Message From the Director
The New Year is off to an exciting start with the 2023 FISU World University Games in Lake Placid. While the games revolve around sports, sustainability is a theme, including for the FISU Save Winter World Conference. Clarkson faculty are proud to be lending our expertise and facilities for the event. The ducted wind turbine developed at Clarkson is powering the LED torch for the event, and faculty are discussing clean energy and sustainable infrastructure at both the conference and with tours of the 100% renewable electricity systems that create ice in Cheel Arena. The story below about our environmental policy graduate student Caroline Dodd exemplifies the intersection of sports and winter. She is a student, assistant Nordic ski coach AND international climate advocate. The additional stories all show the quality and high degree of impact that our faculty and award-winning student researchers have in tackling some of our local and global environmental challenges.
— Susan Powers
Director of the Institute for a Sustainable Environment / Associate Director of Sustainability / Jean ’79 and Robert ’79 Spence Professorship in Sustainable Environmental Systems
Golden Knight Delegate
Caroline Dodd wears a lot of hats. Environmental policy graduate student, cross-country and Nordic ski assistant coach, Youth Climate Advisory Board member for The Wild Center in Tupper Lake and, most recently, observer delegate at the 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27). READ MORE
CAREER Highlight
Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Yang Yang wants to make sure PFAS are not a legacy we hand down to our children. He recently got a boost from the National Science Foundation in the form of a CAREER Award, the funding from which will help him develop novel ways to destroy the synthetic chemicals. READ MORE
Making Forever Chemicals Less So
Professor Mario Wreidt is a leader in using metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) to remove PFAS, the forever chemicals that pervade our environment. Other researchers at Clarkson have been exploring other methods for PFAS removal, but what makes Wreidt’s different is that once used, the MOFs can be reused. READ MORE
Cleaning Up
Another research group busy developing methods for cleaning up contamination in the environment is that of Professor Silvana Andreescu. One undergrad and two grad students aided Andreescu in creating sustainable bio-based adsorbents that are manufactured through 3D printing. These adsorbents can remove heavy metal ions from the environment. READ MORE
