Engineering Secure, Resilient and Sustainable Systems
Our planet is increasingly a strongly coupled human – natural system in which actions and events impact the well being of all inhabitants. The interdisciplinary research of the Secure, Resilient and Sustainable Systems Cluster achieves new fundamental understanding of the human-natural system. This understanding informs the cluster’s discovery and spawns new innovations that transform the design of systems in critical areas of high impact to the human-natural system such as energy, water, food, materials, waste and the built infrastructure.
The research and graduate education of the cluster in partnership with its industry and government, is making these systems more environmentally and economically sustainable, secure and more resilient to adverse and extreme events.
Faculty research spans modeling, design and experimental work that addresses challenges across this area including:
- Agriculture and food systems;
- Biological and biochemical materials and processes;
- Coastal coupled human-natural systems;
- Civil and urban infrastructure;
- Cyber and cyber-physical infrastructure;
- Energy diversity, distribution and use;
- Waste streams, systems and remediation; and
- Water cycle and systems.
The cluster’s research draws on every engineering discipline in the college and numerous departments and colleges across the university. The projects of the cluster are funded from a diverse set of federal, industry, state and nonprofit sources.