Current research projects focus include sustainable infrastructure and cities; rapid clean energy transitions, and air pollution; water, climate and health; urban food systems in the U.S. and India; emerging performing arts at the intersection of India and the world, all of which are explored using an interdisciplinary approach.

Current Projects

Rapid Switch

A cross-disciplinary exploration involving political science, other applied social and behavioral science, and economics whose purpose is to expand and deepen an understanding of pathways to decarbonization and also to contribute to solving one of the pressing public policy problems of our time.

The Indian Ocean, Climate Change and Epidemic Disease

A cross-disciplinary community was created to better understand both the direct and indirect impacts of climate on human health in the Indian Ocean region, an arc that extends from Madagascar to Sri Lanka.

Urban Nexus Lab

The Sustainable Urban Infrastructure Lab (SUS) Lab studies how to advance multiple sustainability outcomes of health, environment, equity, and wellbeing globally through actions in multiple urban infrastructure sectors of energy, buildings, water, waste, transportation, food, and green infrastructure.

Sustainable Healthy Systems Network

A U.S. National Science Foundation-supported network of scientists, industry leaders and policy partners examining physical changes in the scale and scope of infrastructure design, the role of new technologies, as well as the changes in public attitudes and policy that can help achieve the infrastructure transitions needed to build healthy, sustainable, and livable cities today and in the future.


Publications

Boyer, D., & Ramaswami, A. (2020). Comparing urban food system characteristics and actions in US and Indian cities from a multi‐environmental impact perspective: Toward a streamlined approachJournal of Industrial Ecology.

Hooshyar, M., Wagner, C., Yang, W., Baker, R., Metcalf, C. J. E., Vecchi, G. A., ... & Porporato, A. M. (2019). Memory effects of extreme hydroclimatic eventsAGUFM, 2019, GC52A-08.

Hooshyar, M., Baker, R., Yang, W., Wagner, C., Grenfell, B., Metcalf, C. J. E., ... & Vecchi, G. (2019, August). Compound controls of hydro-climatic extremes on vector-borne infections. In 2019 ESA Annual Meeting (August 11--16). ESA.

Boyer, D., Sarkar, J., & Ramaswami, A. (2019). Diets, food miles, and environmental sustainability of urban food systems: Analysis of nine Indian cities. Earth's Future, 7(8), 911-922.