News

October 31, 2024

Biden-Harris Administration announces University of Massachusetts campuses to receive nearly $1.5 million in grants to help businesses prevent pollution as part of Investing in America agenda, including $350k to ETI under PI Lauren Mattison to provide technical assistance to beverage manufacturers in southern New England.

October 22, 2024

A new study from ELEVATE / ETI-affiliated researchers Allison Bates, Ogechi Vivian Nwadiaru, Anna Goldstein, and Krista Harper explores a post-industrial city’s community perceptions and expectations on the renewable energy transition. The authors worked closely with community partners in Holyoke Massachusetts to understand the ways in which the energy transition is perceived to result in energy justice or injustice. Their work shows the value of community-based ethnographic energy justice research.

October 17

On October 10 - 11, leaders of university energy institutes, from around the United States, gathered in Columbus Ohio to share best practices, opportunities, and challenges. In addition to university energy institute leaders, other guest speakers included representatives from NREL, NSF, and the Federation of American Scientists. The event was hosted at Ohio State University. ETI Associate Director Dr. Jared Starr attended.

October 10, 2024

At the end of September, academics, practitioners, non-profits, and municipal leaders from around New England gathered to share research and ideas around the theme of Building a Just Energy Transition in New England. The workshop was hosted at Dartmouth College. UMass Professors Krista Harper and Nicholas Caverly and ELEVATE graduate students Ximena Aristizabal and Teniel Rhiney presented a panel discussion on the electrification of homes in Holyoke MA. ETI co-Director Michael Ash moderated. ETI Director Erin Baker and Associate Director Jared Starr attended.

October 4, 2024

ISO New England may not be a household name, but their work is critical to providing reliable electricity to homes and businesses across the six New England states. As the operators of the New England power system, ISO is responsible for ensuring a reliable energy grid at competitive prices. ELEVATE Fellows and ELEVATE / ETI leaders toured the Holyoke, MA-based facility to discuss their operations and saw the control center in action.

October 2, 2024

Dr. Jared Starr, the Associate Director of ETI, is known for his research on carbon footprints and income inequality. In September, Dr. Starr was interviewed by Jeremy Hsu, of New Scientist Magazine, for an article titled: People hugely underestimate the carbon footprints of the 1 per cent. The article focuses on an interesting new study from Kristian S. Nielsen and colleagues on peoples’ tendency to significantly under estimate carbon emissions inequality.

September 30, 2024

ETI Director and Distinguished Professor Erin Baker leads a deep discussion of energy justice, how to measure progress, and the Holyoke Community Energy Project on the latest episode of the Public Power Underground Podcast. Professor Baker is joined by hosts Ahlmahz Negash, Paul Dockery. Conleigh Byers, and Farhad Billimoria.

September 25, 2024

A capacity crowd of faculty and students, from across the UMass campus, engaged in a rich discussion of how South Africa's significant resource wealth coupled with post-apartheid inequality and conflict have perpetuated an electricity system still heavily reliant on coal, where power disruptions are the norm. Panelists included John Higginson, Sindiso Mnisi Weeks, Erin Baker, and Léonce Ndikumana. The discussion was moderated by James Boyce, professor emeritus of economics.

September 19, 2024

The Association of Energy Engineers (AEE) New England named Arash Khojaste as a 2024 scholarship recipient. Arash is an ELEVATE fellow and Ph.D. student at PEARL Lab in the Industrial Engineering and Operations Research Department. He holds a Master of Systems optimization degree from Sharif University and a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering from Khaje-Nasir University in Iran.

September 18, 2024

Research Assistant Professor Brian Yellen, an ELEVATE mentor, has been appointed as a Massachusetts state geologist. In this new role, Yellen will direct the Massachusetts Geological Survey and work with students, geologists and others to collect and analyze data on Massachusetts minerals, lands, and waters. This work also involves public communication of their findings and coordination with other agencies. Yellen said in a statement: “I will be providing geologic knowledge, data, and resources to help better manage our natural resources, from the rivers of the Berkshires to the coastal bluffs of Cape Cod."

September 16, 2024

A new study by IGERT and ETI-affiliated researchers Alison Bates, Gregory Guannel and Luis Armando Pagan Quinones explores the complex landscape of energy insecurity in the Virgin Islands. While hurricanes are of course an acute cause of power failure, the research team finds that chronic utilities failures are just as impactful. They propose several remedies to increase household energy resilience, including pairing renewable energy with disaster mitigation and recovery.

August 15, 2024

Faced with the existential threat of climate change, the world is in the midst of a vital, fast-moving transition to an energy system based on renewable sources rather than fossil fuels. At UMass Amherst, graduate students from disparate academic fields are working together via the ELEVATE program (Elevating Equity Values in the Transition of the Energy System) to make meaningful contributions to these efforts. ELEVATE students conduct novel research, engage local communities, and receive valuable training for their future careers.

August 4, 2024

Offshore wind farms have enormous potential to provide more than enough clean electricity to meet global demand. A major challenge, however, is how to get this electricity to the cities and towns that need it. In a new Conversation article, ETI Director Erin Baker, UMass/IGERT alumn Tyler Hansen, and colleagues from Dartmouth College and Johns Hopkins University describe how offshore electric power grids could play a key role in solving this challenge.

July 30, 2024

The building and construction industry accounts for 37% of global greenhouse emissions—and the steel production process can be a significant contributor to these emissions. Kara Peterman, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at UMass Amherst, is working with 20 different steel and sustainable construction organizations to find a lower carbon future for steel. As Dr. Peterman explains: “What can we do in these 5 years of EPA funding to propel us 50 years in the future? We are trying to transform an industry, not make temporary or incremental change.”

July 26, 2024

This paper discusses a method that involves community participation from research design, data collection, data analysis, and beyond. ELEVATE members Rhiney and Harper have been putting this into practice as part of the Holyoke Community Energy Project. This project is committed to building a just, equitable, and sustainable energy future for Holyoke through co-designed solutions that respond to residents' energy needs, center the community's voice, and repair the legacy of environmental injustices.

July 8, 2024

Zoe Getman-Pickering, program coordinator for the UMass Energy Transition Institute ELEVATE program, moderated a panel on “Fueling a Global Energy Transition” and ELEVATE students participated in an expo booth at Boston’s inaugural ClimaTech 2024 conference held June 3-5. ClimaTech 2024, hosted by Gov. Maura Healy and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, brought together clean energy and technology experts from around the world to push forward climate solutions.

July 5, 2024

Trillium Brewing in Canton, Massachusetts recently celebrated going solar with assistance from UMass College of Engineering faculty, alumni and graduate students through the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Industrial Assessment Center Program.

Trillium Brewing is one of 800 businesses, water and wastewater treatment facilities to receive free technical assistance from CEERE in its nearly 30-year history at the university. UMass Amherst was part of a network of universities across the country administering free energy assessments as part of DOE’s Industrial Assessment Center Program from 1984 until 2023.

June 10, 2024

Researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Smith College have developed a new method to assess the equity implications of carbon taxes, which are among economists’ favored solutions to address the looming threat of climate change. The method, which uses spatial microsimulation (SMS) to generate granular household-level estimates using aggregate statistics, is able to provide more detailed insights into the distributional consequences of carbon taxes compared with relying on averages to predict the effects on a given population.

June 5, A024

n interdisciplinary group , including ETI scholars from anthropology and engineering, Ogechi Vivian Nwadiaru and Krista Harper, have published a paper on “Participatory research in energy justice: guiding principles and practice.” This perspective explores the imperative role of participatory research (PR) in advancing energy justice and emphasizes the need to move beyond decontextualized principles to address specific injustices related to race, class, gender, and coloniality.

May 21, 2024

The 15 engineers selected this year by a SWE editorial board panel are diverse in age, background, location, and engineering discipline. Many are young — at the beginning of already-stellar careers; others are midcareer professionals with wide-ranging experience; and two are historic figures whose contributions to science and engineering are not widely known. It’s hard to imagine a more fully engaged group of women: Many teach at all levels in a variety of venues; one sails competitively; one tackled the 2020 pandemic personal protective equipment shortage; one found herself advising parents of neurodivergent children; and one fights for ethical applications of AI.

May 14, 2024

Paola Pimentel Furlanetto, of Campina Grande, Paraíba, Brazil, will receive the Commitment to Diversity Award in recognition of her commitment to issues of diversity and justice in her work. Pimentel Furlanetto is working on her Ph.D. in industrial engineering and operations research. She is investigating the social equity impacts of carbon capture in the electricity system in her thesis, “Modeling Power Systems Operation and Emissions to Inform an Equitable Energy Transition.”

May 8, 2024

Raul Vera, an ETI undergraduate researcher in the summer of 2022, has been awarded a UMass undergraduate sustainability award for his project on “The Ongoing Water Crisis in the Horn of Africa”. In 2022, Vera worked with Professor Eve Vogel on a project entitled “Fishing for food security in the damned Connecticut River.”

May 7, 2024

Postdoc Brendan Moran presented on a National Academies of Science panel on re-framing how we think about water and lithium resources in brine systems and some of the new findings and complexities around brine, brackish, and freshwater systems including tradeoffs between water and carbon.

May 2, 2024

A new report examining the operational and economic impacts of transitioning from natural gas to electricity in Holyoke, Massachusetts finds avoiding gas pipeline replacement through strategic electrification to be more economical, particularly for single-family homes.

April 25, 2024

ELEVATE fellow, April Burrage will be an IDEAL Provostial Fellow in the Management Science and Engineering department at Stanford University. Similar to ELEVATE, the Management Science & Engineering department at Stanford focuses on interdisciplinary research in engineering, economics, and policy to solve complex societal problems. During her fellowship, April's research will explore the underrepresentation of women and minorities in STEM entrepreneurship and assess how institutions and public policy can address related market failures.

April 23, 2024

At UMASS Cielo has sharpened her focus on environmental justice, addressing the disproportionate negative impact of environmental disasters on vulnerable communities – namely, low-income and racial and ethnic minority communities. In 2021, with funding from the Institute of Diversity Sciences, she joined Dr. Christian Guzman – her PhD mentor – in an innovative research project that used innovative mapping and data analysis methods to identify which Massachusetts communities faced the greatest potential impacts from flooding. The team’s goal was to help policymakers ensure that flood mitigation and response efforts are socially and environmentally just and equitable.

April 17, 2024

A new paper by Toni Lyn Morelli published in Nature Climate Change, provides guidance on Aligning Renewable Energy Expansion with Climate-Driven Range Shifts. Dr. Morelli is a research ecologist with The Northeast Climate Adaptation and Science Center here at UMass.

April 16, 2024

Our colleague Juniper Katz has been named a Climate Policy Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute in recognition and support of Juniper's expertise and contributions on community engagement in relation to land use and conservation and challenges of the renewable energy transition. Juniper is SPP Faculty and active in the UMass Amherst Energy Transition Institute.

April 11, 2024

ELEVATE fellow Paola Pimentel Fulanetto won the 2024 UMass Graduate School Commitment to Diversity Award. Paola has integrated equity into every facet of her graduate work. Her thesis investigates the social equity impacts of carbon capture in the electricity system, and she developed and taught a freshmen seminar class on Equity in electrical systems. Paola has served as the president of UMass branch of INFORMS, a professional association for people who apply science, math, technology, and analytics to transform our world, and has worked extensively with Graduate Women in STEM. She has also done extensive outreach to many different ages and communities on energy access and energy justice. A well deserved award indeed!

March 29, 2024

ELEVATE fellows organized and led the ETI and ELEVATE sponsored 2024 Energy Transition Symposium. This highly attended event showcased the incredible work students and Postdocs from UMass and theFive colleges are doing to solve the most pressing challenges of the energy transition. While the work showcased covered a myriad of technical and social facets of energy transition, the running theme of the night was “What does a just energy transition look like, and how do we make it happen?”

The UMass Amherst Energy Transition Institute (ETI) recently hosted professor and researcher Cécile Renouard, president and co-founder of the new Campus of the Transition in France, while she was on a limited tour of U.S. college campuses to build collaborations and investigate innovative ways to incorporate equity and other social issues into sustainability education and in living labs.

February 27, 2024

ELEVATE Fellow Adam Lechowicz won a prestigious Department of Energy (DOE) Computational Science Graduate Fellowship. Adam is using the funding to develop novel theoretical foundations and algorithms to equitably decarbonize cloud computing. “Socially, a transition that only focuses on technical challenges may inadvertently exacerbate existing inequities if these are not explicitly considered in a system design. Considering both components is critical for developing an effective decarbonization strategy.” 

February 20, 2024

Prof. Krista Harper was interviewed by WHMP's Talk the Talk radio show about the Holyoke Community Energy Project and the launch of the new Energy Justice Leaders program in collaboration with Neighbor to Neighbor Holyoke and One Holyoke CDC. Harper discussed the need for a just renewable energy transition and for community-based energy research. The deadline for applications to join the Energy Justice Leaders program is Sunday, February 25; click here to apply. For more information, contact communityenergy@umass.edu .

February 12, 2024

The University of Massachusetts Amherst has been selected by the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) to establish and lead the Academic Center for Reliability and Resilience of Offshore Wind (ARROW), a new multimillion-dollar national center of excellence to accelerate reliable and equitable offshore wind energy deployment across the nation and produce a well-educated domestic offshore wind workforce.

February 9, 2024

Catherine Coleman Flowers—internationally recognized environmental activist, critically acclaimed author of “Waste: One Woman's Fight Against America's Dirty Secret,” MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipient, and Vice Chair of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council—will deliver a keynote address for Black History Month on Thursday, Feb. 29, 2024, at 5:30 p.m. in the Student Union Ballroom.

January 30, 2024

PhD Student and ELEVATE affiliate, Toni McElrath, has recently been appointed to the Town of Amherst Energy and Climate Action Committee. He hopes to help bridge the gap between academia and the community, working together to address environmental challenges and promote policies that support a greener and more sustainable future for Amherst.

January 24, 2024

Anupama Sitaraman ’24 uses computer science tools to explore pressing issues facing humanity, including combatting climate change and promoting sustainability. Her research involves using computer science techniques to explore ways to reduce carbon emissions in communities by replacing carbon-based energy with renewable energy.

November 15, 2023

In 2021, ETI hosted a series of NSF-funded workshops known as NSF2026 to identify research priorities at the intersection of energy technology and social justice. As a result of these workshops, a final paper including scholars from ten universities was recently published in the Annual Review of Environment and Resources: Metrics for Decision-Making in Energy Justice.

October 25, 2023

Professors Baker, Ash, and DV (from Industrial Engineering, Economics, and Chemistry) attended the Brown Sustainable Energy Workshop, an invited workshop sponsored by Brown University’s Initiative for Sustainable Energy. Baker was an invited speaker, talking about where offshore wind is going and why we should care.

October 11, 2023

Vivian Ogechi Nwadiaru, a UMass Amherst PhD candidate and ELEVATE Fellow from Nigeria, was recently featured in UMass News focused on her work at UMass while finding community as an international grad student. Nwadiaru’s work currently spans Nigeria and nearby Holyoke, Mass., where she conducts community-based participatory research with a team of interdisciplinary researchers led by Krista Harper, professor of anthropology and public policy.

October 10, 2023

In June 2023, Prof. Krista Harper was invited to present her team’s research on community and expert perspectives on the energy transition at the biennial Energy Anthropology Network Workshop in Lisbon on “Renewable Energy & Post-Carbon Futures.” The research presented is part of ongoing community-based participatory research on energy issues at the household and community level in Holyoke, Massachusetts.

August 20, 2023

UMass Amherst Professor of Anthropology & Public Policy, Krista Harper, and her team of 12 researchers and four co-investigators, in partnership with the community organization Neighbor to Neighbor, will officially launch the Holyoke Community Energy Project by meeting with Holyoke residents next month.

August 10, 2023

This year’s CEET / ETI summer students participated in a Summer Undergraduate Research Symposium, a joint event involving many groups across campus with REU Programs including MURALS, RIDE, CEET, CAST, Lee-SIP, and Plant Biology.

View the final list of REU students, home institutions, UMass advisors and project topics. This is a joint REU Program with projects available through both the UMass Energy Transition Institute (ETI) and the Computing for an Equitable Energy Transition (CEET) program.

July 12, 2023

Over two dozen undergraduate college students from around the US arrived on campus last month. They are spending their summer working with mentors on projects through both the UMass Energy Transition Institute (ETI) and the Computing for an Equitable Energy Transition (CEET) program, aiming to solve challenges of the energy transition in an in equitable way.

June 30, 2023

College of Engineering Dean Sanjay Raman shared the news that the UMass Amherst Board of Trustees has appointed Professor Matthew Lackner as one of three College of Engineering faculty to named professorships. In 2020, Lackner was the PI on two NSF grants that supported the creation of ELEVATE—the graduate training and research program within ETI that focuses on technical, equity, and climate challenges within the energy transition—which he also currently directs.

May 15, 2023

The second annual Energy Transition Symposium organized by the Energy Transition Institute, in partnership with several co-sponsors including the Wind Energy Center and ELEVATE program, wrapped up a few minutes ago. Over 50 students from across the entire campus presented their work on clean energy, climate, and decarbonization. Hundreds of visitors attended throughout the day.

May 8, 2023

Fifty Holyoke residents met in Holyoke, MA, for the first Holyoke Community Energy Project workshop. The attendees joined focus groups at tables facilitated by ETI researchers who came to understand the desires and concerns of residents regarding the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

April 24, 2023

The Groundbreaking Ceremony for the Sustainable Engineering Lab [SEL] was held today. ELEVATE student, Vivian Ogechi Nwadiaru, provided remarks on the impact this will have on future engineering students' ability to collaborate across disciplines on sustainable energy production and practices.

April 19, 2023

A successful faculty networking event bridged new connections and deeper conversations. With the aim of fostering new teams for research proposals, ETI worked collaboratively with the Institute for Social Science Research (ISSR) and The Public Interest Technology Institute (PIT@UMASS) to bring together over 30 faculty for a half-day of lightning talks and a networking lunch.

November 9, 2022

Dr. Baker provided a lecture on Climate Change Solutions: Finding Common Ground When Experts and Models Disagree in the 2023 Distinguished Faculty Lecture Series

John A. Black student research award from the Geological Society of America

October 20, 2022

The paper outlines action items for government agencies and philanthropic institutions to actively commit to an equitable energy transition.

September 30, 2022

University news recently featured UMass Amherst Clean Energy Extension, which provides technical assistance to municipalities, conducts applied research, and offers workforce training to achieve the Commonwealth’s sustainability goals.

September 28, 2022

Around 30 ELEVATE program faculty, students and affiliates gathered on September 28 for their first meeting. Professors Sanjay Arwade and David Irwin gave an intro to floating offshore wind turbine design and challenges. A competition was held amongst 6 teams to create model turbine platforms using simple materials.

August 12, 2022

ETI/ELEVATE students, faculty and peers took a tour of America’s first offshore wind farm in Rhode Island last week. They were accompanied by a manager from Orsted, the company which owns and operates the Block Island Wind Farm.

August 9, 2022

The ETI-sponsored Research Experience for Undergraduates program (REU) concluded on July 29, 2022 with student poster presentations on their projects at the intersection of energy technology and social equity.

August 2, 2022

Angie Gregory has been selected as the Associate Director of ETI. In her new role, she will lead efforts to integrate different ways of thinking about technology and social equity in the energy transition.

June 13, 2022

ETI Director Erin Baker is quoted in an article by Popular Science entitled “Offshore wind has been slow to take off in the US. Here’s what could change that.”

High costs and logistical hoops have held back the technology for years.

June 9, 2022

ETI’s REU Program began this week, providing 8-week long intensive research experiences. Students are paired with UMass advisors, working on projects at the intersection of energy technology and social equity.

May 3, 2022

More than 150 faculty, students and community members attended the first annual Energy Transition Symposium. The event, sponsored by ELEVATE and partners, showcased energy transition research and campus climate action from the five-college community.

ETI Director Erin Baker is quoted in an article by New England Public Media related to the new Carbon Zero Program for the UMass Amherst Campus.

The goal is for all buildings on the 1,500 acre campus is to be using 100% renewable energy by 2032.

April 14, 2022

U.S. Senator Ed Markey and Congressman Jim McGovern joined UMass on April 14th for a press conference with remarks from UMass Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy to celebrate the FY22 Congressional allocations that UMass Amherst received, including $1M for the Energy Transition Institute.

Feb. 28, 2022

ETI made its official public debut on campus on February 28, 2022, including a panel discussion with remarks from UMass Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy and U.S. Senator Ed Markey.

Jan. 21, 2022

Professor Baker, Faculty Director of ETI, discusses why she chose to enter her area of study, courses she teaches at UMass, and her current research in the ELEVATE program.

Dec. 15, 2021

New report from UMass Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute also includes environmental justice indicators. This work was co-led by Michael Ash, ELEVATE faculty mentor and Acting Faculty Director of ETI.

Dec. 10, 2021

A news article on the UMass Research Gateway highlights how ETI and ELEVATE are paving the way for a more environmentally sustainable and just energy system.

The award from Massachusetts Dept. of Energy Resources recognized the efforts of the UMass Amherst Carbon Mitigation Taskforce led by Ezra Small and Dwayne Breger.

Nov. 19, 2021

Cielo Sharkus, ELEVATE Fellow and PhD Candidate in Civil and Environmental Engineering, was selected to serve as an external reviewer for a report by the Initiative for Energy Justice (IEJ).

Nov. 16, 2021

ELEVATE Fellow John Wamburu presented research and Prashant Shenoy delivered a keynote address at a workshop on Fair, Accountable, Transparent, and Ethical AI for Smart Environments and Energy Systems.

Nov. 4, 2021

For many countries, embracing the switch to renewables is the best strategy to reduce costs, according to a study by an international team including Gregor Semeniuk at UMass Amherst, recently published in Nature Energy.

Oct. 24, 2021

New research by a team of ELEVATE students and faculty find that energy efficiency subsidy programs may inadvertently target high-income households, unless they take equity into account.

Oct. 1, 2021

The sculpture project created by Carolina Aragón, along with social science research led by Ezra Markowitz, was honored for its innovative approach to communicating the impacts of climate change.

Aug. 14, 2021

Erin Baker and Anna Goldstein have authored a perspective piece in Energy and Climate Change, along with Inês Azevedo of Stanford University.

Aug. 2, 2021

Baker, faculty director of ETI, delivered a TEDxAmherst talk titled, “Energy justice: who gets listened to?”

June 19, 2021

ETI has been awarded a grant from the American Public Power Association to explore innovative electric distribution solutions.

April 14, 2021

Research led by UMass PhD student Zeal Shah, with ELEVATE faculty mentor Jay Taneja, reveals relationship between racial status and the power outages that endangered 4.5 million Texans.

Sep. 2, 2020

Program to explore and develop pathways to transition to sustainable energy while also promoting the socioeconomic equity of communities

June 18, 2020

UMass Magazine feature highlights faculty and student excellence in the science and engineering of renewable energy.

Sep. 19, 2019

The ETI planning team at UMass wishes to enhance growing interest in renewable energy by bringing together the many UMass faculty engaged in energy-related research to support a transition.