Institute Announces Seven New Seed Grant Funded Projects

The Arthur L. Irving Institute for Energy and Society will fund seven energy and society related research projects during the 2020-21 academic year as part of its seed grant program. "We're excited to announce this year's seed grant recipients," said Dr. Stephen Doig, Institute research director, "because we've managed to broaden the array of disciplines represented and are bringing new people into the energy and society fold at Dartmouth." This is the third round of seed grant awards for the Institute. The range of disciplines represented by the funded projects align with the Institute's mission to help transform "humankind's understanding of energy systems across technological, environmental, economic, geopolitical, and cultural perspectives."


Among the funded projects are two centered around photography — the first visual arts projects to receive Institute seed grant funding. "Written on the Land: Observations on Sustainability in the Louisiana Bayou and the California Desert," led by Virginia Beahan of the Dartmouth Studio Art Department and the College Communications Office's Eli Burakian's "Photographic Exploration of Energy Project" will use photography to tell the story of the intersection of energy and human values. Another project group, led by Anthropology Department faculty member Laura Ogden and post-doc Sarah Kelly, will develop a new energy and society course at Dartmouth that will look at the societal impact of the development of clean energy technologies. Two project groups will explore the health impacts of air pollution -- one focused on indoor pollution created by woodstoves and another examining the connection between natural gas development and air pollution. And another goup will work to 
"build a comprehensive methodology for calculating country-wide energy access, that could better inform energy policy, infrastructure planning and sustainable development" in majority-world countries. 


The complete list of funded projects is below. Click on the link to learn more. 


Researcher: Virginia Beahan  (Senior Lecturer, Studio Art)

Project Title: Written on the Land: Observations on Sustainability in the Louisiana Bayou and the California Desert

Researcher: Eli Burakian (Staff, Communications Office)

Project Title: A Photographic Exploration of Energy 

Researchers: Brian Jackson (Research Professor, Earth Sciences) ; Laura Paulin (Assistant Professor, DHMC); Nora Traviss (Keene State); Margaret Shufflebarger (Student)

Project Title: Human Exposure, Health and Societal Issues in Rural New Hampshire Associated with Wood and Pellet Stoves as Home Heating Sources 

Researchers: Sarah Kelly (Postdoc Researcher, Anthropology); Laura Ogden (Associate Professor, Anthropology); Maron Greenleaf (Postdoctoral Fellow and Lecturer, Anthropology)

Project Title: Teaching The Social Lives of Clean Energy

Researchers: Katherine Mirica (Assistant Professor, Chemistry); Weiyang (Fiona) Li (Professor, Thayer); Zheng Meng (Postdoctoral scholar, Chemistry); Jianmin Luo (Postdoctoral scholar, Thayer)
Project Title: Tuning the Molecular Design of Porous Electrodes for Selective CO2 Reduction into Fuels

Researchers: Neeti Pokhriyal (Postdoctoral Researcher, Computer Science); Soroush Vosoughi (Professor, Computer Science)

Project Title: Mapping Country-wide Energy Access for the Majority World

Researchers: Charlotte Ward (Postdoc Researcher, Geisel); Margaret Karagas (Professor, Geisel)

Project Title: Quantification of Air Pollution from Natural Gas Development and Relationship to Health Outcomes: A Quasi-Experimental Investigation