Catch Up With T-RUST

As the sun sets on Wayne State University’s T-RUST program, it’s essential to recognize its transformative impact on urban sustainability. T-RUST, or Transformative Research in Urban Sustainability and Training, was rooted deeply in integrated disciplines – ranging from social and physical sciences to technology and engineering. It was crafted to guide students to comprehend the myriad elements forming sustainable urban environments. This comprehensive approach had STEM doctoral and masters students collaborating with local communities, industries, scientists, and policymakers. Together, they tackled challenges in post-industrial urban settings, laying the groundwork for more resilient cities.

However, while T-RUST’s journey as a program is concluding, its spirit and foundational ideas are being reborn in a new, expansive initiative: UN-RCE Detroit Windsor. This joint venture between Wayne State University and the University of Windsor has been recognized as a United Nations Regional Centre of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development. With an emphasis on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), this endeavor aims to address climate change, economic disparities, health inequities, and more. The Detroit-Windsor region, with its unique transnational metropolitan landscape, faces distinct challenges – from valuing water as a precious resource to navigating the complexities of shared automotive histories. As leaders in sustainability and collaboration, this partnership aspires to foster a holistic approach to these challenges, echoing the multidisciplinary foundation established by T-RUST.

The transition from T-RUST to UN-RCE Detroit Windsor carries with it significant institutional knowledge and leadership. Dr. Donna Kashian, a principal investigator and founder of T-RUST, will continue to champion these sustainable efforts as the Director of the UN-RCE for Detroit.

In essence, while T-RUST and UN-RCE may appear as two distinct programs, they are intrinsically linked. T-RUST sowed the seeds of interdisciplinary collaboration and urban sustainability, and now UN-RCE is the garden where these concepts will flourish further. By focusing on specific SDGs and encouraging cross-border collaboration, the new program promises to not only draw upon the legacy of T-RUST but also to pave a brighter, sustainable future for communities on both sides of the border.

This is part of an ongoing collaborative, student-led seminar series hosted by T-RUST (Transformative Research in Urban Sustainability Training) at WSU and GLIER (Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research) at the University of Windsor. The seminar series is titled Transformative Change in Environmental Sustainability and occurs biweekly on Fridays at 10am.

Title: Traditional Ecological Knowledge in the Great Lakes: Inspiring the Next Generation’s Environmental Sustainability Leaders

Panelists: Clint Jacobs (Walpole Island/Bkejwanong), Dr. Valoree Gagnon (Great Lakes Research Center, Michigan Technological University), Dr. Myrle Ballard (Univ of Manitoba), Dilber Yunus (International Institute for Sustainable Development – Experimental Lakes Area)

When: Friday, January 29, 10-11:30am

Where: Virtually on Zoom, register here: http://bit.ly/WindsortoWayne. The Zoom link will be sent to the email used for registration one day before the seminar.

Our inaugural seminar for 2021 will be a panel consisting of four indigenous leaders in ecology and the Great Lakes region. We will have an open discussion on topics surrounding place-based knowledge through generations with connection to climate change (invasive species, partnerships, language).

Hope to see you there!

We are proud to announce the preprint of our latest paper, Designing and implementing a novel graduate program to develop transdisciplinary leaders in urban sustainability, available to read and comment for free on Preprint:

https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202012.0088/v1

The coauthors include Dr. Megan Wallen (T-RUST Program Manager, WSU), Dr. Ingrid Guerra-Lopez (Professor of Learning Design and Technology, WSU), Louay Meroueh (Program Consultant, WSU), Dr. Rayman Mohamed (Chair and Professor of Urban Studies and Planning, WSU), Dr. Andrea Sankar (Chair and Professor of Anthropology, WSU), Dr. Pradeep Sopory (Associate Professor of Communication, WSU), Dr. Ryan Watkins (Professor of Educational Leadership, George Washington University), & Dr. Donna Kashian (Professor of Biological Sciences, WSU).

Check it out and let us know what you think!

This is part of an ongoing collaborative, student-led seminar series hosted by T-RUST (Transformative Research in Urban Sustainability Training) at WSU and GLIER (Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research) at the University of Windsor. The seminar series is titled Transformative Change in Environmental Sustainability and occurs biweekly on Fridays at 10am.

Title: Good Geoscience in Dire Places: Searching for Water in Humanitarian Crises

Speaker: Paul Bauman, Advisian (a division of Worley Canada)

When: Friday, December 18, 10am

Where: Virtually on Zoom, register here: http://bit.ly/WindsortoWayne. The Zoom link will be sent to the email used for registration two days before the seminar.

In this talk, I lead you on the geophysical search and then the discovery of water in a few of the refugee camps and conflict zones in East Africa. In each of these settings, the cause of human displacement is distinct, the geology and hydrogeology vary, the landscapes are strikingly different, but the need for water is equally desperate.

In one of the largest refugee camps in the world, in the Turkana desert of Kenya, seismic and resistivity surveys helped to increase the water supply to the camp and, simultaneously, a previously unrecognized public health crisis was addressed. In Northern Uganda, in the devastation left behind by Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army, village water supplies were restored following geophysical surveys and hydrochemical testing. More importantly, the local Ugandan crews were trained to carry on with this technical work. Finally, in the midst of a civil war in the world’s newest country, South Sudan, an emergency mission relying on resistivity surveys took advantage of a cessation of hostilities to find water in villages stranded by the conflict.

Paul Bauman has a BScE in Geological Engineering from Princeton (1981), and an MSc in Earth Sciences from the University of Waterloo (1990). For 31 years he has been the founding director of the Near Surface Geophysics Group at Advisian in Calgary. He and his group have carried out projects in water exploration, contaminant mapping, archaeology, and engineering geophysics on all seven continents. Some of their project work has appeared in documentaries and network series on NOVA, National Geographic, the History Channel, and the Discovery Network.

You can learn more about Mr. Bauman’s work on his website, on Facebook, and on LinkedIn.

This is part of an ongoing collaborative, student-led seminar series hosted by T-RUST (Transformative Research in Urban Sustainability Training) at WSU and GLIER (Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research) at the University of Windsor. The seminar series is titled Transformative Change in Environmental Sustainability and occurs biweekly on Fridays at 10am.

Title: Alkanes for UV screening? Ask Antarctic algae and mosses

Speaker: Dr. Supriyo Kumar Das, Department of Geology, Presidency University in Kolkata, India

When: Friday, December 4, 10am

Where: Virtually on Zoom, register here: http://bit.ly/WindsortoWayne. The Zoom link will be sent to the email used for registration two days before the seminar.

Change in moss leaf colour from green to grey and grey to black (moribund), and lake benthic algal mat pigments from green to red-green, red-green to red and red to grey are observed in Larsemann Hills of East Antarctica. A systematic change in the distribution of short-chain (n-C17 to n-C20) versus long-chain (n-C21 to n-C30) n-alkanes in accordance with the changes in moss and algal mat pigment is also noted. The research links the relatively higher synthesis of short-chain n-alkanes with respect to the long-chain n-alkanes in algal mats and mosses to increasing exposure to ultraviolet (UV)-B radiation and propose that short-chain n-alkanes functions as UV screening compounds (UVSC) for protection against harmful UV-B radiation in Antarctic moss and lake benthic algal mat.

Supriyo Das was awarded PhD in Biogeochemistry by Stockholm University in 2007. After finishing PhD, Dr Das continued his research as a postdoctoral researcher at NIOZ, University of Glasgow, Örebro University and Linnaeus University. During his research, he received prestigious EAOG scholarship, British Council and Swedish Research Council fellowships. He is presently working as an Assistant Professor at Presidency University in Kolkata. His research applies elemental, molecular and stable isotope geochemistry to understand the interaction between continually changing climate, environment and human activities. He was a member of IODP expedition 354 and 38th Indian Scientific Expedition to Antarctica.

You can find Dr. Das on Twitter (@Dr_Supriyo_Das) or on his research page here.

Congratulations to the 8 students (7 from the T-RUST family!) who were recently awarded the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) P3 student design competition: People, Prosperity, and the Planet.

The project, entitled GIS-informed urban groundwater monitoring networks, will understand how green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) affects urban groundwater quality and flow by piloting a network of community-based groundwater monitoring stations surrounding GSI sites in Detroit, MI. The technical challenge is to develop a scalable model of relatively low-cost groundwater monitoring stations to measure groundwater flow and quality at the neighborhood scale.

The project will benefit residents of the city of Detroit and surrounding communities by piloting a groundwater monitoring network that can elucidate connections between GSSI and groundwater, identify potential exposure pathways for contaminants, and provide community education and engagement around the importance of groundwater resources in the Great Lakes region.

This was truly an interdisciplinary effort, involving graduate students from Civil & Environmental Engineering, Biology, Anthropology, and Urban Studies and Planning. The T-RUST faculty leads are Dr. Carol Miller (Civil & Environmental Engineering) and Dr. Rahul Mitra (Communication).

Amazing work; congrats to you all: Brittanie Dabney, Kate Ekhator, Darrin Hunt, Colleen Linn, Natalie Lyon, Brendan O’Leary, Adam Pruett, and Sadaf Teimoori.

This is part of an ongoing collaborative, student-led seminar series hosted by T-RUST (Transformative Research in Urban Sustainability Training) at WSU and GLIER (Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research) at the University of Windsor. The seminar series is titled Transformative Change in Environmental Sustainability and occurs biweekly on Fridays at 10am.

Title: Eco-evolutionary dynamics in Great Lakes fish stocks and why they matter for management

Speaker: Dr. Erin Dunlop, Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry

When: Friday, November 20, 10am

Where: Virtually on Zoom, register here: http://bit.ly/WindsortoWayne. The Zoom link will be sent to the email used for registration two days before the seminar.

Evolution can occur in animal populations on short enough time scales to interact with ecological processes, with selection from human activities causing more rapid responses than natural sources of selection. There are many anthropogenic sources of selection in the Great Lakes that can alter the eco-evolutionary dynamics of fish stocks in ways that critically impact ecosystem services. The most studied example is fisheries-induced evolution, where harvesting leads to genetic changes in a population’s traits. Common evolutionary responses to fishing include smaller body size, earlier maturity, and shy behaviour. These evolutionary responses can have undesirable consequences from a management perspective, including reduced yield, lower catch rates by anglers, and slow rates of recovery in depleted populations. Furthermore, such responses can affect the accuracy of stock assessment models that are used to guide quota management decisions, leading to over or under harvesting depending on the direction of changes. Another relevant example of evolution in the Great Lakes is the possibility that sea lamprey may evolve resistance to the pesticide used to control their population. These examples indicate that eco-evolutionary dynamics need to be accounted for when providing information on stock status, defining sustainable harvest levels, controlling invasive species, and developing recovery strategies.

Dr. Erin Dunlop is a Research Scientist with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry and is based out of Trent University in Peterborough Ontario Canada. Erin leads a research program that focuses on fish population dynamics in the Great Lakes, with a focus on providing applied science to inform management and policy decisions. Follow Dr. Dunlop on Twitter: @airydunlop