Funded Research Projects

The February 2023 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, led to a large-scale chemical spill and fire, creating widespread concerns. This Grant for Rapid Response Research (RAPID) project aims to collect ephemeral data on public perceptions and experiences, as well as human-infrastructure interactions. During environmental contamination events, the provision of and access to accurate, reliable, and trusted information is critical to appropriate protective actions taken by community members. Public perceptions about water systems have been studied in response to many natural disasters and boil water notices, but there is limited understanding of how this unfolds during man-made crises. The data collected will spur theory building in community resilience while providing valuable insight for informing future emergency response and risk communications. Specifically, this work will 1) identify public perceptions about water safety and corresponding behaviors, with respect to the effectiveness of communication from organizations, the level of trust in test results, and the information sources they seek out; and 2) document how organizations collected water quality data and disseminated results to reveal challenges and barriers in risk communication. 

Role: PI

Collaborators: Dr. Clayton Wukich (Cleveland State University) and Dr. Andrew Whelton (Purdue University)

See the project website here.

Critical infrastructure services (CISs), such as water, transportation, energy, communications, public health, and waste, are essential for the well-being and economic livelihood of Alaskan communities. However, providing these services is challenging due to the extreme and changing climate, as well as the remote nature of hub communities and Alaska Native villages. We do not currently understand how CISs are interconnected in Arctic communities; however, we do know that these interconnections are sources of both resilience and vulnerability. Furthermore, the different CIS organizations are complex, are responsible for people?s lives and safety, and have characteristics that we must understand further. This project explores how CISs support each other (e.g., increasing broadband in rural Alaska enables telehealth) and create challenges (e.g., local supply chains often delay infrastructure repairs). This project considers the interface between urban hub communities and neighboring rural Alaska Native villages, exploring how challenges in hub towns cascade to villages. In collaboration with three hub communities in Alaska, the interdisciplinary research team integrates systems engineering, organizational sciences, civil engineering, and public health to improve the provision of CISs, not only benefiting the towns themselves, but also Alaska Native villages.

Role: PI

Collaborators: Drs. Jane Lin and Jeni Hebert-Beirne at UIC and collaborators at the University of Texas at Austin

All too often when moving from science to practice, new technologies fail not because of the technology itself, but due to the misalignment of the organization?s priorities, growth trajectories, resources, capacity, or needs (among other reasons). For instance, technology development timeframes within an industry might misalign with capital infrastructure investment (e.g. technologies typically require at least 10 years from initial conception to implementation, but industries may need to invest in infrastructure to meet market opportunities, regulatory requirements, or supply chain limitations within that 10-year timeframe). A framework is needed that can be used to identify potential opportunities within an industry that satisfy technoeconomic and organizational constraints in that situational context. This project will develop and test a framework to increase the use of non-traditional waters and internal water reuse in the industrial sector using technology innovations that reduce the levelized cost of water and meet other site-specific pipe-parity metrics. 

Role: Co-PI

Collaborators: Drs. Lynn Katz (PI) and Kasey Faust, among others

Selected as a fellow to participate in a two-year program that "will contribute to the advancement of health equity in the Gulf of Mexico region or Alaska by developing understanding and mitigation of factors that may amplify the compounding effects of disasters on the health and resilience of historically disadvantaged, overburdened, or marginalized communities." (GRP). 

See the press release here.