The Pittsburgh IGERT Sustainable Engineering Fellowship program catalyzes and encourages collaboration.  Our faculty's research agendas incorporate multidiscplinary approaches to tackle the broad topics of green construction and sustainable water use.

Green Construction

Buildings in the US, over the course of their life-cycle, account for 17% of fresh water withdrawals, 25% of wood harvest, 40% of overall materials use, 54% of energy used, and 50% of fossil fuels consumed.  The purpose of green is to lessen the impact of buildings on the environment over their full lifetime.  Although great strides have been made in greening the process and products of construction, scientific and engineering advances in many fields are still needed to create the next generation of sustainable buildings.  Significantly, research and development performed by the construction industry as a percent of sales is an order of magnitude smaller than for most other industries.

*New Materials for Green Construction  Our vision is that the building materials of the future will require less energy to produce, can be designed with recycling in mind, can signal impending failure and/or heal themselves, and will inhibit/reduce the release into the indoor environment of noxious compounds (either synthetic or natural).

* Reduced Energy Use Through Smarter Design and Control  Our vision is that buildings of the future will contain a “nervous” system that provides real time, highly localized data on energy needs; that buildings of the future will be constructed so as to minimize energy demand while maximizing comfort.

* Life Cycle Analysis, Planning, and Economics  Our vision is that the designers of new buildings will be able to examine the consequences of design choices on the future productivity of workers and the overall environmental footprint of the building over its lifetime through the use of innovative software tools.

Sustainable Water Use

Water, although often perceived to be an infinite resource, is fast becoming a leading source of friction throughout the world. In the devel­oped world, competing needs for water among agriculture, industry and homes can create severe stress upon water supplies. In the developing world, the lack of sufficient clean water is fast becoming the most important obstacle to the creation of sustainable economies. It is estimated that 1 to 2 billion people currently lack access to clean water, and that 10,000 to 30,000 people die each day from water-born diseases. Agri­cultural practices in developing countries are more water-intensive than in the developed world, as are commodity production processes (for example, paper production in China requires twice the water as in the US or Europe).

* Sustainable Water Treatment and Use  Our vision is that water collection, treatment, and use in the future will be more efficient, lower cost, yet with less accompanying environmental burden than that employed presently.

To learn more about the research of individual faculty members, visit the IGERT faculty hompages.