Sustainable Futures Institute (SFI) Third Annual Banquet

More than 70 guests attending the Sustainable Futures Institute (SFI) Third Annual Banquet on Oct. 10 saw several of this year's group of graduate students welcomed as new members into SFI’s Community of Scholars. Former SFI Co-director Jim Mihelcic (Civil and Environmental Engineering) and Deputy Director David Shonnard (Chemical Engineering) were recognized as fellows of SFI for their continued and untiring work to keep sustainability foremost in the minds of Michigan Tech's researchers, teachers and students.

President Glenn Mroz spoke on behalf of Michigan Tech to congratulate SFI for helping to make the University known as a worldwide leader in sustainability. Mroz also thanked SFI for helping with the search for 10 new faculty hires with interdisciplinary specialties in the field of sustainability. The evening closed with two presentations. Shonnard’s talk, “Is Cellulosic Ethanol Sustainable?” described SFI’s Wood-to-Wheels investigations into making ethanol from woody biomass rather than from corn. His talk was followed by Associate Professor Shekar Joshi (SFRES) speaking about his work at the Biotech Research Center to produce fast-growing and taller trees by a process of “cell flipping.” In “Building Better Trees for Tomorrow!” Joshi explained the importance of working with trees to benefit society in a sustainable manner.

The banquet was preceded by the SFI poster session, which featured 30 posters from across the University related to sustainability issues. These posters described research into such topics as ethanol, life-cycle analysis and water resources in developing countries to name just a few. Emily McCarthy, president of the Graduate Student Council, announced the winner of the People’s Choice Award, always a highlight of the event. This year the award went to PhD student Santosh R. Ghimire (Environmental Engineering) and Professor Brian D. Barkdoll (Civil and Environmental Engineering) for their poster, "Energy Savings through Water Conservation in Municipal Water Distribution Systems." Ghimire will discuss his winning research Monday, Oct. 15, at 3 p.m. in Dow 642.

"Santosh worked very hard to do the analysis, and we were both surprised that the reduction of water use affects a wide variety of systems in a similar manner," Barkdoll said. "This research should give water utilities the incentive to educate their users to reduce how much water they use."

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