Dr. Weiwei Mo is an Associate Professor of?Civil and Environmental Engineering at UNH's College of Engineering and Physical Sciences?and a Faculty Fellow at the Sustainability Institute. Mo is also a 2022 Platinum UNH Sustainability Awardee for her work in systems-based thinking to link environment, social wellbeing, infrastructure and climate change in her multiple externally funded grants. Dr. Mo's research is helping lower vulnerabilities of water and energy systems while helping develop policies that are conducive to improving social equity and in addition to exemplary research.? We recently talked with her about how sustainability is playing a role in her research, teaching and community building on campus.
What research are you currently working on?
I got my BS degree from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China (2008), and my MS (2011) and PhD (2012) degrees from University of South Florida. Before UNH, I was a post-doctoral associate at Yale University. My research group conducts stakeholder-engaged, interdisciplinary research towards sustainable and resilient communities. Working at the intersection of human, infrastructure, and natural systems, my group uses computational methods (e.g., system dynamics modeling, life cycle assessment, agent-based modeling, network analysis, machine learning) to capture the interactions within and across different types of physical and human systems and to predict their short- and long-term behaviors under perturbations. These are combined with social sciences methods (e.g., serious gaming, crowdsourcing, participatory modeling, interviews) to understand the processes and constraints of decision-making and coordination at different levels to strengthen the linkage between knowledge and actions. Collectively, my group seeks to address current and emerging challenges related to disaster response and planning, climate resilience, public health and critical infrastructure protection, and social justice. I have led several National Science Foundation -funded projects, working on integrated planning of water and energy systems, spatial optimization of decentralized infrastructure systems considering user preferences, crowdsourced monitoring for drinking water safety and resiliency, and more recently, the sustainability implications of manufacturing in the space.
Why have you brought sustainability into your teaching?
Throughout the nine years working at UNH, I have been constantly inspired by the passion and dedication of colleagues who have committed their academic careers in tackling the “wicked” sustainability challenges, be it climate change, environmental degradation, or social justice.
Sustainability, to me, is a realization that these intricate challenges transcend the boundaries of any single discipline. It underscores the interconnected, multi-faceted nature of the problems we encounter and the importance of systems understanding and thinking when developing solutions. Equally crucial is the need to link the development of scientific knowledge and solutions with real-world decision-making and actions. I am deeply motivated by our research community’s devotion to addressing sustainability challenges.
Since starting at UNH, I developed three sustainability-related courses. One is called Environmental Life Cycle Assessment, the second one is Systems Dynamics Modeling, and a more recent third course called Introduction to Sustainable Engineering. The first two courses intend to teach about how to assess the condition of the environment and to understand for different technologies we develop, or systems we use, how do their sustainability profiles compare with each other? But methodological wise, Life Cycle Assessment is more deterministic and an accounting type of analysis, versus System Dynamics Modeling, which takes account of the temporal variations, the factors, the systems involved. So, it gives a more detailed picture regarding how the sustainability results changes over time.
Those courses are closely tied with my own research. I’m trying to combine System Dynamics Modeling with Life Cycle Assessment so we can have a more comprehensive understanding of how different systems interact with each other and then how their sustainability outcome changes over time, especially with human interventions and external factor changes, such as climate change.
How have you brought sustainability into your teaching?
This semester I'm teaching a new class called Intro to Sustainable Engineering. It's geared towards lower-level undergraduate students and right now it's being offered for our own department, Civil Engineering, as well as Ocean Engineering and Sustainability dual major students. I have 65 students enrolled in the class this semester and it's giving students a broader picture about sustainability including, for example, how do we define sustainability? What kind of actions, especially international actions, have been taken to promote and foster actions towards sustainability? And then we talk about individual sectors related to sustainability based upon the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). For example, we look at factors that we interact with daily, like clean energy, climate change, water, food, infrastructure, air – what are their current sustainability status? What kind of problems do we have related to them, and what kind of technological, political, and behavioral solutions do we have related to those sustainability issues in different sectors?
This course provided me an opportunity to compile all this information not only for my students but also for myself because I have been thinking about and studying many of those through my past projects, but never actually synthesized and compiled the information in a systematic way. I am excited to see how the materials have come together in a transferrable way so that other people can use these in the future.
How are students receiving this class?
Many students will come to talk to me after class. One time, after I talked about wind energy in my class, several students came after class to talk about it. They're particularly interested in offshore wind, given the political push and the high research interests in the area currently. Another time I talked about lithium depletion in class, widely used in batteries right now. A student came after class and shared a recent news about the discovery of a lithium reserve in California. Sometimes, I also learn from my students, and I enjoy this process.
In this class I am trying some new pedagogical techniques. For example, I asked students do pre-concept mapping and post-concept mapping before and after I introduce a specific sustainability related topic. Then I look at how their concept maps change and use that as a way to assess their learning. Students also play a serious game related to sustainable drinking water management. It's a very immersive experience for students to play a real-world role and work together to communicate and solve the problem.
Tell us about your role and work as a Sustainability Institute Faculty Fellow.
The Sustainability Fellow position is a rare opportunity that allows me to contribute to facilitating transdisciplinary collaborations among our researchers and stakeholders, leading to a vibrant UNH sustainability research community. This will only be achieved by working together with many others who share the same vision and passion.
The main goal for this position is to work together to help build the sustainability research community on campus. We have a steering committee that has been developed, which has one researcher representative from each unit across campus who work in the sustainability field. Things that are being discussed right now include the development of a sustainability scholars program, an information portal for sustainability-related events on campus, and a sustainability research seminar series.
Learn more about Dr. Weiwei Mo
