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PEI professor Anu Ramaswami, through the M.S. Chadha Center for Global India, hosts a virtual two-day conference, “Urban Sustainability Transitions in India and the World: Advancing Science and Policy.” More than 450 people representing 22 countries register for the conference, which features 53 speakers across six panels.

The PEI Climate and Energy Grand Challenge program awards $500,000 to seed faculty-led projects exploring topics such as the environmental impact of turbulence from offshore wind turbines and the effects of climate change on hummingbird sensory landscapes.

Undergraduate students share their experiences with the Program in Environmental Studies and the PEI internship program in a series of videos for incoming first-year students.

The Carbon Mitigation Initiative (CMI) Annual Meeting is held virtually. The 19th CMI Annual Report features highlights from CMI-based research activities, including early findings for the Net-Zero America Project.

PEI launches a new Graduate Certificate Program in Environmental Studies. Ph.D. candidates in the departments of history, Near Eastern studies, ecology and evolutionary biology, and civil and environmental engineering enroll.

Environmental studies students Jessica Lambert and Claire Wayner are among 13 college sophomores nationwide named 2020 Udall Scholars by the Udall Foundation based on their leadership, public service, academic excellence, and commitment to issues related to Native American nations or to the environment.

Graduating seniors in the environmental studies program and their parents join PEI faculty, researchers and staff for a virtual Class Day ceremony to recognize students in the Class of 2020 who earned certificates in environmental studies.

48% of students graduating in the Class of 2020 engaged with PEI during their time at Princeton through the environmental studies certificate program, ENV coursework, internships, and senior-thesis research.

PEI-affiliated researchers publish major studies related to sustainable food systems. A team based in the Center for BioComplexity reports that feeding the global population by 2050 will mean irrigating several billion more acres of farmland than previously projected. A second team finds that people with household gardens experience high levels of happiness, suggesting that gardens could be key to providing food security and making cities more sustainable and livable.

Princeton researchers supported by PEI report in the journal Science that the number of people still vulnerable to COVID-19 — and the speed at which the disease spreads — means that local climate conditions are not likely to dominate the first wave of the pandemic.

Fourteen Princeton Ph.D. candidates receive graduate research awards through PEI’s Hack, Walbridge and PEI-STEP programs to study topics related to carbon mitigation, pollution remediation, the environmental humanities, water and fluid dynamics, biogeochemistry, biodiversity and ecosystems, and environmental policy.

Princeton and PEI researchers report that asymptomatic infection can be a successful evolutionary strategy for pathogens such as the novel coronavirus.

Lauren von Berg, Class of 2020, is first author of research published in Geophysical Research Letters that was based on her PEI internship studying the role of Antarctic sea ice in regulating the growth of phytoplankton, a key ocean nutrient.

The influence of PEI scientists in advancing the study of biodiversity is featured in a series about Princeton’s contributions to environmental research during the past 50 years, including in the areas of water, climate science and climate modeling, energy, and food.

Photographer and former Barron Visiting Professor Fazal Sheikh is appointed PEI artist-in-residence to lead the interdisciplinary “Exposure” project, which engages environmental justice issues by documenting the visual, cultural and geophysical scars that extractive industries have left on public and Native American lands in the American Southwest. The project is co-led by Princeton professors Eduardo Cadava, John Higgins, and Mark Zondlo.

PEI hosts a two-day virtual workshop with research collaborators from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the Stockholm Resilience Centre focused on “Network Resilience, Sustainable Cities and the Global Food System.”

PEI senior research scholar Ramanan Laxminarayan publishes a landmark study of more than a half-million people in India who were exposed to the novel coronavirus, the largest COVID-19 contact-tracing study to date. The findings suggest that young people and a small percentage of those who become infected — known as superspreaders — may be key to the virus’ continued spread.

The fall semester resumes with instruction delivered remotely. More than 650 students enroll in ENV courses, including more than 150 in PEI’s flagship course, “The Environmental Nexus.”

The National Science Foundation funds a $1 million project led by PEI professor Reed Maxwell and others that will use artificial intelligence to simulate the nation’s natural groundwater system in an effort to improve groundwater management, as well as flood and drought preparedness.

PEI researchers report that the impact of natural and vaccine-induced immunity will be key factors in shaping the long-term trajectory of the global coronavirus pandemic.

The PEI Faculty Seminar Series resumes for fall 2020 as a virtual event series, featuring Princeton faculty discussing current topics in their environmental research.

PEI professor Anu Ramaswami and PEI/Princeton-Mellon Fellow Dietmar Offenhuber organize the Fall 2020 Mellon Forum on the Urban Environment, a series of discussions focused on the post-pandemic city.

Research funded by PEI’s Princeton Energy and Climate Scholars (PECS) program finds that restrictive border policies could leave people fleeing rising seas, extreme heat and other climate change effects trapped in a cycle of environmental and economic peril.

The University announces that the High Meadows Foundation, a philanthropic organization co-founded by Judy and Carl Ferenbach III, a member of Princeton’s Class of 1964, has made a transformative gift to the University that will support environmental research and educational initiatives through PEI.

PEI is renamed the High Meadows Environmental Institute (HMEI).

Research led by HMEI professor David Wilcove finds that bushmeat consumption — which has devastated wildlife populations and been linked to the spread of diseases such as the Ebola virus — drops over time when people move from rural areas to cities. Children in urban areas also have less of a taste for wild game than their parents.

Researchers affiliated with the Climate Change and Infectious Disease initiative report that mask wearing, social distancing and other measures that are key to reducing coronavirus infection may increase people’s susceptibility to common respiratory infections such as influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), possibly resulting in large future outbreaks.

HMEI senior research scholar Ramanan Laxminarayan is elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for his distinguished work related to economic epidemiology, particularly his research on the increasing resistance of disease-causing bacteria to antibiotics due to their overuse. Among other Princeton researchers named AAAS fellows in 2020 are HMEI associated faculty members Andrea Graham and Isaac Held.

Princeton research led by graduate student Ciro Cabal and Professor Stephen Pacala, and supported by the Carbon Mitigation Initiative (CMI), finds that plants grow their roots based on their proximity to other plants, which ultimately determines how they perform functions essential to humans such as food production and the removal of carbon from the atmosphere.

A Princeton study supported by the Water and the Environment Challenge program reveals the mechanism by which microplastics such as Styrofoam and particulate pollutants are carried long distances through soil and other porous media. The study could help in preventing the spread and accumulation of contaminants in food and water sources.