Our cohort spoke with Robert Bonnie, President Biden’s nominee to be Agriculture Under Secretary for Farm Production and Conservation, on a sunny Friday, July 23, 2021. The conversation was remote, as things tend to be nowadays, and Robert Bonnie spoke to us from his office at USDA. 

NASA has funded an ASU project to use commercial CubeSat data to determine the presence of water in arid and semiarid rivers in California and Arizona.

Aug. 11: Attend a Zócalo talk with Lindy Elkins-Tanton and Lisa Margonelli about untethering the academic research model from the cult of personality in order to take on humanity’s biggest problems. Read an essay on the topic in Issues in Science and Technology.

The appointment follows the retirement of sustainability scientist Nancy Selover, who served in the role for 14 years and worked for several decades as a research professor in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning.

Battered by drought, flows have been dropping in the Colorado River, a water source that 40 million people depend upon. On Aug. 15, the Bureau of Reclamation will declare a shortage, which will result in a cut in deliveries to Arizona farmers. Most consumers won’t notice any changes, but other cuts loom, and life in the Southwest is going to get more complicated.

New research by sustainability scholar Carola Grebitus shows that while the brewers would like to use sustainable practices, many don’t think that consumers would be willing to pay a lot extra to support those efforts.

Apply by Aug. 13. The series will help faculty members understand the broader policy environment that funders work in, how to have more impact with your science or scholarship in the policy domain, and engage with policy levers to create policy changes that lead to research opportunities.

Knowledge Enterprise is seeking nominations for the Chair position for Limited Submissions. In this role, the selected appointee will complete a two-year term attached to the Vice President of Research (VPR) and work closely with the Research Development staff, specifically the Opportunity Manager (OM). An additional year of service is possible and will be negotiated within the last three months of the term.

Under the direction of the Executive Vice President, and in close partnership with the Chief Science and Technology Officer, the Vice President of Research serves as an integral part of advancing the research agenda of the Knowledge Enterprise at ASU and is an essential member of the university leadership.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes released its latest climate report today, Climate Change 2021: the Physical Science Basis.

On the afternoon of Wednesday, July 21, the Food Policy and Sustainability Leadership Cohort took a much-anticipated trip off of ASU’s DC campus. The entourage embarked on a refreshing stroll down K Street to the Washington DC office of Dentons Law Firm, one of 204 locations worldwide that serve to build agile, tailored solutions to meet the local, national, and global needs of private and public clients of any size.

A new paper on the transformation of Caribbean coral reefs throughout human existence was recently published by Katie Cramer, Program Lead for Coral Reef Conservation.