Sustainable Cities and Communities

Sustainability facculty members Dr. Susan Clark and Dr. Nicholas Rajkovich will be moderators for two upcoming NYS webinars discussing the social and infrastrucutral impacts of extreme heat.

Fifteen students from UB have been recognized for their outstanding achievements in leadership, community service, campus involvement, or the arts, earning the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Student Excellence, the highest student award offered by SUNY. 

Sustianability Month at UB is about celebrating our faculty, staff, and student work in making progress towards the goals of our university-wide Climate Action Plan. 

SUNY Distinguished Professor Andrew Whittaker is part of a cohort led by TerraPraxis, a non-profit focused on action for climate and prosperity, that is developing a digital platform to repower coal plants using advanced nuclear energy. 

Hundreds of unemployed, laid-off and underemployed workers in the region will be able to explore entrepreneurial paths and participate in a robust training initiative offered by UB’s Western New York Incubator Network (WIN) and the School of Management’s Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership (CEL).

A plan to offset carbon emissions by converting brownfields to fields of bamboo. An “ecoscaping” initiative that would encourage even the busiest of people to grow food in their backyard by using ready-to-install garden beds. 

Urban design students have once again shown what UB has to offer to the community. This month, students submitted proposals for transforming vacant spaces on Buffalo’s East Side between Zenner and Kilhoffer Street into areas for urban infrastructure and potential housing.

UB is advancing its climate action efforts by installing 30 new electric vehicle plugs for EV owners on the North and South campuses.

UB’s GRoW Clean Energy Center is officially open for use as a tour, meeting and event space for small groups.

A gym in Boston, Massachusetts, with an inventive vocational path that prepares students to work as personal trainers serves as a telling example for how community-based programs can develop anti-racism practices within organizations that contribute to the cultivation of racial unity, according to a paper published by a UB social work researcher.

UB will work to improve how Black history and race are taught and learned in schools around the world through the new UB Center for K-12 Black History and Racial Literacy Education.

In the years after UB faculty member Noemi Waight moved to Buffalo from Illinois, she got to know her new home by bicycling with community groups. The experience gave her the idea to take graduate pre-service students on cycling explorations to learn more about their community and the science resources that can make classroom lessons more engaging.

Last fall, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reported that GenX chemicals were more toxic than the “forever chemicals” they were developed to replace. Now, a new UB-led study examines what happens when GenX — chemicals used in food packaging, nonstick coating and other products — interacts with water.

Kanazawa Island, a tiny island tucked away in the north bay of Lake LaSalle near the Ellicott Complex, is getting new amenities — including new sidewalks and tree plantings — that will make this secluded islet even more attractive as a peaceful campus escape.

Scientists from the Tonawanda Coke Soil Study hosted a community meeting on Feb. 24 to share the final results of the research with the public.

If you have indigestion, stress, headache or inflammation, you might want to head over to the southwest corner of Cary Hall on the South Campus. There, at a new garden, you can take in the aroma of herbs believed to help with those ailments (respectively, lemon verbena, lavender, mint and tarragon).

Installed in 2020, UB’s new Print Anywhere kiosks aren’t just more convenient and touch-free—they're helping support UB’s commitment to sustainability.

The author of "After Geoengineering: Climate Tragedy, Repair, and Restoration,” discusses the milestones in the accelerating pace of global heating.

For decades, companies eager to boost wind energy production have relied upon a simple strategy: make the turbine blades bigger.

UB Sustainability is seeking donations and volunteers for Hired — a clothes closet program that will enable students to “shop” for professional attire at no cost for interviews, career fairs, or any professional experience.

Join the seventh annual Step Challenge to help relieve stress. In fact, science agrees with that suggestion: Studies during and well before the pandemic — including those from UB’s WHI — show that physical activity is “conducive to enhancing happiness and improving mental health.”

From Sept. 20-26, UB students, faculty and staff are encouraged to participate by utilizing green transit options to get to and around the university’s three campuses. People who take part can share details of their commute using the hashtags #UBuffalo and #GTG21 on social media.

UB researcher Dr. Scott Santos is analyzing Halocaridina rubra, or tiny red shrimp, to study ocean population vulnerability and transformation in the face of climate change. 

In December, we asked the readers of our newsletter Climate Fwd: and our Twitter followers what they were planning on doing differently in 2021. We got some amazing responses. If you’re thinking of making a “green” New Year’s resolution, here are a few ideas, collected from those replies.

Rayshard Brooks. George Floyd. Daniel Prude. Breonna Taylor. These are the now-familiar names of just a few of the many Black people killed by police in 2020.

In a burst of climate orders, the president also ordered federal agencies to begin the process of reinstating environmental regulations reversed under the Trump administration.

The array of directives — touching on international relations, drilling policy, employment and national security, among other things — elevate climate change across every level of the federal government.

At the Biden/Harris inauguration on Wednesday, poet Amanda Gorman, dressed in the yellow of the Sun, realigned the planets with her recitation of a poem called The Hill We Climb.

New York residents and businesses generate up to 20 million waste tires each year. Tire dumps are breeding grounds for mosquitos and pollute the air and water when they burn.

UB researchers were the driving force behind the publication last week of a major report that details strategies local governments in low- and middle-income countries can use to create more innovative and equitable community food systems.

Carbon offsets are a key component of UB's 10 in 10, the university's climate action plan.

Recently, researchers have been exploring how to turbo charge a passive cooling technique — known as radiative or sky cooling — with sun-blocking nanomaterials that emit heat away from building rooftops. While progress has been made, this eco-friendly technology isn’t commonplace because researchers have struggled to maximize its cooling capabilities.

Thanks to the entrepreneurial success of the late Carl V. Granger, founder of Uniform Data System for Medical Rehabilitation (UDSmr), a venture he created in partnership with UB and the UB Foundation, the university has received a $10 million gift to its Boldly Buffalo campaign.

This Black Lives Matter Poster Project exhibit in Silverman Library aims to expand understanding of what it means to be Black in America. Photo: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki.

Diversity has always been an issue in STEM. Although a 2018 Pew report found that women make up half of the U.S. workforce in STEM occupations, it also found that their presence varies widely across occupational clusters and education levels.

More and more organizations are adopting a new approach: that of servant leadership, in which leaders prioritize multiple stakeholders and improve society, while prospering financially.

Picture this: World leaders have just unleashed utter chaos, launching nuclear missiles in a global war. The world as we know it is now a nuclear wasteland.

Anticipated to begin operation in early 2022, UB's second mobile dental clinic is expected to expand the dental school’s outreach by more than 1,000 patients annually.

Jeffrey and Irene Jacobson have endowed the Irene and Jeffrey Jacobson Fellowship for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the School of Management. The two-year fellowship will fund a first- and second-year MBA student every year.

At one of the largest public gatherings ever hosted by UB's medical school, over 400 East Side residents, academics, and community advocates gathered to discuss the East Side Neighborhood Transformation Project, a novel approach for neighborhood revitalization aimed at radically transforming communities located on the Black East Side.

Thanks to grant funding provided by the EPA, researchers at UB will soon be able to monitor air quality on Buffalo's East Side more thorouhgly than ever before. Data collected by the 30 installed air monitors will be able to pinpoint specific areas where quality is the worst, empowering communities in this area to take action.

“How can we save the climate?” “What about ending fossil fuels?” “But what about lowering emissions?” “How does that affect biodiversity?” These are dire questions the world is facing, but you’d be surprised by who is asking them and feeling the urgency to act. 

A UB research team has secured a nearly $3 million grant from the Department of Energy to enhance semiconductor technology, aiming to upgrade the nation's power grid. This grant, among the $48 million in projects unveiled by the energy department in February, will drive the development of advanced high-voltage power switches for better management of electricity flow and a reduction in energy usage, ultimately improving grid resilience against unforeseen outages.

New York State officials released a groundbreaking climate change report featuring crucial contributions from the University at Buffalo. In partnership with UB's Resilient Buildings Lab, the report offers vital strategies for safeguarding against climate impacts, showcasing UB's leadership in climate resilience research. UB's pivotal role underscores its commitment to addressing climate change, aligning with Vice President Kamala Harris's recognition of UB's sustainability research as a national model.

After a two-year hiatus, the Carbon Reduction Challenge returned this semester to connect students with organizations around WNY, offering insight and problem-solving skills to provide solutions as to how these companies can reduce their overall carbon footprint. 

On a hot July afternoon, with silver clouds hanging in the sky and mud underfoot, a group of high school science teachers perched at the edge of Bizer Creek on the UB North Campus. Check out the new education program with the EarthEd Initiative. 

Larry Asp grew up playing shinny outside in this tiny rural town he calls home again after 40 years away. Since returning, he also holds the keys to the outdoor “Rink of Dreams” that gives the 90 local residents the chance to skate outside during the keen Canadian winters.

First-year UB students were given the opportunity to travel to Costa Rica and expand their knowledge of sustainability and environmental awareness through the Study Abroad Office's new First-Year Global Experience program.

New grant funding provided by the American Heart Association will supply a UB research team with the capital resources to study the clinical effectiveness of “food-is-medicine” programming, a food-prescription initiative geared towards older adults.

Students in Nicholas Rajkovich’s Sustainability 601 course gave their presentations, shared their final reports and received their final grades for the spring semester seminar. Now, the real fun begins as the students’ work will be folded into UB’s climate action planning efforts.