Faculty Fellows
A significant level of collaboration between natural, social and policy sciences is imperative to innovative environmental research and effective policy analysis and design. Thus CUERP's fellowship draws upon the skills and expertise of Loyola’s talented faculty to enhance cutting-edge science that addresses the needs of an urban ecosystem impacted by human development.
CUERP FAll 2008 & Spring 2008 Faculty Fellow
George K. Thiruvathukal an associate professor in the computer science department, is focusing on the application of computational thinking to study urban environmental science and its intersection with public health and policy. Our work builds on the work of a previous CUERP Faculty Fellow Research Program project by focusing on the problems of air and water pollution in urban areas. In a recent article entitled What Are Your Breathing? (Chicago Tribune, September 28, 2008) residents in the Chicago metropolitan area are said to be exposed to high levels of air pollution. Although the Clean Air Act of 1990 was intended to reverse this effect, this recent report suggests that the problems run much deeper and need to be studied more closely and monitored continuously to see whether any real improvement is taking place. The environment is part of a dynamic system and can change for the better or worse over time, as the Tribune article discussed.
We start with the assumption that gathering all the environmental data that one would find interesting for long-term study is a daunting task, one that parallels the challenge of mining all web pages, and requires an enormous amount of (growable) disk storage. Furthermore, we contend that most environmental data are not published in real time (some available only at weekly/monthly intervals) nor in a format that is conducive to outside analysis (e.g. XML or simple web services). To truly understand whether environmental policy is effective requires the availability of a large-scale data set that keeps on growing and can be used to assess policy and health (and other societal) impacts on an ongoing basis. We argue that data are at their best when the latest data can be accessed or analyzed by anyone.
In addition to gathering data from multiple sources (e.g. EPA) and making it available in a form that is conducive to analysis (e.g. a data warehouse with online analytics) a separate problem exists that is an artifact of collecting data at fixed locations. Mobile and distributed computing (and sensor technologies) can play a significant role in gathering data from unmonitored locations. In addition, the same can be used to refine data being obtained by fixed monitoring equipment. While this would seem easy, deploying mobile/distributed environmental monitoring is non-trivial. Many projects monitor from vehicles. This brings a challenge as this method often picks up artifacts associated with urban transport. In Chicago, many choose to take transit, walk, or bike and any mobile sensing solution in this vein requires one to consider a number of challenges: power, weight, and safety (of both the equipment and the commuter).
Dr. Thiruvathukal's fellowship is focused on developing the technology platform(s) to do mobile/distributed sensing, aggregating and indexing existing sources. And building a scalable repository that can be used by collaborators, citizen-scientists, students (secondary and university), and others (through social networks or customized portal software). Our project makes extensive use of free/open-source software, especially Linux (the operating system in both embedded and server forms) and GNU (GNU's not Unix) development tools.
CUERP Fall 2007 Faculty Fellow
Christopher Peterson, Ph.D., is the Director for Loyola's Environmental Studies/Science Program and a professor of Biology. Dr. Peterson's CUERP Fellowship research project title is: "Mediation of denitrification by algal/bacterial interactions in stream periphyton: Role of successional development in species identity".
CUERP Fall 2006 Faculty Fellow
Martina Schmeling, Ph.D., Fall 2006 Faculty Fellow, is a chemist and professor of Chemistry at Loyola University Chicago.
Dr. Schmeling's CUERP research project will investigate air pollution issues in Chicago. The project has four components: processing and interpretation of five of data; organic aerosol pathways; identifying needs for air pollution research and impacts to health based upon results collected from the Loyola University Air Station (LUCAS); and the installation of a second air pollution collection site at Loyola's Water Tower Campus.
This research will advance the state of knowledge with respect to Chicago's air pollution and contribute to the future research projects related to air pollution and health.
CUERP Spring 2006 Faculty Fellow
Kenneth M. Johnson, Ph.D., Spring 2006 Faculty Fellow, is a demographer and professor of Sociology at Loyola University Chicago. 
His research (PDF) focuses on population redistribution and demographic trends in urban and rural regions of the United States and on the implications these trends have on people and the environment. Dr. Johnson (PDF) is sought out frequently by journalists reporting on migration and census data.
Dr. Johnson's work of looking at demographic trends is instrumental to CUERP's mission and goals, as changes in size and distribution of the human population have environmental implications. Opportunities are available to use trends in a way that can influence policy to foster long term viable sustainable development.