ASU SoLS: Sustainability

SOLS has many off-campus and on-campus interactions in the broad area of sustainability. SOLS has joint faculty with the Desert Botanical Garden, and adjunct faculty in the biomedical arena (e.g., Michelle Hannah of Ribomed working on rapid detection of biological warfare agents). Many SOLS faculty interact closely with the Arizona State Game and Fish Department, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and leading conservation/biodiversity non-governmental organizations. SOLS Faculty also play leading roles internationally, with the IUCN-World Conservation Union Species Survival Commission, including the Global Amphibian Assessment, Global Mammal Assessment and the development of the Species Information Service. China in particular, partners with a number of SOLS faculty around sustainability issues. Broad research programs are underway in the dry and alpine grasslands of China, encompassing much of the country's area, and SOLS faculty play an integral role in the ASU-China sustainability program in Sichuan Province. In addition, SO LS faculty will play major roles in upcoming international meetings in China (EcoSummit 2006; Society for Conservation Biology 2009).

Industrial contacts include BP (bioenergy generated from sunlight) and Intel (GIS tracking). Moreover, SOLS is the largest academic unit supplying faculty to Biodesign. Many SOLS faculty members are affiliated with the Global Institute of Sustainability through research projects and the new School of Sustainability through course offerings and graduate training. MENTION CSPO??? Most recently, SOLS has also worked with the Vice President's Office for University Partnerships in developing a broad-based K-12 education program, in which SOLS faculty will include specific and coordinated plans for education activities in their outgoing grant proposals outgoing grant proposals. We expect that many of these efforts will involve sustainability-related research and thus our activities will extend into the community via the public school system.