The first cohort of USC’s Presidential Sustainability Solutions Fellowship began its interdisciplinary research for promoting sustainability, deterring climate change and tackling a multitude of pressing environmental challenges in August.

The five postdoctorates who make up the fellowship will receive two years of financial support for their research as well as access to USC’s faculty, including two mentors from different University departments. 

“The great thing about sustainability is that it cuts across fields,” said Robin Craig, faculty co-director of the fellowship. “We’ve got a wonderful focus on sustainability at USC that is interdisciplinary. Various presidents, working groups and student groups are highly interdisciplinary, so this is a good place for a postdoc program.”

The cohort’s environmental research is part of a larger initiative, Assignment: Earth, USC’s sustainability framework for 2028. Among lofty goals, such as achieving zero waste and climate neutrality, the University aims to “substantially increase its interdisciplinary research and research training for sustainability and climate change solutions,” its website reads.

The fellows’ research will investigate disparate areas in sustainability, from the impacts of rising sea levels to the effects of air pollution and heat waves on pregnancy.

Katherine Baker, a fellow and public health researcher, is studying the intersection of nutrition, public health and climate change. At USC, she’s working to develop incentives for reducing meat consumption, which has a higher relative carbon and water footprint, by analyzing the factors that contribute to diet. 

“I’m trying to understand through qualitative methods: Why are people reducing meat?” Baker said. “What are the barriers to people reducing meat? How can we incentivize people to eat a little bit less meat?”

Addressing food insecurity and nutrition across the world requires researchers to address climate change and its impact on extreme weather events and growing seasons, Baker said. Her work aims to feed more people, while not harming the environment in the long term.

Kayla de la Haye, an associate professor of population and public health sciences, and Wändi Bruine de Bruin, the provost professor of public policy, psychology and behavioral science, are Baker’s mentors. They’ve been familiarizing her with the Los Angeles food systems, Baker said. The program is a collaborative effort between Baker, her mentors, University faculty and the rest of the cohort.

“It’s really great to have other people who are all broadly interested in sustainability working together even though a lot of our research projects are different,” Baker said.

Jason Niu, a fellow studying how climate change affects the human aging population starting at pregnancy, is taking a different approach to sustainability. Niu’s research analyzes how the presence of heat waves and air pollution at the earliest stages of life affects future risk for disease and health issues. 

“I really think a sustainable plan is not to save the Earth, but it’s actually [to] save us,” Niu said. “Save humanity.”

These findings will supplement research from Pinchas Cohen, one of Niu’s mentors and the dean of the Davis School of Gerontology. Cohen’s lab has been researching how mitochondria in the human body can secrete functional molecules that could be a protective factor against human aging. The research could be a key to protecting the next generation from the effects of air pollution and heat waves, Niu said.

Anna Vinton, a fellow with a background in quantitative ecology and evolutionary biology, is turning her sustainability efforts toward coral reefs by using mathematical models to predict how coral can adapt to changing environments. 

While Vinton’s research will take place at Caribbean coral sites, where there has been severe coral bleaching, the findings could be applicable to other coral sites and marine ecosystems around the world.

“Coral reefs are some of the most threatened ecosystems in the world, and they houseave a huge amount of biodiversity,” Vinton said. “We’re very quickly losing coral genetic diversity, and there isn’t a coral gene bank that houses this diversity. So, in some cases, once we lose diversity, we can’t necessarily get it back.”

Matthew Coopilton, a fellow and educational psychologist, is using game design and hypothetical modeling to imagine a sustainable future. 

While working on their Ph.D. at the Rossier School of Education, Coopilton ran an afro-futurist-themed game jam, where Black, Latine and LGBTQIA+ youth could make games imagining futures where they could thrive. Through the School of Cinematic Arts, Coopilton is expanding these principles to prototype approaches to climate change and sustainability.

“What if we phase out fossil fuels? What if we reduce the causes of pollution and in majority Black neighborhoods? What if young people organize themselves to push for climate justice?” Coopilton said. “We can model these kinds of possibilities through games.”

In addition to helping prototype responses to climate change, Coopilton’s research aims to transfer the skills and knowledge developed in games into real-world solutions, emphasizing collective action for structural change.

Interdisciplinary research, such as studies on the intersection of gaming and sustainability in Coopilton’s case, is typically very difficult because of the responsibilities of professors and researchers, Coopilton said. But the fellowship is alleviating some of these challenges.

“This is very rare in academia,” Coopilton said. “A lot of people want to do interdisciplinary research, but it’s very hard to actually do without funding and resources. In this case, USC has provided the funding and resources to actually do it, which is a big deal.”