News

CONVENING: SHC Hosts Successful Internal Research Retreat and External Advisory Committee Meeting

May 9^th through 11^th , the Sustainable Healthy Cities Network  (SHC) hosted a successful internal research planning retreat as well as an annual meeting of its external advisory committee.

More than 60 researchers from across the Network’s eight institutions spent two days in intensive planning sessions to align future research plans around both physical infrastructure modeling efforts as well as social actors and governance studies of diverse infrastructure transitions.

Following two days of internal research planning, the Network hosted its external advisory committee—comprised of academic, industry and policy representatives—for an evening research poster session and a subsequent daylong meeting to consider future strategic planning efforts for the network.

During the evening research poster session, the external advisory committee engaged directly with graduate and post-graduate researchers to learn about the latest research findings from across the network. Committee members, as well as Network faculty members, served as judges for the poster session, awarding top poster prizes in the following four categories:

Theme 1- Measurement of Infrastructure-Related Environment, Health, and Wellbeing Outcomes

• Title: Changes in Air Pollution Exposure Disparities by Race-Ethnicity and Socioeconomic Status: Outdoor Nitrogen Dioxide (NO₂) in the United States, 2000-2010.
• Authors: Lara Clark, Dylan Millet, Julian Marshall
• Institutions: University of Washington, University of Minnesota

Physical Modeling Group 1- Energy, Transportation, and Waste Resource Recovery

• Title: Production of Platform Chemicals from Urban Organic Waste Streams Using a Novel Anaerobic Dynamic Membrane System
• Authors:  Xavier Fonoll, Shilva Shrestha, Gislhain Djessi Tchouty, Brittany Colcord, Lutgarde Raskin
• Institutions: University of Michigan

Physical Modeling Group 2- Green Infrastructure, Urban Food Systems, and Stormwater

• Title: Diversity of food flows, diets, supply chains and environmental impacts of nine Indian cities
• Authors: Dana Boyer, Jatin Sarkar, Anu Ramaswami
• Institution: University of Minnesota

Social Actors and Governance- Individual Motivations and Behavior Change, Enterprise Strategy, and Institutional Configurations

• Title: Social Actors Motivations in Urban Food System: Consumer and Producer Perspectives
• Authors: Graham Ambrose, Rachel Kosse, Anu Ramaswami
• Institution: University of Minnesota

Following the evening poster session, the external advisory committee spent the next day discussing strategies around research alignment for high impact science advancement, external partner engagement, and science-to-policy research translation and communication efforts. The committee also met privately to prepare its annual evaluation of the Network, which will be submitted to the National Science Foundation for review.