Newswise — New York Institute of Technology (NYIT)and its “EcoPartner,” Peking University (PKU), with support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), will co-host a conference and workshop, "Sustainable Megacities: Food, Energy, Water, and the Built Environment," on October 20 and 21 in Beijing, China.
NYIT’s Dean of Engineering and Computing Sciences Nada Marie Anid, Ph.D., will join Chunmiao Zheng, Ph.D., of PKU’s Institute of Water Sciences, and other key researchers with links to the two universities’ U.S.-China EcoPartnership under the U.S. Department of State U.S.-China Ten-Year Framework for Cooperation on Energy and Environment. A champion of global education, NYIT has a record of successfully gathering stakeholders from various disciplines to address global challenges.
This year’s EcoPartnership forum explores issues related to agriculture, population, water, and energy within urban environments. Participants include NYIT President Edward Guiliano, Ph.D.; Carolyn Szum of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Vincent Tidwell of Sandia National Laboratories; Jennifer L. Turner of the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars; and Wuhan University’s Xiaohui Cui. Attendees will also hear from NSF's Bruce Hamilton and Nancy Sung, and Changqing Song of the National Natural Science Foundation of China. Other organizations concerned with sustainable megacities will also send representatives.
In his remarks, Guiliano will note the serious and interlinked challenges facing cities.
“We need holistic, interdisciplinary, and cross-cultural ideas. Megacities will also rely on emerging technologies, such as data analytics,” Guiliano said. "Cities succeed because they increase proximity and information flow, and universities are even better at that, bringing smart, well-informed people together to address major problems. At this conference we’ll create and share knowledge and ideas, to help make megacities more sustainable. We’re using the greatest virtues of cities to solve some of their greatest problems.”
The workshop is funded by an NSF grant and will explore scientific challenges of mutual interest to the U.S. and China in relation to the food, energy, and water (FEW) nexus. Members of the global research and education community will attend the workshop to lay groundwork for U.S.-China FEW partnerships and to spur collaborations, engagement, and data-sharing.
“More than half of the world’s population now dwells in cities," said Anid. "EcoPartners NYIT and PKU are eager to investigate the environmental challenges associated with the threats of increasing urbanization and to pursue concrete steps to address them.”
For more information, visit the "Sustainable Megacities" events webpage and NSF's website.
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