Clarkson University invites the public to attend the 2025 Institute for a Sustainable Environment (ISE) Keynote Lecture on Monday, February 17 at noon. The lecture will be held in B.H. Snell Hall 213 on Clarkson’s Collins Hill campus.
Director of the Institute for a Sustainable Environment Susan E. Powers will deliver the 2025 ISE Keynote Lecture. This ISE lecture celebrates the expertise and reputation of our faculty by sharing a preeminent keynote or distinguished lecture they were invited to give elsewhere.
Powers will share a talk she presented in October 2024 in the University of Arizona’s Science Policy & Diplomacy Distinguished Speaker Series.
Powers will share her perspectives on the development and implementation of New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) of 2019. This law has been driving substantial changes in the state’s energy systems with ambitious goals to decarbonize the electricity grid and electrify transportation and building heating systems.
Although significant modeling was completed before the law was enacted, efforts to meet the state’s goals have had many technological and socio-political difficulties, making the transition uncertain. The talk will provide sufficient basics related to climate change and electricity systems to help all attendees better appreciate the value of this law and the challenges in its implementation.
Powers is the Spence Professor of Sustainable Environmental Systems and the Director of the Institute for a Sustainable Environment at Clarkson University. Her education and scholarly work are integrated through applied research on aspects of engineering, policy, and broader STEM education. She has had several grants that couple campus sustainability projects and applied research with student opportunities.
She has promoted and assessed the value of utilizing relevant project-based experiences to improve solid & food waste, energy, and climate change literacy of audiences from middle school students to state agencies. The goal of all of these projects is to provide real-world, messy projects to students to enhance their technical education as well as teamwork, social and policy perspectives, communication, and sustainability as a critical project criterion.
Find more information about the Institute for a Sustainable Environment here.