Faculty Affiliates

Areas of remediation design, microbial sensing, and sustainable industrial practice.         

Sustainable development in developing countries, understanding the differences between experts and laypeople in environmental decision-making, designing sustainable developments to be more acceptable to rural residents, promoting the adoption of sustainable transportation, and designing environments that simultaneously enhance individual and communal well-being.

The overarching theme of my research has been to identify situations where male and female reproduction come into conflict with one another. When animals sexually reproduce, one sex generally invests more in the production and care of offspring than another. In mammalian species, this is typically the female, due to the high costs of gestation and lactation. Such an imbalance leads to conflicting reproductive strategies for males and females – a theoretical framework known as sexual conflict. In addition to identifying these situations across mammals, I also want to understand how this conflict plays out in terms of physiology and behavior. The bulk of my research program is focused on female counterstrategies to male coercive reproductive tactics, such as infanticide. This includes strategies such as male-mediated pregnancy termination (for pregnant females) and deceptive fertility (for lactating females). Ultimately, my goal is to incorporate these strategies into evolutionary models that are able to predict social systems across mammals.

I tackle this research from an evolutionary perspective while utilizing a comparative (i.e., examining the same research question across different species) and mechanistic (i.e., assessing fecal hormone profiles) approach. My study subjects have been non-human primates (baboons, geladas, and – recently added – capuchins) living in their natural environments in Africa and the Americas. These primates provide ideal study subjects because they are highly social animals with a high degree of reproductive skew. In other words, not all animals get to reproduce equally (the primary currency for evolution), and thus my main line of inquiry is to determine why some animals are more successful at reproduction than others.

Dr. Bergman is interested in social behavior and social cognition from an evolutionary perspective. His research on social cognition in primates focuses on the cognitive abilities that underlie social behavior. Specifically, he looks at how dominance and family relationships structure primate social groups and then ask what do the members of these groups know about this structure? Ultimately, he is interested in the causal connections between sociality and cognition. Dr. Bergman is also interested in vocal communication, primarily as it relates to other social behaviors. How do vocalizations mediate social interactions? What social factors might favor larger vocal repertoires? Much of his research addresses sexual selection, looking at how primates assess competitors and potential mates. Recently, he has become interested in hormone-behavior interactions. He uses non-invasive hormone sampling as a way to both measure the physiological consequences of behavior and to assess potential determinants of behavior. Finally, he is interested in the ways that ecology shapes social systems and behaviors.

Dr. Bergman’s research addresses these questions in two types of free ranging primates: 1) Gelada monkeys (Theropithecus gelada) in Ethiopia, and 3) Capuchins (Cebus capucinus) in Costa Rica. His research involves observation, vocal recordings, hormonal and genetic sampling, as well as playback experiments.

Staff coordinator for Sustainable Food Program, linking students and operations. Supporting any sustainable food initiative on campus.

My research, which focuses on making impactful contributions to the areas of manufacturing and sustainability, considers multiple scales: identifying significant opportunities to cut emissions and/or costs by conducting large scale analyses on processes, factories and material supply chains, and pursuing a rigorous technical analysis in order to capitalize on the opportunities.

Daigger’s research has focused on the fundamental science and engineering supporting the advancement of technologies and practices which have been transformational for environmental engineering. These have included topics such as wastewater nutrient removal and recovery (biological and chemical), treatment process optimization and control (particularly biological treatment systems), control of activated sludge bulking and foaming, which can be debilitating and lead to excessive treatment costs if not properly addressed, and the highly efficient coupled attached and suspended growth systems.

Psychology of environmental stewardship; and the relationship among the concepts of self-interest, competence and psychological well-being    

System dynamics and control; mathematical modeling; model reduction; multi-body dynamics; networked hardware-in-the-loop simulation; biomechanics. Application areas: vehicle dynamics; vehicle powertrains; energy systems; driver modeling; human stance and balance.

Carina Gronlund is an environmental epidemiologist and research assistant professor at the Institute for Social Research in the Social Environment and Health Program. In collaboration with state and Detroit government and Detroit community partners, she studies the separate and combined effects of climate change and air pollution and vulnerabilities by social, pre-existing health, and built environment characteristics. This research will help cities understand how to adapt to climate change.

She received her BA in Biology from the University of Chicago, with a specialization in Ecology and Evolution. Subsequently, she worked as a research assistant in the Clinical Trials Office at the Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit, MI before pursing a Masters in Public Health at the University of Michigan. She completed her MPH in 2008 and then completed her PhD in 2013 in the University of Michigan Department of Environmental Health Sciences, where she was a National Institute on Aging Public Health and Aging trainee. Her dissertation focused on associations between high temperatures and hospital admissions and mortality among the elderly as well as sociodemographic and land cover characteristics that modify these associations. As a Graham Sustainability Institute Dow Postdoctoral Fellow, she studied vulnerability to the cardiovascular effects of high temperatures using longitudinal studies of cardiovascular risk from 7 U.S. cities.

Dr. Hiskens' research focuses on power system analysis, in particular the modelling, dynamics and control of large-scale, networked, nonlinear systems.         

As Assistant Director of Academic Programs in the UM College of Engineering Center for Entrepreneurship, she is responsible for managing the Program in Entrepreneurship, teaching the capstone Entrepreneurship Course, and developing new focus areas such as Social Entrepreneurship and a Masters Program in High Tech Entrepreneurship. She also conducts research on innovative teaching methods and entrepreneurship.

Andrew Jones is a public health nutritionist, interested in understanding the influence of agriculture and food systems on the nutritional status of women and children in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Specifically, his research examines four major areas:

1. how agricultural and landscape biodiversity influences diet quality and food security among smallholder farming households in LMICs;
2. how livestock rearing impacts anemia among adolescent girls and women of reproductive age through both nutrition- and infection-related pathways;
3. the role of food systems changes associated with the “nutrition transition” in LMICs in potentiating risk of concurrent iron deficiency and obesity, and the impacts of urbanicity and household food security in mediating these dynamics; and;
4. the implications for food systems of aligning dietary recommendations with goals for environmental sustainability.

Environmental geochemistry related to the recovery and use of minerals         

Chemodynamics- what is it?  The adsorption of gases in nanoporous materials; the movement of microorganisms in aquifer media; the binding of metals onto intracellular proteins: these are all phenomena associated with chemodynamics, the study of chemical fate and transport.  Our research group investigates both theoretical and applied aspects of chemodynamics using an integrated program of molecular modeling, computer simulation and experiment.  An interconnecting theme of our work is the application of atomistic methods and statistical simulation to address a spectrum of research problems spanning chemical, biomedical and environmental engineering.

(a) the intersection between development and climate, especially concerning the relationship between anti-poverty programs and risk management (b) the use of technoscientific information, especially seasonal climate (El Nino forecasting) in building adaptive capacity to climate variability and change (drought planning, water management, and agriculture) in the U.S. (Great Lakes) and Latin America (Brazil, Mexico and Chile); (c) the impact of technocratic decisionmaking on issues of democracy and equity; (d) the co-production of science and policy and the role of technocrats as decisionmakers; (e) the role of popular participation in urban environmental policymaking and policymaker/client interactions; (f)U.S.-Mexico border region environmental policymaking especially regarding transboundary water conflict, environmental health, a common use of shared natural resources.

Sustainable infrastructure development, hazard mitigation and environmental improvement through materials technology         

Fuel cells, chiral synthesis, carbon catalysis, catalysis at nano-scales, fundamentals of surface activity and selectivity.         

Corporate environmental strategy, government regulation of business, industrial organization, energy and the environment

Organic polymers and Organic Materials; Energy Science; Materials Chemistry; Optics and Imaging; Organic Chemistry; Organometallic Chemistry; Sensor Science; Surface Chemistry; Sustainable Chemistry     

Professor Mohai’s teaching and research interests are focused on environmental justice, public opinion and the environment, and influences on environmental policy making. He is a founder of the Environmental Justice Program at the University of Michigan and a major contributor to the growing body of quantitative research examining disproportionate environmental burdens and their impacts on low income and people of color communities. In 1990, he co-organized with Dr. Bunyan Bryant the “Michigan Conference on Race and the Incidence of Environmental Hazards”, which was credited by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as one of two events bringing the issue of Environmental Justice to the attention of the Agency. He is author or co-author of numerous articles, books, and reports focused on race and the environment, including “Environmental Racism: Reviewing the Evidence”, “Race and the Incidence of Environmental Hazards”, “Toxic Waste and Race at Twenty”, and “Which Came First, People or Pollution?”. His current research involves national level studies examining the causes of environmental disparities and the role environmental factors play in accounting for racial and socioeconomic disparities in health. Through a grant from the Kresge Foundation, he is also examining pollution burdens around public schools and the links between such burdens and student performance and health.

Human preferences and behavior in relation alternative landscape patterns and management.regimes and associated ecosystem services. Design techniques for contributing to transdisciplinary research and policy development.         

Chair of Urban and Regional Planning: Environmental Planning, Sustainable Development, Land Use & Planning Law, Coastal Area Resource Management, Planning Theory, and research methods

Design optimization; large scale system synthesis; automotive systems design, including hybrid vehicles; eco-design; product design.         

Vehicle dynamics and control; electromechanical systems; optimal control; human driver modeling; vehicle active safety systems; control of hybrid and fuel cell vehicles; energy system design and control for mobile robots.         

Ecological and social sustainability, over consumption, sufficiency, ecological economy, institutional design, business and environment, and transnational relations         

Professor Raskin works on a variety of biological water and wastewater treatment processes.         

Computer modeling and optimal synthesis of mechanical (and non-mechanical) products and systems. Computational design for manufacture/assembly/environment. Simultaneous design of products/manufacturing systems/supply chains. Computer modeling and synthesis of MEMS/NEMS. Chemo/bio-informatics. Structure-based virtual screening for drug discovery and design.

Design and manufacturing; biomedical device design; biomedical manufacturing; medical innovation; surgical thermal management; machining of advanced engineering materials; micro manufacturing; precision engineering; optical metrology.

Environmental and Sustainable Technology (EAST) systems; life cycle product and process optimization; and pollution prevention in manufacturing         

Systems and control including machine design, control, monitoring, and diagnostics; physical system modeling; automated modeling; bond graph theory; proper modeling of active suspensions; proper vehicle handling and ride models; high efficiency dynamic formulations for vehicle dynamics; monitoring and control of thermally induced spindle bearing loads; design and control of high speed spindles and novel milling machines.

Control system development and optimization for marine and automotive propulsion systems, with in-depth experience and expertise on system modeling, identification, control algorithm development and integration, control system rapid prototyping and experimental validation. Modeling, control and optimization of fuel cell systems and fuel cell based combined heat and power (CHP) systems, emphasis on transient management for mobile applications. Adaptive control theory, with focus on algorithm and tool development aiming at improved transient performance and convergence properties. Advanced control methodologies, including optimal control and nonlinear control, and their applications to marine and automotive systems. Methodologies and tools for developing and managing complex dynamic control systems with interactive subsystems and constraints.         

Fuel processing catalysts, fuel cells, and nanostructured films         

Trumpey's teaching focuses on experiential observation, drawing connections with the natural world.

Ecologically compatible bio-manufacturing processes         

His research agenda focuses on the production of architecture as a technological and cultural artifact, with a specific interest in leveraging the power of computationally-based design and numerically-controlled machines towards new methodologies, materials, and systems of production.

His research interests include statistical learning, high-dimensional data and statistical network analysis. He is also interested in applications in medicine, computational biology, engineering, physics and business. Professor Zhu received a CAREER award from the NSF in 2008 and was elected a member of ISI in 2010 and a fellow of ASA in 2013.