, & Computer Skills

Corporate approaches to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives have become increasingly polarized, with some companies expanding their efforts and others abandoning them entirely. Abandoning DEI initiatives is often framed in the provocative phrase “Go Woke, Go Broke,” suggesting that embracing DEI leads to financial losses; however, these initiatives are intrinsically linked to broader corporate sustainability efforts, which aim to create equitable and prosperous communities within ecological limits. This research aligns with the challenge of creating equitable communities within corporate settings, addressing United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 5 (Gender Equality) and 10 (Reduced Inequalities).

This project analyzes the rhetoric surrounding DEI initiatives within the context of corporate sustainability communications. By applying Richard Weaver’s concept of “God and Devil” terms, we will examine how language shapes perceptions of DEI efforts and their relationship to corporate sustainability. The rhetorical artifacts to be analyzed include e.l.f. Cosmetics’ “So Many Dicks in the Boardroom” campaign, Tractor Supply Company’s and Brown-Forman’s decisions to eliminate DEI initiatives, and additional content of interest to the undergraduate researcher. 

Student opportunity: The selected undergraduate researcher will: 

1. Conduct a literature review on Weaver’s rhetorical theory and its applications in sustainability communication 
2. Collect and analyze corporate communications and media coverage produced by or related to organizations being analyzed 
3. Identify and categorize “God” and “Devil” terms used in DEI and sustainability rhetoric 
4. Assist in developing a coding scheme for content analysis 
5. Help interpret findings and their implications for corporate sustainability communication 
6. Prepare a poster synthesizing our findings

Results are expected to contribute to our understanding of how rhetorical strategies influence public perception of corporate sustainability efforts, particularly in relation to DEI initiatives. Findings may inform best practices for inclusive and effective sustainability communication in corporate settings. 

This project extends the proposed mentor’s ongoing research program examining gender dynamics in organizational communication, focusing specifically on how companies rhetorically frame their commitment to gender equity within broader sustainability and DEI initiatives. 

By participating in this project, the undergraduate researcher will: 

• Gain a deep understanding of rhetorical analysis techniques and their application in corporate communication research 
• Develop critical thinking skills in analyzing complex social issues within a business context 
• Enhance research skills including literature review, content analysis, and data interpretation 
• Improve academic writing and presentation skills 
• Learn best practices in graphic design for academic poster creation 
• Gain valuable experience applicable to careers in corporate communication, sustainability consulting, or graduate studies in communication, business, or sustainability fields

Interests: Corporate communication, sustainability, and social issues in business; rhetorical analysis and its applications 

Skills: 

• Strong writing and analytical skills
• Basic understanding of or willingness to learn about DEI concepts 
• Ability to think critically and objectively about controversial topics 
• Desire to improve graphic design skills for academic presentations 
• Excellent organizational skills 

Aptitude: Excellent attention to detail

Faculty Mentor: Thomas Landis, Kelley School of Business, Communication, Professional, and Computer Skills

Real estate, and the built environment, can been seen through multiple lenses: architectural and artistic expression, a paradigm that shapes community experience, and, increasingly, a financial vehicle of Wall Street fund managers. Exacerbated by the pandemic, social unrest, and increasing alarms about climate change, calls for solutions abound. Meanwhile, the U.S. housing crisis continues to make headlines as prices for rentals and home purchases remain increasingly unattainable for many. 

What if real estate is both the problem and solution to these issues? With an alternative model, can real estate development become a change agent in solving the climate crisis and bring greater levels of social equity? In architect Teresa Coady's book Rebuilding Earth, she (along with others) argues that might be the case. 

This exploratory project aims to find, categorize, and measure the success of U.S. real estate projects that attempt to redefine models of wealth, bring social equity, or accelerate climate restoration (e.g., community land trusts and net-zero building standards). Data used in this project will be used in curriculum development and for potential future research. 

Interests: Students interested in urban planning, community development, architecture, GIS, and real estate investment

Faculty mentor: Dr. Dana Habeeb, Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering

Extreme heat events are responsible for more annual fatalities in the United States than any other form of extreme weather. This research project is part of a National Science Foundation Computer and Information Science and Engineering Research Initiation Initiative (NSF CRII) grant with the aim to monitor near-surface air temperatures in Bloomington, Indiana.

The Sustainability Scholar will support an ongoing project to establish an environmental sensor network on the IU campus and in targeted urban agricultural locations in Bloomington. 

Temperature, relative humidity, and soil moisture sensors have already been deployed in differing urban form environments (i.e., along streets, in parking lots, and in community gardens) to measure how these environmental variables differ and change during heat waves. The project aim includes how to inform users about environmental exposures that are harmful to their health. 

This project aims to deploy environmental sensors to investigate two main research objectives:  

1. To investigate how temperatures change in differing urban environments  
2. To investigate how to communicate local environmental information to targeted stakeholders 

Student opportunity: The student will help manage and update the current sensor network and work with targeted communities. The student will help develop educational materials about extreme heat and the role of sensing technologies in collecting hyperlocal environmental data. The student scholar will also help to develop a summer workshop bringing local community stakeholders together to understand the role for citizen science in capture local heat exposures. 

The work planned includes:  

• Surveying existing sensing platform and performing an environmental sensing literature review 
• Maintaining and updating the current sensor network, through data collection and sensors maintenance and installations  
• Developing educational and workshop materials to educate and connect with local stakeholders 
• Working with environmental data to track trends in temperatures 

Interests: Environment, climate change, and sensors. Interest or experience in working with large datasets, visualizations, and outdoorfield work; quantitative data, including visualizations.

Skills: Spatial analysis with GIS is a plus; excellent writing skills