Stories

Purdue University has received a National Science Foundation grant to establish the Regional Resilience Innovation Incubator (R2I2): Midwest Agrivoltaics for Resilient Communities. This initiative aims to help rural Midwest communities withstand extreme weather by integrating agriculture with solar energy systems. The Phase 1 award positions Purdue to compete for up to $15 million in Phase 2 funding.

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The annual ISF Fall research Expo will be held on October 15th in the Purdue Memorial Union South Ballroom. This annual gathering is a highlight of the Institute for a Sustainable Future’s outreach and engagement efforts, offering a showcase of the breadth and depth of sustainability-related scholarship happening across Purdue. 

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PFAS researcher Jennifer Freeman recently spoke to Newsweek discussing the Waterkeeper Alliance study, which has found carcinogenic PFAS chemicals—known as “forever chemicals”—in drinking water sources across 34 states and the District of Columbia, raising concern about public health risks. PFAS, widely used in consumer goods like nonstick cookware and stain-resistant fabrics, have been linked to cancer, thyroid disease and other serious illnesses. Despite enforceable limits announced by the EPA in April, public water systems have until 2029 to comply with treatment standards.

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As a follow up to the Spring 2025 Sustainability Literacy and Culture assessment administered to campus students in April, ISF, as lead for the “Campus Sustainability Self-study” project, will be running a similar survey from September 15-26th.

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Thanks to an ISF travel grant, Juan Manuel Arevalo Viveros traveled to Lisbon, Portugal, to present at the 2025 International Sustainability Transitions Conference. His research — Ontological transitions toward habitability from social movements in the region of Cauca – Colombia: Contributions from the Misak indigenous community — explores how the Misak people’s 5,000+ years of ancestral wisdom offer powerful lessons for creating more habitable futures. ISF travel grants offer opportunities for emerging researchers.

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Exciting new research led by ISF affiliate Aaron Thompson (HLA), in collaboration with Purdue, Iowa State University, and the USDA, explores how redesigning edge-of-field conservation buffers can dramatically improve sediment capture and reduce runoff pollution.

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Dozens of students showed off their sustainability-related summer research projects at this year’s Summer 2025 Undergraduate Research Symposium, held on Wednesday, July 30th. In addition to ISF-supported DUIRI projects, many other faculty affiliates supported summer projects. Read more about their work here.

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Purdue’s Institute for a Sustainable Future was recently awarded 1.2 Petabytes of hard disk drive (HDD) storage from Western Digital to further enable research that relies on quick access to big data repositories. This award, granted through Western Digital’s Petabyte Innovation Quest (PIQ “PEAK” Award), helps bolster Purdue’s robust ecosystem of data services and data-driven models by creating the Purdue One Health Data Engine (POHDE)—a storage facility aimed at facilitating research spanning disciplines from weather and climate, to ecosystem health, to environmental toxicology, to plant and animal health, to personalized human health.

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The 2024-2025 academic year saw the team significantly advance research in, and awareness of, PFAS around the state and nation through publications, events, education and outreach. A key aspect of the team’s efforts this year has involved engaging scientists, state employees and the general public through webinars, in-person events and seminars, as well as through the publication of the Indiana Statewide PFAS Assessment, a public-facing report the provides important PFAS information and results from the work of scientists from around the state of Indiana. The publication received an “Outstanding Achievement Award” from the Indiana Water Resources Association in June.

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Dr. Ximena E. Bernal, a professor in Purdue University’s Department of Biological Sciences, and faculty affiliate of the Purdue Institute for a Sustainable Future, has co-authored a new study which has uncovered how young fringe-lipped bats (Trachops cirrhosis) learn to identify and hunt prey—not through instinct, but by listening, learning the mating calls of their prey, and observing mature bats.

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