Speaker Bios and Abstracts
Listed in alphabetical order by last name:
Araya Asfaw, Addis Ababa University; Smart Meters Provide Efficient, Effective and Equitable Water and Electricity Service
Bio: Araya Asfaw is an Associate Professor, Department of Physics, Addis Ababa University. With a research focus on Laser Spectroscopy, Environmental Science and Sustainable Energy, Professor Asfaw previously directed the Horn of Africa Regional Environmental Center at the university. He attained his PhD in physics at Howard University, and was a Fellow at University of Massachusetts Boston.
Abstract: Most emerging cities in the developing world especially in Africa face similar challenges resulting from population expansion and rapid economic development. This is vividly exhibited in Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia. Ethiopia is the second most populous cities in a Africa. In the last fifty years the population quadrupled forcing people to migrate to urban centers primarily Addis Ababa exhibiting a ten fold increase in population from half a million to nearly five million. With such exponential growth, Addis Ababa will be a mega city in less than two decades. Addis Ababa expanded without long term planning and coordination making it vulnerable to shocks and stresses. Flooding, infrastructure failure, disease outbreak, earthquake, civic unrest, terrorism and fire are considered the potential shocks. High unemployment, lack of affordable housing, water scarcity, unemployment especially among the youth are posing unmanageable chronic stresses. Recently, the City Administration made a commitment to make Addis Ababa resilient and sustainable inline with the UN Sustainable Development Goals specifically Goal11. The City also joined the 100 Resilient Cities Network, a Rockefeller initiatives and C40, Bloomberg’s club of 40 cities to achieve its desired goals. Addis Ababa is now in a position to leapfrog by promoting smart technologies to respond to the anticipated shocks and stresses while ensuring equitable basic services especially to the most vulnerable group. This paper will demonstrate how smart meters developed by dVentus Technologies help emerging cities such as Addis Ababa provide efficient, effective and equitable water and electricity service.
Matt Auflick, City of Seattle; Pre-Disaster Education and Outreach to Underserved Communities
Bio: Matt Auflick is the Public Education Coordinator for the Office of Emergency Management at the City of Seattle. He is responsible for leading a team of staff and volunteers in the development and delivery of preparedness training to a variety of audiences throughout the city of Seattle. This includes developing guidance and products on emergency planning for individuals, families, non-profits, and businesses. In addition to these education duties, Mr. Auflick serves in response and incident coordination roles. This includes serving regularly as OEM staff duty officer to provide a single point of contact for city coordination needs, and serving in various leadership roles in the city’s emergency operations center when activated for large incidents. He has spent his career in disaster and emergency management, and attained a Master of Public and International Affairs, with a field of study in Human Security/ Disaster Management, at University of Pittsburgh.
Abstract: Drawing on his role as the Seattle OEM Public Education and Outreach Coordinator, Matt Auflick will discuss his Office’s experience engaging the whole community on topics of natural hazards and disaster preparedness. This will include insights into the challenges and opportunities that exist in engaging underserved populations.
Lara Clark, University of Washington; Environmental Justice and Air Quality: Current and Historic Patterns
Bio: Lara Clark is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at University of Washington. Dr. Clark focuses her research on the environmental justice aspects of transportation-related air pollution. She attained her PhD in Environmental Engineering from the University of Minnesota.
Abstract: Environmental injustice in outdoor air pollution exposure contributes to health disparities in the United States (US): people with lower socioeconomic status and people of color often experience higher levels of air pollution compared to others, as well as higher vulnerability to the health impacts associated with air pollution exposure. This presentation will discuss on-going research measuring and tracking air pollution environmental injustice over time for the US. Research questions include: (1) how do air pollution exposures vary by race-ethnicity and socioeconomic characteristics?; (2) how have measures of environmental injustice changed over time?; (3) how do measures of environmental injustice vary by spatial location (by region, state, urban area)?; (4) how do measures of environmental injustice vary by air pollutant?; and, (5) what factors (e.g., residential segregation, economic inequality, urban form) correlate with measures of environmental injustice? To investigate these questions, we combine estimates of annual average outdoor criteria air pollution concentrations (including nitrogen dioxide [NO2], fine particulate matter [PM2.5], and ozone [O3]) from recently developed empirical models with Census demographic data at the Census block group scale for the contiguous US in years 1990, 2000, and 2010, and then explore spatial and temporal patterns in exposure by race-ethnicity and socioeconomic characteristics. Findings suggest: (1) air pollution exposure disparities tend to be larger by race-ethnicity than by other socioeconomic characteristics; (2) air pollution exposure disparities by race-ethnicity decreased on an absolute basis over time as air pollution concentrations decreased; (3) measures of environmental injustice vary substantially by region, state, and urban area; (4) measures of environmental injustice are larger for NO2 than other criteria pollutants (PM2.5; O3); and, (5) residential segregation correlates with air pollution environmental injustice.
Amanda Giang, University of British Columbia; Reducing Environmental Health Injustice—Inequities in the Distribution of Environmental Health Harms
Bio: Amanda Giang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Applied Engineering at the University of British Columbia. Her research addresses challenges at the interface of environmental modelling and policy through an interdisciplinary lens, with a focus on air pollution and toxics. How can we use simulation, statistical, and qualitative methods to assess the environmental and health impacts of technology and policy? How do we take into account uncertainty in human, technological, and natural systems? And how can we use environmental modelling to better empower communities and inform policy decision-making, from local to global scales? Dr. Giang attained her PhD at MIT, with postdoctoral work at MIT and Harvard University.
Abstract: Reducing environmental health injustice—inequities in the distribution of environmental health harms—is a goal of many urban jurisdictions around the world. The use of quantitative indicators may support this goal by providing a means of systematically summarizing and documenting patterns of inequity, enabling monitoring, accountability, and identification of communities that are priorities for action. As cities become “smart” and “sense-able” (that is, more connected, data-driven, and interactive), with more opportunities to incorporate diverse streams of real-time data into decision-making, the need for these indicators may increase. However, environmental injustice is a complex phenomenon: there are multiple dimensions of environmental risk, environmental benefit, and community vulnerability that may be difficult to capture in a single, or even suite of, indicators. Focusing on urban environmental health in Canada, this work explores different quantitative and visualization approaches to represent environmental injustice, from a multi-exposure and intersectional perspective. We use published, peer-reviewed satellite, monitoring, and model-derived datasets for ambient air pollution concentrations, green space, and walkability in our preliminary analysis. Demographic data is gathered from the 2016 Canadian census, with a focus on demographic variables that have been identified in the literature as relevant proxies for vulnerability in a Canadian context (including Indigeneity, racialization, socioeconomic status, immigration status, gender, age). Using this data, we compute metrics reported in scientific and policy literatures to quantify injustice. We assess how the application of these various approaches may result in differential identification of regions of high inequity, and discuss implications for environmental health decision-making. Further, incorporating interdisciplinary perspectives from engineering design, science and technology studies, and law, we explore how public deliberation could be part of the indicator design process. We highlight the need for interdisciplinary perspectives in connecting the emerging movement for environmental data justice—a movement that concerns itself with how and by whom environmental data is governed and produced, and its impact on marginalized communities—with the design of smart and connected cities.
Judith G. Gonyea, Boston University; The Rise of Older Homelessness: Promoting Smart and Connected Cities Thought Leadership to Address this Social Justice Issue
Bio: Judith Gonyea is the Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Professor in the School of Social Work at Boston University. Dr. Gonyea focuses her scholarship on vulnerable urban elders; aging politics and policies; community-based aging programs and services; age-friendly communities; intergenerational family relations and caregiving; older women’s economic and health status; the intersection of health and housing in later life; older homelessness. She is a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America. Dr. Gonyea attained her PhD in Social Welfare from the University of Washington.
Abstract: Older homeless adults have largely been an invisible population in the U.S. Public concerns about homelessness have typically focused on young families, unaccompanied youth, and veterans. Although a number of federal homeless policies have been enacted, none has targeted the older homeless population. Yet, the aging of the adult homeless population, mirroring the aging of the general US population, is raising its visibility. In 1990, the median age of the U.S. adult homeless population was 35; by 2010, it rose to 50. In fact, there is growing consensus that age 50 should demarcate the beginning of older homelessness as these individuals, due to harsh circumstances and trauma, often present with the same health conditions of persons in their 70s and 80s.
While men still outnumber women among the adult homeless population, there has been a steep increase in homeless women. Although women represented only 5% of individuals seeking shelter nightly in NYC in 1980, they now represent 25% of shelter seekers. Across U.S. cities, the majority of homeless women are 50 and older. Reflecting lifelong discrimination, racial minority populations are overrepresented in the older homeless group. In the past 30 years, a series of federal commissions have warned about a housing crisis facing older Americans and underscored the importance of affordable, accessible, well-placed housing. Yet, relatively little progress has occurred on this front. We argue that two groups, which merit particular attention, are: (1) older low-income renters with “worse case” housing needs (i.e., severe rent burden or severely inadequate housing), a group that is disproportionally female-headed households, and (2) older adults experiencing or at risk of homelessness.
In this presentation, we share findings from our qualitative research study of women in their fifties experiencing homelessness in Boston. Although research on homelessness has increased in the past two decades, single homeless adults are often treated as a homogenous population. Few have investigated the interdependent roles of age and gender in shaping the homeless experience in later life. The most important way to eliminate the problem of older homelessness is to prevent it from happening. We will therefore identify the multiple pathways these women entered into older homelessness and discuss how it may inform multidisciplinary efforts to interrupt these pathways. Equally important, is the development of strategies to support women’s pathways out of older homelessness. Older homeless women have much higher rates of disability; yet these impairments must be viewed within the context of a complicated interaction with their environment. Can the public health model of identifying leverage points that have a greater impact on producing positive outcomes, for instance, help in prioritizing action steps to address structural factors contributing to older women’s homelessness? To begin to answer this question, we draw on our qualitative data to examine the ways in which these vulnerable women navigate their personal lives, including their neighborhoods and social relationships as well as interactions with formal institutions or systems.
Jayant Gupta, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Spatial Data Science to Assist Underserved
Bio: Jayant Gupta is a PhD student at University of Minnesota Twin Cities. His research in machine learning is focused on examining spatio-temporal traffic movement, summarizing sentiment rich text, modeling real-time industrial sensors and classifying URLs at network layer. Mr. Gupta attained his MS in Computer Sciences and Systems at University of Washington.
Abstract; Spatially aware cities can be highly proficient to its citizens’ needs especially underserved, and at-risk communities. For example, digitally updated public maps can help to provide useful information to the nearest help resource center or shelters. Further, knowledge of hotspots of distressed regions could help identify impactful positions for new help resource centers or shelters. Geographical location affects an individual’s health and influence their activities and behaviors. For example, it affects the air, food, and water quality an individual consumes. Knowledge of an individual’s colocation with the known distressed areas could give a prior indication to the health officials to intercede and take precautionary measures that may help the individual or may alert the individual.
Real-time spatial patterns could improve city resiliency during the time of disasters and use existing risk assessment and alert-based systems (e.g., Amber alerts) to protect critical urban infrastructure. For example, known distressed areas could be at higher risk. In times of disaster, (GPS) based knowledge of individuals could help in an efficient mitigation and response measures. In other instances, related to disease outbreak, emerging hotspots could help identify and contain the affected areas. Further, near real-time change detection could help understand the geographical issues related to gentrification over the years. Other information sources, such as geotagged social media could help identify recent, or ongoing incidents within the city, and can warn law enforcement agencies to take preventative measures to reduce further damage.
With the advent of affordable positioning devices, people could be assigned GPS trackers to help monitor their location and could be helpful to provide personalized services in case of need. However, these services have several key challenges. One challenge is to determine the location of homeless. Another challenge is to match underserved persons with service providers. These challenges may be addressed by providing them a location aware device such as a restricted cell-phone with social service apps such as food stamps, E-911, CMAS/PLAN, shelter-locator for hot/cold times, social service locator, etc. Such device will create other challenges such access to power for charging battery, theft, loss, etc. Many cities are installing solar power battery charging locations in parks and other public areas, which may help.
In this work, we primarily advocate for spatial data science based on incremental, online and traditional computation techniques to identify spatial patterns that help improve city resiliency along with strategic, tactical, and operational functioning of cities. We also highlight the importance of positioning for an improved city governances and services.
Dana Habeeb, Indiana University Bloomington; Sensors and Environmental Data related to Heat Stress
Bio: Dana Habeeb is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Informatics at Indiana University. Trained as an architect and urban designer; Dr. Habeeb brings a design perspective to her research in environmental planning and health. With a focus on designing local interventions, she investigates ways to engage and empower individuals to respond to current and future environmental problems by synthesizing research in climate change, public health and environmental sensing. Her research explores how climate responsive design can help mitigate climate change and address environmental challenges to improve the health of individuals and communities. Dr. Habeeb attained her PhD in Regional Planning at Georgia Institute of Technology.
Abstract: Extreme heat is an environmental health hazard that contributes to more deaths annually than any other extreme weather event in the United States. Urban residents have higher exposures to extreme heat because of the urban heat island (UHI) effect, which occurs when temperatures in cities are higher than their surrounding rural areas. Vulnerable populations such as the homeless, elderly, and children are disproportionately impacted by the negative health effects that result from exposure to extreme heat. And yet, determining urban residents’ risk of heat stress is challenging as extreme heat exposures vary dramatically throughout a city as do individuals underlying health conditions. Places that incorporate green spaces and vegetation into the urban fabric are more resilient to extreme heat as vegetative strategies have been shown to be a very effective heat mitigation strategy in areas with sufficient rainfall. While vegetation has been upheld as an effective strategy, extreme heat conditions may reduce the cooling potential of vegetation due to heat stress. Research is needed to align local climate data with individual heat exposures and health data in order to help cities be better prepared to plan for and address challenges of extreme heat in order to protect their most vulnerable residents.
Mami Hara, Seattle Public Utilities
Bio: Mami Hara is the General Manager of Seattle Public Utilities, which provides solid waste and drainage and wastewater services for Seattle residents and businesses, and drinking water for 1.4 million regional customers in 27 municipalities. Mami is committed to advancing an equitable and sustainable Seattle and region through collaboration and strategic investment. Under her leadership, SPU is developing a vision of a community centered utility to further strengthen its services and partnership with residents and businesses. Before becoming a utility manager, here and in Philadelphia, Mami worked with cities across the US in the planning, design and implementation of green infrastructure, sustainability, economic development, and waterfront programs, as well as community-led environmental initiatives.
Khalid Kadir, UC-Berkeley; Whose Communities? Recentering Engineering and Engineers, and Moving from Social Good to Social Justice
Bio: Khalid is a Continuing Lecturer at UC Berkeley, teaching courses in the Global Poverty & Practice (GPP) program, Political Economy, and the College of Engineering. He received his PhD in 2010 from Berkeley in Civil and Environmental Engineering, where his research focused on pathogen removal in natural water and wastewater treatment systems. He is a recipient of the 2017 Distinguished Teaching Award, UC Berkeley’s most prestigious honor for teaching. In addition to his technical work as an engineer, Khalid studies the complex role that engineering expertise plays in the politics of international development and poverty alleviation.
Abstract: While engineers, both academics and practitioners, are remarkably good at solving problems, engineering approaches to problem solving remove issues from their historical, social, and political context and frame them in technical terms. As a result, engineers are ill-equipped to deal with problems related to social injustice, and are in fact positioned to unwittingly reproduce or exacerbate already existing injustices. Practicing engineering differently entails more than adopting an ‘engineering for good’ approach, and instead necessitates recentering our work around socio-political questions. This presents us with methodological challenges, and requires us to question our epistemological assumptions. Perhaps more significantly, questioning our epistemological assumptions presents us with personal challenges, as it forces us to more seriously engage with questions of power, positionality, and ethics. Taking such engagement seriously, however, opens the possibility of becoming civically minded, justice-oriented practitioners who are equipped to tackle some of the most pressing problems facing human society today.
Sarah M. Kaufman, New York University; Gender-Based Equity in Transportation
Bio: Sarah M. Kaufman is Assistant Director for Technology Programming at the NYU Rudin Center for Transportation, where she researches, advocates for and educates about cutting-edge technologies in transportation. She is also an Adjunct Professor of Planning, teaching Intelligent Cities. Ms. Kaufman leads several projects related to improving transportation through technology: Intelligent Paratransit, to rethink how we transport seniors and the disabled; Emerging Leaders in Transportation Fellowship, a program to enhance innovation at all levels of transportation planning and policymaking; and Job Access, a comparative study of how livelihoods are affected by level of access to mass transit in New York City. Ms. Kaufman has been cited in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, NBC Nightly News, CityLab and Urban Omnibus for her work on gender and biking, job access, and intelligent transportation. Ms. Kaufman joined NYU Wagner after nearly five years at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, where she led the open data program, created a conference and online exchange between the MTA and software developers, and assisted in developing the agency’s social media program. Ms. Kaufman earned a Master of Urban Planning from NYU’s Wagner School in 2005, specializing in infrastructure, transportation, and telecommunications, and wrote an award-winning thesis designing a bus arrival time signage system. She earned her BA from Washington University in St. Louis, majoring in science writing and concentrating in computer science. She is a font of useless NYC transit trivia.
Abstract: The NYU Rudin Center for Transportation sought to determine whether transportation has a “Pink Tax,” a term used to describe the extra amount women are charged (typically 7%) for products and services, like deodorant and dry cleaning. To learn more about women’s experiences while traveling in New York City, the NYU Rudin Center deployed a survey online.
Women report day-to-day experiences of harassment, catcalling and general discomfort, much of it on transportation systems, affecting their sense of safety and self-worth. This report, prepared by the NYU Rudin Center for Transportation, is based on an online survey of New Yorkers conducted in September- October, 2018. The term “woman” is inclusive of all female forms, including cis, trans and female-presenting.
The Pink Tax is a form of gender-based price discrimination. It is the extra amount that women pay for certain products, such as deodorant, and services, including dry cleaning. A study conducted by the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs found that on average, women’s products cost 7% more than similar products for men2.
This report seeks to determine whether and how the Pink Tax applies to Transportation in New York City.
Results and a discussion of possible solutions will be presented at the MOHERE Conference.
Julian Marshall, University of Washington; Environmental Justice and Air Quality: Engineering Tools for Evaluating Policy Decisions
Bio: Julian Marshall is the John R. Kiely Endowed Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering at University of Washington. Marshall’s research is at the intersection of air quality engineering and public health: understanding how much pollution people breathe, and how to reduce those exposures. His specific areas of focus are
- (1) Mechanistic and empirical modeling of air pollution, to understand how concentrations vary in space and time, and how concentrations and health impacts would change in response to changes in emissions.
- (2) Measuring and modeling air pollution exposures in developing countries (at present, mainly India), including how exposures change in response to interventions.
- (3) Environmental justice: understanding who is more exposed or less exposed to air pollution, how those exposures correlate with demographic attributes such as race and income, and how exposure disparities might shift if emissions from specific sources were to increase or decrease.
Before coming to UW in 2016, Marshall was at University of Minnesota, where he founded the Masters International program in Environmental Engineering and, with Fred Rose, the Acara program in social entrepreneurship. At UW, Marshall founded the Grand Challenges Impact Lab (GCIL). GCIL offers a winter-quarter class in Bangalore, India, where students work with local organizations to apply tools of social innovation to local problems, such as rural education, sanitation, low-income housing, public health, migration, and more. Information is on the GCIL website.
Abstract: Addressing air pollution environmental injustice (i.e., disproportionate air pollution exposures for lower-income people and/or people of color) is a goal for many communities in the United States. To support efforts to address air pollution environmental injustice, there is a need for air quality modeling tools that explicitly incorporate environmental justice outcomes. This presentation will discuss on-going research developing new mechanistic air quality modeling tools for evaluating the air quality and environmental justice impacts of different policy scenarios, including: (1) targeting air pollution emissions reductions by source (e.g., reducing diesel emissions from trains versus ships); (2) targeting air pollution emissions reductions by spatial location (e.g., locating a low emissions zone); (3) targeting air pollution emissions reduction by sector of the economy (e.g., reducing emissions from electricity generation versus transportation); and (4) switching vehicle fuel sources (e.g., from gasoline to electricity). Approaches include case studies of diesel particulate matter air pollution in Los Angeles region, life cycle assessment of vehicle fuel options on a national-basis for the US, and applications of a reduced-complexity air pollution model with fine spatial resolution for fine particulate matter (PM2.5) air pollution for the US. Findings suggest opportunities for “win-win” scenarios that can address both overall air pollution exposures and disparities in air pollution exposures.
Nilay Mistry, IIT; The Urban Design and Policy Implications of Ubiquitous Robots
Bio: Nilay MIstry is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the College of Architecture at Illinois Institute of Technology. Professor Mistry possesses several years of experience indesign practice and teaching in landscape architecture and urban design in the United States, Africa, and Asia. His ongoing research and transdisciplinary design work explores rooting interventions in public space in readings of cultural identity, urban networks, and landscape flows. Nilay’s research on informal settlements and Asian urbanization has been the subject of various publications and design studios, facilitating multiple design/build projects around the world. Dr. Mistry attained his Masters of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning at Harvard University.
Neal Patwari, University of Utah; Enabling Bottom-up Research to Increase Access to the Benefits of Smart Systems
Bio: Neal Patwari received the B.S. (1997) and M.S. (1999) degrees from Virginia Tech, and the Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (2005), all in Electrical Engineering. He was a research engineer in Motorola Labs, Florida, between 1999 and 2001. Since 2006, he has been at the University of Utah, where he is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, with an adjunct appointment in the School of Computing and Department of Bioengineering. He directs the Sensing and Processing Across Networks (SPAN) Lab, which performs research at the intersection of statistical signal processing and wireless networking. Neal is also the Director of Research at Xandem Technology, which develops security and home automation products based on radio sensing technologies spun out of the SPAN lab. Neal received the NSF CAREER Award in 2008, the 2009 IEEE Signal Processing Society Best Magazine Paper Award, and the 2011 University of Utah Early Career Teaching Award. His is a co-author on two papers with Best Paper Awards, at IEEE SenseApp 2012 and IPSN 2014. He has served on technical program committees for ACM and IEEE conferences Mobicom, IPSN, SECON, EWSN, ICDCS, DCOSS, ICC, RTAS, CNS, ICCCN, and MILCOM.
Abstract: Human subjects research traditionally takes a top-down approach, with the researcher deciding on the research question, designing the experiment, recruiting the subjects who then do what they are told, collecting and analyzing the data, and testing the hypothesis. The subjects may or may not learn from the results, and if they do, it often has no direct benefit to them. The top-down approach fundamentally biases research questions to those relevant to those with power in the academy, typically with less racial, gender, and class diversity than the community as a whole. This proposal describes instead a bottom-up approach, enabled by new “smart” devices and networks. We advocate for research and development that empowers individuals and communities to answer their own questions and generate their own evidence to answer the questions relevant to them. Smart devices, computation, and cloud databases would be able to be borrowed (e.g. from a library) for such efforts. This proposal requires the development of new technologies to reduce the barriers-to-entry to research, and to make the deployment and maintenance of secure and reliable networking and data storage and analysis easy for non-technical users. We argue that bringing the tools to community organizations and members will alter the type of questions that are asked and answered, more directly impact the lives of a broader range of the community, bring new insights to researchers in the academy, and bring more scientific literacy to the public. This proposal describes two preliminary systems which bring a bottom-up approach to the use of smart devices to address air quality issues in homes of families with asthma. We deployed particulate matter (PM) sensors, and provided residents with the tools to visualize the PM levels over time and to annotate the data with the activity that may have caused changes in the levels. Unprompted, some found ways to experiment with their activities to improve their air quality. We also developed a software architecture that allows a user to arbitrarily connect IoT devices, which we provide to them, to run repeated measurement randomized controlled trials on themselves. The development of these preliminary systems has led to new research questions in the design of wireless networks to increase their robustness, observability, and ease of deployment. We anticipate the change in perspective will require addressing new engineering research challenges, and we will use this workshop to describe potential research directions and their potential to broadly impact the area of smart and connected communities.
Dirk Pesch, Cork Institute of Technology; IoT and Universal Design: a Co-Design Approach
Bio: Dirk Pesch is Professor and Head of the Nimbus Research Centre at Cork Institute of Technology. Dirk’s research interests focus on design and performance characterisation of algorithms, protocols, and services for wireless and mobile networks and low power wireless network design for Cyber-Physical Systems and the Internet of Things. He has over 25 years research and development experience in both industry and academia and has co-authored over 200 scientific publications including three edited books/paper collections. He is also an SFI-funded Investigator. He is currently on the editorial board of the International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks, Springer Wireless Networks and Elsevier Pervasive and Mobile Computing (PMC) journals and served previously on the editorial board of IEEE Vehicular Technology Magazine. He is also involved in conference organisation through membership of several technical programme committees of conferences such as IEEE VTC, IEEE PIMRC, IEEE Globecom, IEEE ICC, IEEE World Forum for the IoT, and several workshops co-located with IEEE PerCom. He was the TPC chair of the IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference Spring 2007 in Dublin and the TPC- co-chair of ACM Buildsys 2010 in Zurich, Switzerland. The research centre he leads at Cork Institute of Technology, the Nimbus Centre, focuses on research and innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems and the Internet of Things with major applications in energy and water resource management, smart cities and the built environment, future manufacturing and Industry 4.0. Dirk is also involved as advisor to startups spun-out of Nimbus.
Abstract: The Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the leading developments in the ICT sector today. The IoT represents the potential of connecting the physical world with the cyber world, representing the next step towards the digitalization of our society and economy. The applications and opportunities are vast and there is much excitement about its potential. Applications under development address a broad range of challenges from smart homes to energy efficiency, to connected health and assisted living. The Internet of Things has the potential to transform every aspect of society with an estimated value of IoT in the EU to exceed one trillion euros by 2020.
IoT for assisted living is expected to alleviate many of the problems our health system suffers from in dealing with an increased number of older people but also with disabled people. While these technologies have the potential to help older people live on their own safer and for longer, there are significant challenges around equity, inclusion and adoption. There are also risks associated with participation as what people do online increasingly reflects (and exacerbates) offline economic, social, and cultural disparities.
Our current research is focused on two avenues, firstly we are investigating the use of assisted living technologies within the context of lifetime communities. A Lifetime Community’s objective is to foster healthy and successful ageing across the lifespan within a social community setting including younger adults, working families, people with temporary or permanent disabilities and older adults alike. We are exploring answers to the question of how to design smart home and assisted living technologies that are suited to the concept of lifetime communities. That is how they are accessible, equitable, adaptable and flexible to the needs of all ages and abilities. We found that these solutions had limited usability and flexibility in supporting elderly or disabled people and were often not equitable enough, which results in poor uptake of the technology.
Secondly, we are exploring whether a co-design approach with representatives of the community based on the principles of Universal Design (UD) can guide us to better, more inclusive assisted living technology and associated sustainable business models. In an attempt to answer this question, we are in the process of developing IoT devices and a platform for assisted living technologies within a lifetime community that follows the UD philosophy. The key in this is that the technologies are equitable, suitable, accessible and available to a broad range of members of the community, from young to old, from able to disabled. The question we are asking is whether a platform design under such principles can better support older citizens to maintain a good quality of life, participate in their community and feel secure in their homes. Building on the experience of the lifetime community exemplar, Amicitia in Athenry, Co. Galway, Ireland, we are deploying such an IoT system for assisted and community living in the Age Friendly County town of Mitchelstown, Co. Cork, Ireland.
Cathleen Power, Washington University in St. Louis; Interdisciplinary Critical Community Engaged Learning: A Tool for Expanding the Broader Impacts of Research and Advancing High-Impact Student Learning
Bio: Cathleen Power is the Associate Director for Faculty & Academic Engagement at the Gephardt Institute for Civic and Community Engagement at Washington University in St. Louis. Previously, Dr. Popwer served as Associate Professor and Community Engaged Learning Manager at the University of Utah’s Division of Gender Studies, and as Associate Professor at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah. She earned her PhD in Social Psychology and Women’s Studies from the University of Michigan.
Abstract: This proposal focuses on the ways that workshop participants can utilize their teaching responsibilities to further the broader impacts of their research and build relationships with community members to promote the benefits of smart and connected cities for all. Specifically, I propose that teaching interdisciplinary critical community engaged learning courses can provide faculty an opportunity to better train future engineering and social science professionals at the same time that class projects can be used to develop and disseminate research in collaboration with community partners.
Community Engaged Learning (CEL) is an experiential learning pedagogy that links academic learning and community engagement within a framework or respect, reciprocity, reflection, and relevance (Butin, 2007). Critical CEL utilizes a social change orientation, works to redistribute power, and build authentic relationships. CEL, when done well, benefits students, faculty, and communities. Research has demonstrated that CEL, historically called service learning, is a high-impact educational practice that deepens students learning, increases the level of academic challenge, facilitates active and collaborative learning, improves student-faculty interaction, and creates a supportive campus climate for students, especially historically underserved students (Kuh & O’Donnell, 2013). Faculty benefit because working in collaboration with community members and students can spark new ideas that lead to new questions and research areas (Curry-Stevens, 2011; Williams & Sparks, 2011), provide additional publishing opportunities (Schindler, 2014; Williams & Sparks, 2011), allow faculty to tap into community knowledge sources that have historically been ignored or underutilized, and build their teaching into grant opportunities as a means of demonstrating the broader impacts of their work. Community organizational partners benefit from the opportunity to educate and train students about the complexity of issues their organization works to address, utilize student work to achieve community goals, engage faculty expertise to address issues important to the organization, access university resources and opportunities, and use collaboration outcomes for future fundraising (Leiderman et al. 2003).
In sum, CEL is an ideal tool that can be used to leverage interdisciplinary engineering and social science research for the benefits of communities. If we are to truly have smart and connected cities that benefit underserved and marginalized communities we must build faculty relationships and research across disciplines; break down the “town and gown” divide; including the divides between faculty, community organizations, and community members; and we must train students to think and work across these boundaries.
Anu Ramaswami, University of Minnesota; Meta-Principles for Developing Smart, Sustainable, and Healthy Cities
Bio: Professor Anu Ramaswami is the Charles M. Denny, Jr., Chair of Science, Technology, and Public Policy at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs and a professor bioproducts and biosystems engineering in the College of Food, Agricultural, and Natural Sciences at the University of Minnesota. Ramaswami is among the leading scholars on sustainable urban infrastructure and has seen her work adopted as policies and protocols for developing sustainable cities in the United States and internationally. Ramaswami’s research spans environmental modeling, environmental technologies, industrial ecology, sustainable infrastructure design, urban systems analysis, and integration of science and technology with policy and planning for real-world implementation in communities. She has developed novel interdisciplinary education programs and resources in these diverse areas. She is the lead author of a graduate-level textbook on integrated environmental modeling. Ramaswami received her BS in chemical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology–Madras, India, and her MS and PhD in civil and environmental engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. She serves as chair of the newly founded Sustainable Urban Systems section at the International Society of Industrial Ecology, and represents the United States in various international urban sustainability networks.
Adrienne Quinn, former Director, King County Department of Community and Human Services / University of Washington
Bio: Adrienne Quinn is a Distinguished Practitioner at the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance, University of Washington. From November 2013 to December 2018, Quinn served as the Director of King County’s Department of Community and Human Services. Quinn came to King County from the Medina Foundation in Seattle, where as executive director she led strategic initiatives to build nonprofit capacity and improve services for vulnerable populations. Quinn was instrumental in working with human service providers in homeless housing, domestic violence programs, food distribution systems, and youth development programs in 14 counties in western Washington, including King County. Quinn previously served as vice president for public policy and government relations for Enterprise Community Partners in Washington, D.C., and as director of the City of Seattle’s Office of Housing.
Jacklin Stonewall, Iowa State University; An Approach to Incorporating Human Behaviors, Buildings, and Near Building Climates into Decision Making to Increase Resilience of Urban Neighborhoods
Bio: Jacklin Stonewall is a Ph.D. student in the Departments of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering and Human Computer Interaction at Iowa State University. Jacklin obtained her B.S. and M.S. from Iowa State University in Aerospace Engineering and Industrial Engineering, respectively. Her M.S. thesis focused on the interaction of perceived gender, professionalism, and user experience in website design. She is advised by Dr. Michael Dorneich and her research interests include gender HCI, decision support systems, sustainability, and the creation of equitable cities and classrooms. Jacklin received the Iowa State University Research Excellence Award in 2016.
Abstract: Successful urban systems-related decision support tools must enable urban stakeholders to communicate and collaborate across and beyond their respective disciplines to identify innovative, transformative solutions to increase urban infrastructure resilience and sustainability. The actions of humans within buildings and the relationship of buildings to their near-building environments constitute one understudied urban system with significant impact on urban energy use.
The Sustainable Cities Decision-Making research team at Iowa State University collaborates with local partners to identify evidence-based approaches for the integration of human behavior data, building energy use characteristics, future climate scenarios, and near-building microclimate data. The goal is to build, calibrate and validate an urban energy model for the East Bank neighborhoods in the City of Des Moines, Iowa, which can then be generalized. The team of engineers, architects, humanists, and data scientists has built a prototype which integrates urban trees and building occupant behavior data based on a neighborhood-wide energy use survey.
To ensure that these urban energy models are equitable, however, the needs of marginalized populations must be included- especially those most vulnerable to the consequences of a changing climate. The challenge in understanding these needs is that researchers have often struggled to reach and engage underserved populations due to factors such as access, time, language, economic resources, and trust.
The presentation will illustrate the team’s best practices for gathering data from individuals facing marginalization (Earn Trust Through Partnership, Be Multilingual & Inclusive, Communicate for Understanding, Respect Work Schedules and Cultural Norms, and Offer Something Useful) as well as the application of this data in Agent-based Models (ABM). Human behavior data collection has been conducted at various community events over the past three years to integrate data about neighborhood dynamics and needs with a community engagement process that includes an extensive youth leadership program (called “Iowa State Community Growers”) and a series of local action projects that provide tangible, local benefit to residents. As a part of the youth programming, these young leaders use and learn about aspects of the research team’s simulation models (particularly the ABM and urban modeling interface), learning how to use these tools in decision-making. The current ABM modeling focus is to determine the effects of different policy levers on increasing residential weatherization adoption, including the following: Availability/characteristics of government-funded assistance programs, community events that emphasize the value of weatherization; and community leadership that informs residents and encourages adoption.
Additionally, the Polk County Health Department (PCHD) (with jurisdiction over Iowa’s capitol, Des Moines, and adjacent suburban/rural communities) has indicated a critical need for improved knowledge about vulnerability of residents to extreme heat. Preliminary data for East Bank neighborhoods of Des Moines showed temperature inside non-shaded, poorly insulated, or non-ventilated homes can be higher than ambient temperature, conditions that are common in resource-limited neighborhoods and detrimental to health and wellbeing of occupants, particularly during heat events of extended duration. Therefore, using the urban modeling interface (umi) developed at MIT, the team currently collaborates with local partners to integrate human energy use and building operation data, future climate scenarios, and near-building microclimate data (based on comprehensive inventory data for neighborhood trees) to build, calibrate and validate urban energy and microclimate models. We will use the integration of preliminary results with local partners both to develop strategies for individual homeowners in resource-vulnerable areas as well as to inform city-scale policy responses that improve human health and quality of life. The integrative approach will be disseminated broadly as a means to support cities as they make development decisions that integrate the impacts of climate variability and population dynamics in low-resource, vulnerable urban areas.
Nicole Vallestero Keenan-Lai, Puget Sound Sage
Bio: Nicole is the Executive Director at Puget Sound Sage. She has more than a decade of experience in research, advocacy, civic engagement, racial justice organizing, social services, and community and business outreach. Previously, Nicole was the executive director of the Fair Work Center, a hub for workers to better understand and exercise their legal rights, improve their working conditions and connect with community resources. Before launching the Fair Work Center, Nicole served as the Policy Director at Puget Sound Sage, where she led policy and analysis work on labor standards and environmental justice. Nicole began her career through community engagement and youth engagement roles at the Washington Environmental Council, El Centro de la Raza and the Washington Bus. Nicole has co-authored several publications on a variety of topics including financial capacity, income taxes, childcare, environmental justice and the economic impact of living wages. Her work has been featured in local, national and international media including the New York Times, BBC, The Guardian and Huffington Post. Nicole holds a Bachelors degree in Public Policy from The College of William and Mary, and a Masters in Social Work from the University of Washington. In 2014, Nicole received a 50th Anniversary Civil Rights Leadership Award the Seattle Office of Civil Rights and Women’s Commission and in 2015 she was named as one of the 15 people Who Should Really Run Seattle by the Seattle Metropolitan Magazine.
