Steve Skerlos

Nutrient recovery from waste is a promising strategy to conserve inputs while reducing nutrient discharge to the natural environment. Multiple waste streams have shown promise with respect to nutrient recovery. Multiple technologies also show promise at a pilot or full scale. These technologies, however, must not exacerbate other environmental issues, with excessive energy use, unsustainable material extraction (e.g., mineral extraction, cement use), or toxin release into the environment. Such technologies must also be feasible from economic and social perspectives. Work, therefore, should focus on both improving our current suite of available technologies for nutrient recovery from waste and framing policies that blend affordability with incentives, thereby fostering an environment conducive to innovation and adoption of sustainable approaches. This review considers the issues associated with nutrient recovery from waste, including technical feasibility and economic, environmental, and social factors, and identifies current knowledge gaps and emerging opportunities for nutrient waste recovery.

Abstract In this work-in-progress paper, we report on ongoing work conducted during the initial stages of research that inform the development of a framework to support the design and delivery of equity-centered engineering curriculum and instruction within undergraduate courses. The entire project is supported by an NSF Broadening Participation in Engineering (BPE) grant, and the research discussed in this paper includes (1) a synthesis of relevant literature on how to teach equity-centered engineering content – about the application of equity considerations in engineering practice – and/ or to use equity-centered engineering pedagogy – creating equitable learning conditions in engineering courses – and (2) a summary of individual interviews with engineering instructors who have incorporated issues of equity into engineering courses. Many dimensions of the current culture of undergraduate engineering programs impede curricular and pedagogical attention to issues of equity in engineering courses. Research has identified barriers that include a culture of competition rather than collaboration; whiteness, masculinity, and heteronormativity; the belief that engineering is apolitical, objective, neutral, and meritocratic; and the presumption of a social-technical divide and consequent prioritization of technical knowledge over social understanding. Our literature review and interviews both aim to identify course components that engineering instructors and instructional staff consider essential for equity-centered engineering education, including both pedagogy and content and the interplay between them. For this research, we defined equity-centered engineering curriculum and instruction as courses or sequences of courses that both integrate equity considerations into technical content and support students' engagement through pedagogical attention to equitable classroom environments. We first introduce the project and framework development in this paper, and then discuss a sample of findings, and we also briefly describe the remaining work to develop, implement, study, and iterate on the framework.

In her work, she characterizes front-end design practices across the student to practitioner continuum, develops empirically-based tools to support design best practices, and studies the impact of frontend design tools on design success.Specifically, she focuses on divergent and convergent thinking processes in design innovations, including investigations of concept generation and development, exploring problem spaces to identify real needs and innovation opportunities, and approaches to integrate social and cultural elements of design contexts into design decisions.

The College of Engineering at the University of Michigan is developing a program for undergraduate students to learn diversity, equity, inclusion and social justice (DEIJ) as foundational elements of engineering context, in other words to learn "equity-centered engineering." This paper presents a set of learning objectives that has been developed to guide the content, delivery and assessment of this DEIJ program. The objectives aim to convey an alignment of DEIJ goals with high functioning engineering education, analysis, design, and practice; as opposed to a set of social considerations overlapping with, yet separate from, core engineering activities. Hence, the iterative developmental process of these objectives has been informed by engineering practitioners, DEIJ practitioners, pedagogy, interdisciplinary literature, and socially engaged approaches. The resulting learning objectives are organized into the following three categories: 1) Individual Responsibilities (Looking Inward): Commit to a process of lifelong learning that will help you contribute uniquely and equitably to any engineering problem. 2) Professional Responsibilities (Looking Outward): Embrace the engineers' responsibility to behave professionally as global, equity-centered citizens. 3) Engineering in Context (Looking at History to Understand the Present and Forge the Future): Contextualize engineering developments in history, and visualize ways in which engineering can help create a more just, equitable and inclusive society. The aim is for the objectives to be framed within an engineering context, be pedagogically sound, and be asset-framing for a variety of identities. In this work-in-progress paper, we will present the learning objectives, some of the history of their development, as well as how they connect to social justice and critical pedagogies. Our goal with this effort is to engage in dialogue and receive feedback from the community on the developed and evolving learning objectives.

His research explores how engineering students and practitioners engage stakeholders in their engineering projects, reflect on their social identities

The predominant management approach for municipal solid waste (MSW) remains disposal, given significant increases in generation and disposal rates of MSW in recent decades. In addition to the well-documented carbon emissions from disposal sites, these sites accumulate numerous elements, the masses of which are substantial globally yet inadequately quantified. The unique combinations of waste constituents, elements, diverse environments, and confined spaces in disposal sites create distinct biogeochemical conditions, setting them apart from any other infrastructure or geological feature on Earth. This review first presents a global summary of the cumulative masses and disposal rates of MSW constituents and associated elements. The five dominant transformation and transport processes influencing disposed elements are examined: biochemical degradation, physicochemical transformation, gas migration, leachate migration, and solid spillage. The magnitudes and rates of the processes corresponding to major disposed elements, including carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, chlorine, and several metals, are systematically summarized. We examine and quantify the potential environmental impacts and health risks associated with element transformation and transport. We also explore the existing knowledge and techniques for resource recovery and site remediation of disposal sites. The distilled compilation of measurements and insights herein serves as a valuable primer for researchers, practitioners, and decision-makers involved in MSW management.