Projects

Sargassum is a free-floating brown seaweed that supports marine life in the open ocean and gives the Sargasso Sea its name. In recent years, however, massive blooms have expanded across the tropical Atlantic—forming the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt, a 5,000-mile stretch from West Africa to the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico—driven by warmer waters and nutrient pollution. While beneficial offshore, excess sargassum can be destructive when it reaches land. It clogs beaches, dama

For decades, Cleveland’s Upper East Side neighborhoods suffered from chronic underinvestment despite being home to nearly 100,000 residents. Compared with the rest of the region, these communities faced significantly higher poverty and unemployment rates and substantially lower per capita incomes, limiting opportunities for economic growth and neighborhood revitalization. To address these challenges, the Urban Ecological Entrepreneur Program was developed through a partnershi

More than 22,000 desalination plants operate in 177 countries, collectively providing about 1% of the world’s drinking water. Although desalination technologies have been available for decades, the traditionally high costs associated with converting sea water to drinking water have prevented their more widespread adoption. Cost-saving innovations in seawater desalination technology are expected to increase its adoption worldwide. After retiring as a theoretical physicist at L

Goal: To evaluate the importance of jellyfish as predators of zooplankton in Prince William Sound. Prince William Sound, Alaska was the site of an extensive oil spill in March 1989. Many of the vertebrate populations (fishes, birds, mammals) that were seriously damaged by the oil spill have still not recovered. We examined whether the lack of recovery of zooplanktivorous fishes, such as herring, was due to competition for food with jellyfish, which have large populations in t

Goal:To explore how marine pollution and environmental degradation affects fisheries and ecosystems, and its significance to environmental managers. In the 1990s, fisheries science largely treated fish populations, habitat, and pollution as separate disciplines. Stock assessments focused primarily on fishing mortality and reproduction, while ecotoxicology and habitat research proceeded on parallel tracks with few connections to resource management. Recognizing the need for a

Several decades ago, following the dramatic loss of about one-fifth of Northeast Ohio’s manufacturing jobs, Cleveland turned to the academic community for help in analyzing the region’s economic problems. Case Western Reserve University’s Center for Regional Economic Issues (REI) was created to help economic recovery. REI seeks to improve the economic welfare of the nation’s regions through a unique program of policy research, education, and decision support. REI’s studies ha

Goal: To influence the implementation of Pennsylvania’s 1996 law for restructuring the state’s electric utility industry to protect consumers and the environment. The Heinz Endowments invested in a partnership aimed at giving environmental advocates an effective voice in the debate about electric utility restructuring in Pennsylvania. In 1996, the state legislature passed the Electricity Generation Customer Choice and Competition Act which fundamentally altered an industry th

Goal: To evaluate the current state of green buildings in the US, and to plan a shared green office building for nonprofit organizations in Cleveland. Green or “smart” buildings are designed, renovated or constructed, and operated with environmental and energy efficiency, and to be healthy for their occupants. We documented and evaluated a number of representative green buildings around the country (especially those that house nonprofits), to determine their locations, their