First Spotlight Symposia Series offers timely message on future of water

The College of Arts and Sciences’ first annual Spotlight Symposia Series this past weekend could not have been more timely — or personal — for the event’s honoree, Diana Aga.

Two days before, Aga, director of the UB RENEW Institute, received a call that her family’s region of the Philippines was submerged from Tropical Storm Trami. In addition to killing more than 100 people and displacing another half-million, the storm also damaged and contaminated many of the country’s water sources, with sanitation facilities submerged in floodwater.

“Such extreme events are expected to become more frequent due to climate change. It’s crucial that the rising generation of scientists and engineers develop skills” in the innovative water-treatment technologies being discussed at the symposium, Aga told a crowd of leading environmental researchers from UB and across the country gathered at the Center for the Arts Friday for the symposium’s opening. 

The two-day event, subtitled “Convergence of Science for One Planet, One Health,” aimed to put a spotlight on Aga and research related to environmental contaminants, from breaking down seemingly indestructible forever chemicals in our drinking water, to preventing wastewater treatment plants from becoming breeding grounds for antibiotic resistance.

It also aimed to envision the future of our water under climate change, using a performance on the Drama Theatre stage to interrogate Buffalo and the wider Great Lakes region’s role as a potential climate haven.

“We are so happy to be able to bring together leading experts across the globe with expertise in chemistry, environmental sciences and engineering to discuss the challenges and opportunities we face in keeping our world healthy,” said Robin Schulze, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “We are proud to be at the forefront of this mission, and our Spotlight Symposia honoree, Diana, is a testament to the spirit of inquiry that defines everything we do in research at UB.”

Aga was chosen as the series’ inaugural honoree after a competitive nomination process. In addition to leading RENEW, Aga is SUNY Distinguished Professor and Henry M. Woodburn Chair in the Department of Chemistry, and a recognized world leader in environmental analytical chemistry.

A. Scott Weber, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, recalled meeting Aga when she interviewed for a faculty position at UB in 2002, saying it was clear even from that first interaction that Aga “was special.”

“Her work on the persistence of forever chemicals and other various pharmaceuticals has been critical to our understanding of how everyday chemicals pose a risk to our waterways and potentially to our public health,” Weber said.

And Aga’s impact goes beyond the research lab, added Javid Rzayev, professor and chair of the Department of Chemistry. Since starting at UB, Aga has graduated close to 40 PhD students who now work in government, academia and industry, from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to Google. Many of them were present at the symposium. 

“She has been an exemplary educator and mentor, training and empowering students to be not only acutely aware of environmental issues we face today, but also well equipped to attack those challenges through research, education and policy,” Rzayev said.

The keynote address was delivered by one of Aga’s collaborators, Pedro J.J. Alvarez, George R. Brown Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Rice University. Alvarez described his work as founding director of the Engineering Research Center on Nanotechnology-Enabled Water Treatment (NEWT), which aims to use nanomaterials to treat water using less chemicals and electricity than currently available technologies.

Approximately 25% of municipal electricity goes toward moving treated water, so a solution may be distributed water systems that are closer to the point of use than traditional, centralized systems, Alvarez said, adding that these systems can also give more flexibility to match water quality with its intended use.

“It doesn't make any sense to use drinking water quality to flush toilets or irrigate lawns. The idea is that you will not waste your treatment capacity on things that don’t matter, which decreases treatment costs,” Alvarez said. “And that’s a great opportunity for nanotechnology and advanced materials to enhance the selectivity of the process so that you can remove with greater precision and with greater efficiency those pollutants of highest priority, and also introduce multifunctionality to simultaneously remove different classes of pollutants. That leads to more robust, smaller and simpler equipment that requires less energy and less chemicals to get the job done.”

Friday’s opening event also featured a performance of “An Unlikely Refuge,” a short play presented by the Department of Theatre and Dance and the Department of Environment and Sustainability that aims to engage audiences in climate-centered conversations.

“We know that scientific graphs and figures can only go so far in creating real transformative change in society,” said Susan Clark, assistant professor and Edward J. Kikta Jr. Innovation Professor of Experiential Learning in the Department of Environment and Sustainability. “Therefore, our main objective is to create a more accessible, emotional and impactful way of communicating about climate change and how it may impact our region.”

Set over 50 years in Buffalo’s future, the play features characters navigating Western New York’s complex climate realities, from access to fresh water to harsher winter storms. 

“I think there’s also sort of a misnomer to thinking of these cities as a place you’re protected from climate. I don’t think you can be protected from climate change anywhere,” Clark said during a Q&A after the performance. “So it’s really some of those tradeoffs that we’re trying to portray here. I think that’s sometimes missed in the narrative of a climate haven.”

Aga bookended Friday’s festivities with remarks that in part looked back on her career at UB. She said it was a difficult decision to leave working in industry for a position at the university, but that she’s come to realize that UB “is the perfect job.”

“I’ve stayed because I realized … that this is the perfect place to work for me,” she said.

Aga added that she was honored and humbled to be selected as the series’ first-ever honoree.

“It feels like a culminating moment in my professional career, to be standing in front of so many leading scientist and engineers in the country and in the world,” she said.