Harvard Salata Institute Announces Grants to Two New Climate Research Clusters

The Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability has awarded grants to two new interdisciplinary research clusters targeting carbon pollution from vehicles and buildings, the Institute announced on Tuesday.

The new clusters — “Urban Mobility and Climate Change” and “Building Sustainable Cities” — will receive a total of $3.6 million over the next three years to fund interdisciplinary research projects, which will conducted by more than a dozen faculty from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Harvard Kennedy School, and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

This move marks the latest installment of the Salata Institute’s Climate Research Clusters program. Since its inception in 2022, the Institute has funded climate research from 30 faculty members across eight of Harvard’s schools.

The new clusters represent “a further investment by the Institute in research and education at Harvard in climate and sustainability,” according to a Tuesday press release.

The “Urban Mobility and Climate Change” cluster — led by HKS professor Rema N. Hanna and Economics professor Gabriel Kreindler — aims to address greenhouse gas emissions from public transportation, measure and reduce local pollutants, and propose strategies to adapt to weather shocks.

“This project will devise innovative, sustainable transport solutions that balance economic benefits with reduced environmental impact,” Hanna said in the press release.

The cluster involves experts from urban planning, public policy, economics, computer science, and atmospheric chemistry, as well as continuing collaboration with Indonesian and Ugandan policymakers to assess the proposals.

Kreindler said that he and Hanna began collaborating with Transjakarta, a public transport operator, in 2018 to understand how cities “can make public transport more attractive.”

Given the three-year cap on their research projects, the cluster’s goal is to inspire further research on urban mobility as a whole, according to Kreindler.

“What the cluster seeks to do is spur research on these topics and connections between researchers and policymakers — and between researchers and researchers,” he said.

The “Building Sustainable Cities” cluster, led by GSD professor Ali Malkawi, aims to analyze improvements in energy efficiency through material design and data-driven algorithms. The cluster will focus on developing cooperative energy management models in buildings and neighborhoods.

The cluster will also include collaboration between industry professionals and faculty experts in chemistry, computer science, architecture, and urban design.

“This project, driven by interdisciplinary collaboration, addresses urgent climate challenges by developing and scaling sustainable design solutions,” Malkawi said in the press release.

“We aim to modernize and eventually revolutionize energy-efficient building performance to help shape the future of sustainable urban environments,” he added.

Kreindler said the Institute has allowed his team to explore collaborations with researchers in disciplines and research clusters.

“We have been looking specifically at other clusters that do work that’s overlapping and hope to engage whether it’s on related topics like migrations or spatial movements, or in similar areas,” he said. “I think the Salata Institute really aims to create these kinds of connections — in my experience, it’s been clear that that’s happening.”

—Staff writer Ava H. Rem can be reached at ava.rem@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @avar3m.

—Staff writer Iris J. Xue can be reached at iris.xue@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @iris_j_xue.