Students

I am working to understand the influences of economies of scale in production typologies across the Urban Food System and their connection to a producer's Quality of Life.

My research with the SRN focuses on impact of distributed solar energy penetration on the utility grid. I am also evaluating impact of utility level demand response techniques like smart thermostats on the energy savings and renewable penetration.

Work on issues related to urban food systems, specifically working to better understand the water, energy, and greenhouse gas impacts of city food supplies, working in Indian and U.S. cities. Conduct scenario analysis to guide urban food system design

Studying relationships among changes in air quality, equity, and urban form in United States cities between 2000 and 2010.

I am investigating the relationship between air quality, health outcomes, and the built environment to better understand how policy and infrastructure changes can improve health, well-being, and livability.

David is modeling the spatio-temporal structure of extreme weather and climate events (e.g. cold spells and high wind events) and investigating how covariation among these events may be considered for energy system planning and/or operation.

In the SRN, Kyle works with different types of Input-Output and construction data to develop top-down and bottom-up material footprints for US cities. Kyle also contributes to several United Nations reports on resource efficiency that overlap with his research on the SRN.

Xavi is developing a novel bionic membrane bio-reactor in order to enhance the microbial activity of hydrolytic and acidogenic populations. The reactor design is based on the natural mechanisms occurring for the degradation of lignocellulosic components in rumen (cow’s stomach). This first step is crucial for the production of methane or platform chemicals with high economical value.

Broadly I am doing research on food security in cities. Currently, I am exploring local food purchasing policies/guidelines and city livability/sustainability indicators.

Quantify the benefits of investing in green infrastructure techniques like community gardens and urban farms, and understand the ecosystem services synergies and trade-offs from different urban farms across multiple cities.

I'm researching community solar and how to increase access to the economic benefits from this new finance model.

I am assessing how well-being can act as a motivator for sustainable consumption by surveying Minneapolis Farmer's Markets using a Rapid Market Assessment approach. This design allows for a large sample population in a very short amount of time and has proved to be useful in assessing complex decisions of local food consumers.

I am researching the status, economies of scale, and policy landscape of combined heat and power (CHP) in the US. The focus of which will be to look at the potential, the barriers and the policy solution themes.

Jacob is researching community solar policies in several US States, their implementation for different utilities within Minnesota, and their effects on subscribers.

I am currently working to create a comprehensive fine-scale intra-urban database of SEIU and EHW parameters. Then, using those parameters and spatial analysis, we will look for hotspots of disparities within cities to inform equity

I am researching the environmental and human wellness impacts of autonomous vehicles, focusing on interactions between autonomous vehicles, land use, and public transit.

I am working on the business models and nonprofit involvements in the renewable energy projects, focusing on the local governance structure and the potential barriers to the policy adoption.

I’m using low-cost air quality monitors to measure pollution levels around Minneapolis. We plan to use these measurements with model simulations to generate fine scale air pollution metrics that can be used to study linkages between air quality and subjective well-being.

I'm involved in studies that explore the impact of air pollution and urban infrastructure on health (well-being) outcomes on members of different social economic demographics. I’m also involved in building residential energy statistical models with information from the American Census survey to estimate energy use at the census tract level. This information can be used to study the interactive effects of residential energy use and key census parameters on well-being, air pollution and urban infrastructure.

Working to understand the ecosystem services synergies and trade-offs from different forms of urban farming across multiple cities and understand the benefits of investing in green infrastructure techniques like community gardens and commercial urban farms.

I am investigating the land use implications of autonomous vehicle technologies and the related effects on transportation demand and emissions.

Food Procurement and Purchasing Policies

My work involves gauging user acceptance and willingness to adopt electric, autonomous, and shared vehicle technologies, including modeling fleet evolution and future transportation behavior.

Operation and control of distribution systems with renewable energy integration.

Investigating scaling of health measures while identifying inequities in health outcomes and pollution exposure. Designing methods for creating data-driven scores for systemic health.

My research is focused on developing anaerobic technology for production of high value chemicals from urban organic waste streams. I also use microbial ecology methods to study the microbial community and modeling approach to assess the technical and economic feasibility of such technology.

Wendell's work involves improving grid resiliency by understanding how higher levels of distributed power generation will impact the future power grid.

We are working to assess the social actor system as well as infrastructure design for bicycle-sharing systems. My major tasks include examining the interactions and impacts of five systems in the co-evolutionary framework (User practices, Ecosystem, Technology, Institution, and Business strategy) on bike share programs and to assess its potential of achieving the EHWL outcomes of SRN project.

My research is focused on the aggregation of heat pumps in residential buildings as a means of demand side management to allow deeper renewable energy penetration.