ISF Broadens Reach – Expands Opportunities

Faculty and researchers may have come to expect a newsletter in their inbox each week that highlights recent research accomplishments in areas of sustainability; they may check out recent funding opportunities or add an event to their calendar. What they may not know is that, in the past year, Purdue’s Institute for a Sustainable Future has expanded its reach to provide opportunities for campus researchers to engage with others and to develop research ideas on even more topics.

With its mission to promote research, partnerships, and engagement in areas including the environment, climate impacts and resilience, food-energy-water security, human and biosphere health, and sustainability as broadly defined by the UN Sustainable Development Goals, ISF has supported strong research initiatives and groups including Water Challenges, Environmental Stressors, Risk and Resilience, Biodiversity, Great Lakes Science and PFAS research. Led by leads or co-leads from across the university, these groups provide opportunities for team formation, knowledge sharing, relationship building and event planning. The work of these groups are fully described on their respective pages and the complete list of leads/co-leads can be found here.

As members of the leadership team, the group leads, and co-leads, help formulate the long-term vision of the Institute and promote inter-disciplinary work that cuts across colleges and departments. This work is complemented by the support of the Institute’s staff in various areas including event planning, communication needs, research development and partnerships. The Institute also strives to advance research priorities of the university as it relates to sustainability research.

All ISF groups welcome participation of faculty, researchers, graduate students and post-doctoral scholars. Below we introduce new groups and initiatives developed within the last year. Current information on all of ISF groups are available on our research page.

Exploratory Groups

Like all ISF research groups, Exploratory Groups focus on interdisciplinary topics that have faculty ‘champions’ who are interested in developing new areas of interest. They are supported for an initial one-year period and any faculty member can explore developing such a group by contacting ISF Director Margaret Gitau (ABE).

Amazon Sustainability: Also new this year, this group aims to create a multidisciplinary team composed of faculty, graduate students, and staff who are interested in helping conserve the Amazon while empowering local, Indigenous communities through various collaborative research initiatives. Andrea Liceaga (FS) leads this initiative.

Future Manufacturing: New this year, this group is working on challenges related to the future and advanced manufacturing area. The group is working to identify key emerging problems that need to be solved for sustainable growth of manufacturing to meet the demands and workforce development over the next 5 years in Indiana, Midwest and beyond. A key project this year is the organization of a multi-day conference on the topic of advances in pharmaceutical manufacturing, scheduled to take place in Washington D.C. in early June. This initiative is led by Shweta Singh (SEE).

African Sustainability and Resilience: This new interdisciplinary initiative is exploring research and development opportunities related to sustainability and resilience in Africa. It is being led by Kolapo Ajuwon (ANSC).

New Special Initiatives

New initiatives may transition into long-term Centers or Networks of ISF, or transition into Research Groups. One new initiative came on board in 2025.

Circular Economy Systems: This special initiative recognizes that people are at the center of environmental challenges and solutions. Its members work to identify equitable and effective approaches for addressing global environmental change in various areas. This initiative is co-led by Abby Engelberth (ABE) & Chad Laux (CIT).

New Research Group

Renewable Energy: New this year, the mission of this group is to promote interdisciplinary collaborative research on renewable energy that relates in part to environmental sustainability. This includes topics from fundamental science, to engineering, to manufacturing, to social sciences, liberal arts, and policy. In spring 2025, look for announcements for developing collaborations and networking while developing white papers. Peter Bermel leads this initiative. 

As a reminder, the benefits of becoming an affiliate, which does not require membership in any specific group as described above, include having a listing in our directory to increase discoverability, receiving the weekly newsletter, having achievements and publications promoted in various media outlets, and receiving support in developing sustainability-focused research proposals or co-hosting events and activities. If you wish to become a faculty affiliate of the Institute, please fill out this form. Questions about becoming an affiliate can be addressed by contacting Lynne Dahmen. Please note that all full-time faculty and researchers are eligible to become an affiliate. Graduate students and post-doctoral scholars can participate in all events, receive the newsletter and participate in the activities of all research groups.