International development projects
Solving world problems requires a comprehensive approach. ASU partners with other institutions around the globe to address problems common to rapidly growing cities. Faculty also conduct comparative studies of diverse world regions to understand patterns and processes of human-environment interactions and to develop best-practice models that can be replicated.
100 Cities Project: Sensing for Solutions – Bridging Cities and Science »
This project uses remote-sensing technology to detect patterns of urbanization and their environmental consequences in 100 cities across the globe.
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Adaptation and Self-Regulation in Multichromophoric Molecules »
This research project involves the synthesis and study of complex molecules consisting of covalently linked chromophores, electron donors and acceptors, and photochromic molecules that change their structure upon exposure to light.
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Biological Stoichiometry of Microbes under Severe P-Limitation »
This project will investigate the biological rules that determine the elemental recipe ("stoichiometry") of microorganisms that grow under severely P-deficient conditions in a set of unique desert springs in Mexico.
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Bob Ramsey Executive Education Program »
The Bob Ramsey Executive Education Program provides innovative professional development programs and customized services that build the capacity of people and organizations that serve the public. The Certificate in Public Administration for International Leaders includes topics such as leadership, collaboration, public-private partnerships, community conflict resolutions, pollution, urban challenges and opportunities, information technology, and electronic government practices.
Central Arizona–Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research (CAP LTER) »
Through interdisciplinary projects integrating natural sciences, social science, and engineering, the Central Arizona–Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research project examines the effects of urbanization on a desert ecosystem and vice versa.
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Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes (CSPO) »
The Consortium for Science, Policy, and Outcomes is an intellectual network aimed at enhancing the contribution of science and technology to society's pursuit of equality, justice, freedom, and overall quality of life. The Consortium creates knowledge and methods, cultivates public discourse, and fosters policies to help decision makers and institutions grapple with the immense power and importance of science and technology as society charts a course for the future.
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Decision Theater (DT) »
The Decision Theater is an immersive, interactive, 3D-visualization facility for collaborative decision making.
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Determinants of Grassland Dynamics in Tibetan Highlands: Livestock, Wildlife, and the Culture and Political Economy of Pastoralism »
This project will deepen basic understanding of the complex interactions involving geophysical, biological, social, and policy factors and feedback systems that affect grassland status
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Earth Systems and Engineering Management, Center for (CESEM) »
The Center for Earth Systems Engineering and Management (CESEM) seeks to provide the basis for understanding, designing, and managing the complex integrated built/human/natural systems that increasingly characterize our planet in the athropocene - the Age of Humans. To this end, CESEM combines research, teaching, outreach and public service in an effort to learn how engineered and built systems are integrated with natural and human systems.
Effective Adaptation Strategies and Risk Reduction towards Economic and Climatic Shocks: Lessons from the Coffee Crisis in Mesoamerica »
There is a growing concern over climatic variability and price volatility in global markets for cash crops produced in developing countries. One of the cutting edge questions in global change research deals with how to reduce risks and increase adaptation capacity of vulnerable farmers in impoverished areas.
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GlobalResolve »
GlobalResolve was established at ASU in 2006 as a social entrepreneurship program designed to enhance the educational experience for interested and qualified ASU students by involving them in semester-long projects that directly improve the lives of underprivileged people, and/or those in underdeveloped nations throughout the world.
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Herberger Institute Research Center »
The Center supports collaborative and creative research in design and the arts. Some of the Center's work includes creating consumer-driven product concepts that improve society and the environment, understanding the interconnections between urban design and energy demand and on emerging models for the post-petroleum city, and supporting organizations, neighborhoods, and professionals in their efforts to improve the growth of quality affordable homes and sustainable communities.
Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training in Urban Ecology (IGERT) »
The IGERT training program in urban ecology prepares young scientists to be flexible, adept at linking science with social issues, and work collaboratively, so that they might apply interdisciplinary knowledge in the world of tomorrow.
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International Collaboration to Advance Sustainability Science in the US and Mexico »
Building on complementary skills and perspectives on problems that transcend political borders, we propose to form a new research collaboration between Arizona State University and the Institute of Ecology, National Autonomous University of Mexico (Director, Dr. Dominguez Perez-Tejada) based in the principles and aims of sustainability science.
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Local Context and the Dynamics of Social-Ecological Systems: Beyond One-Size-Fits-All Solutions to Environmental Problems »
Globalization is changing the way humans interact with natural resources and many people no longer rely on locally derived resources but on distant resources linked through the global economic network. By analyzing mathematical models, based on local social-ecological systems case studies, this project contributes to a better understanding of critical variables needed to enhance the performance of local institutions, preserve institutional diversity, and enhance the integrity of the global resource system.
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Managing Biodiversity under Climate Change: Enhancing Capacities in Mexico for Conservation Planning, Decision-making and Sustainability Assessment »
The School of Sustainability at the Arizona State University and the Institute of Ecology at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México are developing a sustainable academic program to create competency and expertise for policy and planning in the area of biodiversity conservation and climate change.
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Materials World Network: Study at the Nanoscale of Photovoltaic Materials »
This Materials World Network project is a collaboration of groups from Argentina, Canada, Mexico and the US with the common goal of synthesizing and characterizing, at the single molecule/particle level, semiconductor-photosensitizer materials that can be used for photovoltaic and solar-to-fuel applications.
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Microbial Ecology to Optimize Beneficial Syntrophies to Improve Microbial Electrochemical and Dechlorinating Systems »
This research provides a novel approach to study biodegrading and bioenergy relevant mixed microbial communities. The results will provide fundamental understanding of the role of homoacetogens in electron and carbon flow in dechlorinating and ARB mixed communities. This will allow exploiting the use of complex renewable waste sources for bioenergy and bioremediation.
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Modeling Anthropogenic Effects in the Spread of Infectious Diseases »
The research will incorporate the economic drivers of 'contact' into dynamic models of emerging human and animal infectious disease systems, and analyze the system dynamics with and without adaptive responses. The models will be calibrated for a set of diseases where people's trade and travel decisions are potentially important.
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North American Center for Transborder Studies (NACTS) »
NACTS focuses its research and policy efforts in the areas of borders, competitiveness, and the environment and works to diffuse the results of these efforts through events and initiatives that build public awareness about North America. NACTS accomplishes its mission by building key partnerships among northern and southern border specialists and identifying and educating key constituencies in government, the private sector, and civil society.
Ocean Redox Evolution at the Dawn of Animal Life: An Integrated Geological and Geochemical Study of the Ediacaran Yangtze Platform in South China »
The ultimate goal of the research is to integrate paleontological and geochemical data to test the coupling between redox conditions and spatial/temporal patterns of Ediacaran organisms. Anticipated data would provide important information for our understanding of the environmental forces related to a significant biological innovation in Earth history.
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Population Dynamics, Center for (CePoD) »
CePoD is a transdisciplinary research center drawing scholars who are interested in broad aspects of population research. The center is located in the Phoenix metropolitan area, a vibrant, rapidly growing urban center of the American Southwest. We pursue novel avenues of population research in local, regional, national and international settings.
Post-6 Ma Tectonic Evolution of the Bhutan Himalaya »
Atypical high-elevation, but low-relief landscapes are perched above and surrounded by deeply incised canyons in the middle latitudes of Bhutan. This study explores the proposition that these landforms represent a pulse of erosion that is sweeping through Bhutan and progressively changing the relief.
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RCN-SEES for Urban Sustainability: Research Coordination and Synthesis for a Transformative Future »
The Urban Sustainability RCN will begin with a broadly interdisciplinary core group of academics, students, postdocs, policy-makers, city planners, managers, and other action-focused urban players representing 14 cities in various stages of transition.
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Resilience and Vulnerability to Climate Change: A Collaboration between NABO and LTVTP »
This research will address the impacts of social responses to climate change, an issue central to contemporary policy and relevant to public and private organizations, policy makers, and resource managers interested in promoting resilience to climate change.
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Single Molecule Light Emitting Device »
The present project aims at studying how the optoelectronic properties of these systems change when the device is decreased to nano- and molecular-scales, and exploring single molecule light emitting device and optical sensing applications.
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Sino-US Center of Conservation, Energy and Sustainability Science (SUCCESS) »
SUCCESS provides a platform for international collaborations, particularly on use-inspired, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research relevant to sustainability issues that occur during the socioeconomic development in Inner Mongolia and its neighboring regions.
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Southwest Consortium for Environmental Research and Policy (SCERP) »
The Consortium addresses issues pertaining to the ecologically and socioeconomically fragile environment along the US-Mexico border.
Stardust Center for Affordable Homes and the Family »
Through research, educational outreach, advocacy and design innovation, the ASU Stardust Center for Affordable Homes and the Family supports organizations, neighborhoods, and professionals in their efforts to improve the growth of quality affordable homes and sustainable communities.
Study of Institutional Diversity, Center for the (CSID) »
The Center for the Study of Institutional Diversity housed in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change is a multidisciplinary endeavor to improve our understanding of how different types of institutions-defined as the norms and rules people use to govern common resources and provide public goods-perform within different social-ecological systems.
Sustainable Health, Center for »
The Center for Sustainable Health is working to build a sustainable world where every human can live a healthy and fulfilling life.
Sustainable Phosphorus Initiative (SPI) »
The ASU Sustainable Phosphorus Initiative (SPI) seeks to build a credible scientific consensus on the dimensions of the phosphorus sustainability challenge, catalyze an interdisciplinary global network focused on phosphorus sustainability, and design and motivate institutional, commercial, and consumer behavior change for conservation and recycling to establish phosphorus sustainability.
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Sustainable Tourism, Center for (MTRC) »
The Center for Sustainable Tourism, formerly the Megapolitan Tourism Research Center, is devoted to studying the role of tourism in community development in order to strengthen its contribution to viable economic, social, and environmental systems, especially in megapolitan regions around the world.
Sustainable Water Resources for Communities under Climate Change: Can State-of-the-Art Forecasting Inform Decision-Making in Data Sparse Regions? »
This project will study decision-making for water resources management in anticipation of climate change in northern Mexico as a case study for the broader arid and semiarid southwestern North America. The goal of the project is to determine whether water resources systems modeling, developed within a participatory framework, can contribute to the building of management strategies in a context of water scarcity, conflicting water uses and highly variable and changing climate conditions.
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The Complexities of Ecological and Social Diversity: A Long-Term Perspective »
This research project will examine how social and ecological diversity interact to influence the resilience of societies facing major changes in their social or environmental circumstances. The goal of the investigators conducting this project is to discover configurations of diversity in ecological landscapes and in forms of social organization that make systems more or less able to cope with significant environmental or social changes without undergoing an unpleasant transformation.
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The Relative Importance of Generic vs. Specific Capacity in Addressing Drought Vulnerability in NE Brazil »
This research examines how the vulnerability of rainfed farm households to drought has changed through time as a function of both specific and generic government-led interventions. The research also explores how these two categories of interventions are related, both in terms of their relative importance in defining overall adaptive capacity, and in terms of how they may create synergies or be mutually conditioning.
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Urban Form and Energy Use Explored Through Dynamic Networked Infrastructure Model »
Engineering and design of urban form is an important strategy for managing climate change and other environmental impacts of energy, as well as being key to the livability of cities. This project aims to clarify connections between urban form and use and energy use in the built environment and transport.
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Urban Innovation, Center for »
The mission of the Center is to improve the quality of urban life in neighborhoods, cities, and urban regions by promoting innovation in governance, policy, and management. The Center contributes to the goal of "advancing urban governance in a global context" in the School of Public Affairs. Its research and outreach are both local and global.
Urbanization and Global Environmental Change (UGEC) »
This collaborative project is building greater knowledge and understanding of the bidirectional interactions between global environmental change and cities, present at local, regional, and global scales, and integrating the work of decision makers, practitioners, and academic researchers.
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US-Mexico Border Water & Environmental Sustainability Training (UMB-WEST) »
This project will provide US undergraduate students and graduate students with an international collaborative research experience in water resources management.
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Using Informatics to Advance History and Philosophy of Science Research »
The project is designed to address simultaneously the need of acquiring additional professional experience in informatics to advance research in the history and philosophy of science and to open up new areas of research and investigation at the intersection of these two areas.
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