Faculty Affiliates

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

Combustion generated pollutants, energy and environment, industrial energy conservation and pollution prevention, and management for sustainable manufacturing         

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.

Behavior and ecology of many temperate fishes, including muskellunge, brown trout, lake sturgeon, yellow perch, largemouth bass, and alewives. Extensive aquaculture systems in Southeast Asia, as well as expansion of aquaculture in Michigan. Conservation of natural resources, either through work on endangered species such as the Paiute trout and lake sturgeon, or through the understanding of ecologically sensitive aquaculture practice. Great Lakes ecology and restoration.          

My research interests cover topics related to the sustainable and safe development of emerging energy technologies. Included among these activities are geologic storage of CO2 and large-scale hydrualic fracturing of unconventional oil/gas reservoirs. We examine important water-rock interactions that occur in these subsurface systems through a combination of experimental studies (bench-scale high-pressure flow-through and batch reactors), imaging techniques (computed micro-tomography, SEM, XRF, XANES), and geochemical modeling. Specific topics of interest: permeability evolution in fractured geologic media, release/transport of groundwater contaminants from shale gas reservoirs, development of regulatory policy pertaining to hydraulic fracturing activities.

Heterogeneous catalysis, Lean NOx emissions control, Fuel Processing for Fuel Cells and Emissions Control, Three-way Catalysis, Exhaust Sensors

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.

The incentives associated with pollution policies in a variety of contexts, the distributional effects of environmental programs, policy analysis, and a range of environmental issues         

Food Systems Planning, International Planning, Program Evaluation

Community Action Against Asthma
Community Action to Promote Healthy Environments
Detroit Community-Academic Urban Research Center
Healthy Environments Partnership
Measurement Approaches to Partnership Success

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

Property and environmental law issues, particularly issues relating to land use law, regulatory takings, and environmental liability         

Shobita Parthasarathy’s research focuses on the governance of potentially transformative science and technology in comparative perspective. To date, much of her work has focused on the ethical, social, political, and legal dimensions of the new life sciences.

Major research interest involves biological diversity in agrecosystems. Research focuses on the effects of agricultural intensification and its impact on biodiversity and pest control ecosystem services. Another aspect of the research relates to urban agriculture and arthropod mediated ecosystem services. Most of this research is conducted in Mexico, Puerto Rico and Michigan. More general interest is related to sustainable agriculture and food sovereignty in Latin America.

Political feasibility of pollution prevention and subnational governmental capacity to anticipate policy challenges posed by global warming         

Current research interests range from the molecular dynamics of mechanical relaxation of polymers to the high-speed, low-cost manufacturing of fiber composite structures and includes fracture processes in polymers and composites and failure analysis. Related to mechanical relaxation is the physical aging of polymer glasses. The nature of molecular motion in polymer glasses and the parameters that control the kinetics of physical aging are being studied. The goal is to be able to predict aging rates at normal service temperatures where experimental measurements would take too long. Current study of fracture processes ranges from fundamental studies of the mechanisms of crack propagation in brittle materials to the use of fracture in fiber composite structures for crash energy absorption. Research into high-speed, low-cost fiber composite structure manufacturing involves several problems of the "liquid molding" process, in which liquid resin is injected into a closed mold containing a fiber preform. The problems being studied are the design and manufacture of the fiber preform and the displacement of air and the wetting of the fibers by the injected resin. A related problem being studied is the repair of such composite structures after damage         

Fundamental and applied research in heterogeneous catalysis, thin films, and chemical sensors         

Development of high-capacity materials and systems for energy storage applications; computational materials science; nanoscale chemistry and its impact on the mechanical properties of materials; thermodynamics and kinetics of phase transformations; multi-scale modeling; integrated computational materials engineering

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.

Her research interest is to apply data science (particularly machine learning and remote sensing) in landscape planning and design. Her research areas include low impact development, water quality models, monitoring and predicting landscape change, and predictive models under alternative planning scenarios. She is also a landscape architect, with the focus on ecological design and data visualization. She teaches site engineering and ecological design studio.

Major research interests center on radiation materials science and environmental effects on metals, including stress corrosion cracking, high temperature corrosion and hydrogen embrittlement. Current work in the area of stress corrosion cracking focuses on the determination of the mechanism of intergranular cracking in austenitic alloys in high temperature aqueous solutions with emphasis on the role of grain boundary structure, chemistry and deformation. Ion irradiation and stress corrosion cracking are linked through an investigation of the mechanism of irradiation in the assisted stress corrosion cracking of core components in nuclear reactors, by using proton irradiation to study the effects of neutron irradiation. Other current projects are on stress corrosion cracking in supercritical water, oxidtion of nickel-base alloys in very high temperature, impure He gas and irradiation creep of pyrolytic carbon.         

Environmental Dispute Resolution, Collaborative Ecosystem Management