University of Miami
AC-8: Campus as a Living Laboratory

The undergrad students from the minor in Sustainable Business have created a series of recommendations to green the supply chain of our campus bookstore. One of the recommendations materialized with the creation of a Round Up program where customers are asked to round their purchase to the nearest dollar and the money donated to two environmental student organizations on campus.

Undergrad students from the College of Engineering under the supervision of their professor have performed various Building Modeling analysis to be used by our Department of Facilities, Operation and Planning.

A group of graduate students from the MS in Construction Management have analyzed the energy, water and waste performance of various buildings on campus to help with the creation of a Building Green OM Dashboard.

The Art School is using our campus surplus warehouse as a resource to find material, equipment and objects that can be up cycled into class project final art works.

Sustainable Business Capstone:
Students in the MS in Sustainable Business engage with Facilities and Office of Sustainability to help community stakeholders like the Miami Dade County Public Schools, to implement their own green house gases and sustainability action plan.
https://herbert.miami.edu/graduate/find-and-compare-programs/sustainable-business/index.html

Urban Resilience and Sustainability MPS
Students in the MPS in Urban Resilience and Sustainability engage with Facilities and Office of Sustainability to help local government and community stakeholders implement their own resilience and mitigation strategy.
https://urb.as.miami.edu/academics/curriculum/index.html

School of Architecture:
Students from the Certificate in Sustainable and Resilient Design participated in a green design competition for municipalities that need fresh ideas for the construction of their City hall

Office of Community and Civic Engagement:
Miami Housing Solutions Lab
The Miami Housing Solutions Lab was created by the University of Miami’s Office of Civic and Community Engagement to provide resources and tools on local issues in affordable housing and community development
https://civic.miami.edu/housing-initiatives/miami-housing-solutions-lab/index.html

PRISM - Advanced Program for Integrated Science and Math
Community
PRISM extends learning beyond the classroom with various special events, lectures, and field trips. These activities are designed to help you build relationships that could lead to future research opportunities and careers. PRISM faculty encourage students to ask questions, work together and collaborate. This helps reduce the competitiveness that is so common in the sciences. https://www.as.miami.edu/prismrsvp/

Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science:

Benthic Ecology and Coral Restoration Lab
Research at the University of Miami’s Benthic Ecology and Coral Restoration Lab concentrates on the coastal habitats of South Florida, including coral reefs, hardbottoms, and submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) communities and factors influencing coral growth and survivorship in the face of local and regional stressors as well as Climate Change factors. (https://www.marine-biology-ecology.rsmas.miami.edu/research-themes/centers-and-labs/benthic-ecology-coral-restoration-lab/ )

Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies (CIMAS)
The Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies (CIMAS) is a research institute of the University of Miami located in the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (RSMAS). CIMAS serves as a mechanism to bring together the research resources of the Partner Universities (including UM/RSMAS) with those of NOAA in order to develop a Center of Excellence that is relevant to understanding the Earth’s oceans and atmosphere within the context of NOAA’s mission. (https://www.rsmas.miami.edu/research/centers/cimas/index.html )

Digital Coral Reef Project
Coral reefs protect coastlines and provide food and livelihoods to hundreds of millions of low-income people in more than 100 nations and island states. The average coral reef has suffered losses in vitality due to a myriad of anthropogenic impacts. Climate change has added stresses such as coral bleaching and acidification. (https://www.rsmas.miami.edu/research/projects/digital-coral-reef-project/ )

Ocean Acidification Coral Lab
The South Florida Corals and Climate Change Laboratory is the first of it’s kind to tackle the global problem of the impact of climate change on corals. Fully operational in 2007, the lab facilitates the study on how corals respond to the combined stress of greenhouse warming and ocean acidification.(https://marine-biology-ecology.rsmas.miami.edu/research-themes/centers-and-labs/ocean-acidification-coral-lab/index.html)

Miller School of Medicine- Public Health Science
Annual Symposium on Climate and Health
The symposium brings researchers and other stakeholders to discuss empirical evidence of the direct and indirect health effects of climate systems, climate change and extreme weather. https://cimas.rsmas.miami.edu/news-events/miami-climate-symposium/index.html

The Center for Computational Science
CLIMATE & ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS
The Climate & Environmental Hazards program brings together physicists, engineers, and computer scientists to address shared computational problems. The Program develops innovative solutions and uses advanced computing to address the challenges scientists face in the observation, analysis, modeling, and prediction of phenomena in areas such as atmospheric, oceanic, and climatic phenomena, as well as problems related to fluid dynamics (example below), solid structures, and materials. https://www.ccs.miami.edu/focus-area/climate-and-environmental-hazards/

UM Precise
Naresh Kumar, an associate professor of environmental health in the Miller School of Medicine's Department of Public Health Sciences, has devised a way to monitor air pollution around the globe in real time.
Working with Sung Jin Kim, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering in the College of Engineering, and other colleagues, he created UM PRECISE (Personal Real time Environmental Exposure using Cellphone Integrated Sensors). The multiple optical sensors measure particulate matter, record meteorological conditions, and upload data to the internet. After three testing rounds, the tool was deployed on UM's Coral Gables and Virginia Key campuses.
http://precise.miami.edu/

Sustainable Business Capstone:
Students in the Sustainable Business MS engage with Facilities and Office of Sustainability to help community stakeholders implement their own green house gases and sustainability action plan.
https://herbert.miami.edu/graduate/find-and-compare-programs/sustainable-business/index.html

Urban Resilience and Sustainability MPS
Students in the MPS in Urban Resilience and Sustainability engage with Facilities and Office of Sustainability to help local government and community stakeholders implement their own resilience and mitigation strategy.
https://urb.as.miami.edu/academics/curriculum/index.html

College of Engineering

Innovation Bridge Transforming the Field of Bridge Construction
After studying the durability performance of fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) rebar in the Innovation Bridge at the University of Miami (UM), Steve Nolan, a structures design engineer at the Florida Department of Transportation, and his colleagues decided to put this technology to work on the Halls River Bridge in Homosassa, Fla. To Nolan’s knowledge, the 186-foot-long vehicular bridge was the first bridge in North America to use a wide variety of FRP materials (primarily fiberglass rebar) in the complete substructure.

Capstones for Architectural, Civil and Environmental Engineering students:
Develop sustainable structure designs that meet LEED Gold standards, with an emphasis on resiliency and sustainability; address sea-level rise adaptation and climate-change mitigation; meet the local community’s needs and adhere to city codes. (https://www.coe.miami.edu/students/capstone-program/index.html)

School of Architecture

Design Build
The core mission of Design/Build is to give students hands-on experience of architecture, engaging them with the underserved or not-for-profit community with prototypical solutions. This mission unites students and the community in ways that are mutually beneficial, while instilling the notion that architecture is a civic endeavor. (https://www.arc.miami.edu/academics/research/design-build/index1.html)

Coastal Resilience
Changing climate patterns are impacting communities in coastal regions across the globe due to rising sea levels and increasing temperatures. Architects and urban designers play a central role in developing robust adaptation strategies by addressing climate stressors in their designs. Research, innovation, and community outreach are central and connected aspects of building coastal resiliency. (https://resilience.miami.edu/session-recordings/index.html)

Health and the Built Environment
Healthcare Architecture is a growing and developing field with design implications that cover a wide range of scales, from urban planning to the design of a single patient room. U-SoA explores these different scales, while providing a multi-disciplinary approach to Healthcare Architecture. (https://www.arc.miami.edu/academics/research/health-and-the-built-environment/index.html)

Smart Cities
U-SoA and the Center for Computational Science (CCS @ UM) are collaborating on their newest focus area, designed to create services and training involving Smart Cities concepts.A ‘smart’ city is one that uses digital technologies to address and manage:Citizen Participation and Governance; Natural Resources and Climate Change (Energy Governance) (https://www.arc.miami.edu/academics/research/smart-cities/index.html)

College of Engineering

Students under the supervision of various professors from CoE, Electrical and Civil Engineering started a LEED Lab experiment on one of our oldest building and plan recommendations to our Design and Construction Dpt in order to achieve a similar performance to what LEED Operations and Maintenance from USGBC can achieve. The Lab included Building Energy Modeling and renewable energy sizing.
(https://cae.coe.miami.edu/about-us/cae-department-clusters/building-environment-systems-cluster/index.html)

The Student Government Agency ECO started by investing in several kiosks with a Lucid energy dashboard connected to residence halls. They used them for a Kill a Watt competition. Instead of limiting it to students use, ECO and facilities management worked together to extend the connection to Lucid to all buildings on campus. From then on, any faculty member either from the School of Architecture or the College of Engineering have access to real time data which has helped them conduct Energy audit or envelope insulation analysis in their classes.
During the pandemic, the Lucid Dashboard program was terminated. Since then, the Sustainability Office have pursued the creation of an internal Sustainable Building Operation dashboard with classes from Architectural, Civil and Computer Science Engineering.
(https://greenu.miami.edu/topics/green-buildings/buildings-dashboard/index.html)

Aquaculture Program and Experimental Hatchery
The UM Rosenstiel School Aquaculture Program is supported by an innovative and progressive research and development program in sustainable aquaculture focusing on advanced, emerging technologies and management strategies. (https://marine-ecosystems.rsmas.miami.edu/research-themes/centers-and-labs/aquaculture-program-experimental-hatchery/index.html )

Department of International Studies
Global Food: A hands on approach
This is UM’s answer to the global hunger problem: Class grow tropical food plants on our CAMPUS GLOBAL STUDENT FARM! From the seed to the harvest, banquet, and farm tours. Lectures by visiting experts and collaborating faculty on food, urban farming, composting, eating, world economy, food chemistry, and more. (https://greenu.miami.edu/topics/food-and-well-being/gardens/index.html )

Our Biology Department regularly conduct projects and research on our campus. The 4 main areas of ground management where classes collect data, analyze nutrient cycle and study species and ecosystems are the Arboretum, the Butterfly garden, the Nature Preserve Taylor Alexander Biodome and the Lake Osceola.

A group of Students from the School of Business "Introduction to Corporate Sustainability" participated in a lab project where the deliverable was a series of recommendations for the adoption of a Sustainable Purchasing and Environmentally Preferred Products and Services Guide that ended up influencing the department who decided to add a Sustainable Procurement policy inspired by their work.

The same capstone class delivered 4 environmentally preferred products and services projects to the University Bookstore. One of them is a Round-up program, where customers are asked to round up their purchases to the nearest dollar and accept to donate to local Sustainable student organization like the Food Pantry and the Garden Club.

CoE
Fuel Cells are the Future of Zero Emission Motor Vehicles
“Fuel cells are more energy-efficient than combustion engines and the hydrogen used to power them can come from a variety of sources,” says Hongtan Liu, a professor in the College of Engineering’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. “If pure hydrogen is used as a fuel, fuel cells emit only heat and water, eliminating concerns about air pollutants or greenhouse gases.” (https://climate.miami.edu/renewable-energy/)

CoE
Research - Solid Waste Management
The SIMWASTE Project is a research project in the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Miami. The project is directed by Dr. Nurcin Celik, an assistant professor of Industrial Engineering, who has significant experience with large-scale system simulation and optimization. The project is sponsored by the Hinkley Center for Solid and Hazardous Waste Management.(http://www.coe.miami.edu/simlab/swm.html)

The Water Quality department cluster at the College of Engineering use on campus resources, location and students to perform water quality analysis and offer solutions. (https://ceme.coe.miami.edu/about-us/ceme-department-clusters/water-quality/index.html)

School of Architecture:
Urban Design, Planning and Real Estate Development
The vital role of designers in shaping the physical environment and its relationship to the natural world is at the core of the school’s pedagogy. Urban Design and Real Estate Development, and the nexus between them, form a critical field of inquiry supported by the School’s Center for Urban & Community Design and two distinct Master programs: the Master of Urban Design and the Master of Real Estate Development + Urbanism.(https://www.arc.miami.edu/academics/research/urban-design-planning-and-real-estate-development/index.html)

Women's and Gender Studies Program
The Program in Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Miami seeks to encourage the rigorous investigation of gender as a significant issue in all areas of human experience. It reaches across disciplines to draw on a range of methods, theories, and perspectives that help us to understand how ideas and structures based on gender shape our lives.
(https://www.as.miami.edu/wgs/)

Law School
Environmental Justice Clinic
The University of Miami’s Environmental Justice Clinic provides rights education, interdisciplinary research, policy resources, and advocacy and transactional assistance to underserved low- and moderate-income communities discriminated against by public and private actors in the contexts of the built and natural environment across the fields of civil rights (housing, land use, and transportation), environmental protection (clean air and water, biodiversity and wildlife, climate change, conservation and sustainability, food access, and pollution), poverty law (community economic development and municipal equity), and public health (community health and safety). https://www.law.miami.edu/academics/center-for-ethics-and-public-service/environmental-justice-project

Business School
STUDENT MANAGED INVESTMENT FUND
Once selected to join the Fund, students are placed into one of six groups:
Energy and Utilities, Health Care, Industrials and Materials, Real Estate and Financials, Tech, Media and Telecom.(https://www.bus.miami.edu/your-experience/student-managed-investment-fund.html)

Psychology
Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos (HCHS/SOL)
Obesity, Metabolic Syndrome, and Meal-related Glycemia Social Environment, Sympathetic Nervous System & Atherosclerosis in WHHL Rabbits Heart Smart Get in the GROOVE! Biobehavioral Bases of CHD Risk and Management. The Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos (HCHS/SOL) is a multi-site, interdisciplinary epidemiologic study in Hispanic populations in the U.S. sponsored by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI).(http://www.bmrc.miami.edu/research.phtml)

Department of Geography and Sustainable Development
The Health Geographic Lab
Our research activities focus on improving our spatial-temporal understanding of global public health issues, with emphasis on Miami and the developing world. We are especially interested in exploring how different environments — social, physical (natural and built), and even digital — yield disparities in health, disease, and risk exposure across different populations. (https://www.as.miami.edu/geography/hgl/)

Household Water Insecurity Experiences (HWISE)
Dr. Stoler is co-PI of this RCN which supports conceptual advances in the study of household water provision and water insecurity in relation to broader social and environmental challenges. (https://www.as.miami.edu/geography/hgl/projects/)