The Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation (MCSI) announced the student-advisor pairings for its 2026 Summer Sustainability Research Training Program, a 10-week research experience for undergraduate and master's level students focused on sustainability.
MCSI thanks its program partners, Pittsburgh Water Collaboratory, Hub for AI and Data Science Leadership, Office of Sustainability in the Health Sciences, and the Frederick Honors College, for their collaboration and support.
Thematic Cohort: Sustainability
Graphene Raincoat: Designing Ultra-Hydrophobic, Self-Cleaning Surfaces with Laser Light
Advisor: Mostafa Bedewy, industrial engineering
Student: Holden Michener, chemistry
Circular Economy at the University of Pittsburgh - Exploring Opportunities of Reuse
Advisors: Amy Brooks, civil & environmental eng; Nick Goodfellow, BHAS
Student: Grace King, geology & environmental science (Fisher Scientific Scholar)
Scaling Circular Economy Business Models
Advisor: Sue Cohen, business
Student: Evan Fritzinger, mathematics & economics
Scaling Circular Economy Business Models
Advisor: Sue Cohen, business
Student: Shubhangi Dwivedi, business
Development of a Self-Powered Sensing Embedded System for Sustainability
Advisor: In Hee Lee, electrical & computer engineering
Student: Chen Li, electrical & computer engineering
Antireflection Glass for Bifacial Solar Panels
Advisor: Paul Leu, industrial engineering
Student: Tengyue Zhang, electrical & computer engineering
Devising Alternative Cooling for Parked Cars in the Summer
Advisor: Daniel Mosse, computing & information
Student: Jared Kartschoke, engineering
Proteins as Sustainable Sorbent Materials for Forever Chemicals
Advisor: Carla Ng, civil & environmental engineering
Student: Kasey Snyder, mathematics
Local Political Constraints to the Clean Energy Transition
Advisor: Lucy Page, economics
Student: Kathryn Glover, economics and statistics
Advancing Environmental Justice Through Movement-Engaged Participatory Research
Advisor: Fernando Tormos-Aponte, sociology
Student: Aspen Knitter, arts & sciences
Advancing Environmental Justice Through Movement-Engaged Participatory Research
Advisor: Fernando Tormos-Aponte, sociology
Student: Shuyi Zhao, sociology
Redesigning Sustainable Cutting Tools: From Toxic Cobalt to High-Entropy Alloys
Advisor: Wei Xiong, mechanical engineering & materials science
Student: Priyanka Natanasabapathy, mechanical engineering & material science
Brackenridge Sustainability Fellow
Phenological Effects of Shade on Violet Species to Estimate Climate Change Influence
Advisor: Mason Heberling, Carnegie Museum of Natural History
Student: Mollie Dinger, geology & environmental science
Pittsburgh Water Collaboratory
Functionalizing Low-Cost and Sustainable Clay Filter for Use in Local Runoff and Industrial Water Filtration
Advisors: Markus Chmielus; Ian Nettleship, mechanical engineering & material science
Student: Paulien Donnelly, mechanical engineering & materials science (Linda & Charles Sorber Scholar)
Determining How Variable Land Use Across Watersheds Affected PFAS Uptake in Macroinvertebrate Populations
Advisors: Emily Elliott; Grace Mattson, geology & environmental sciences
Student: John Halsall, environmental engineering
Urban Stream Ecology and Stable Isotope Biogeochemistry
Advisors: Emily Elliott; Jason Aguirre, geology & environmental sciences
Student: Eve Carter, geology & environmental science
Separation and Recovery of Critical Minerals and Sulfur from Acid Mine Drainage in Western Pennsylvania
Advisor: Jack King, civil & environmental engineering
Student: Sophia Prybyslavskyy, civil & environmental engineering
Modeling Drought Effects on Plant Photosynthesis
Advisor: Xu Liang, civil & environmental engineering
Student: Sota Ueno, computing and information
AgriNUE: Plant-derived Lipid Carrier for Fertilizer Delivery
Advisor: Steve Little, chemical engineering
Student: Mia van Heerden, bioengineering
Fiber Optic Sensing in Marine and Water Application Environments
Advisor: Paul Ohodnicki, mechanical engineering & materials science
Student: Thinh Truong, physics and astronomy
Holistic Optimization of Small Hydroponic Systems
Advisor: Joaquin Rodriguez, chemical engineering
Student: Sam Allshouse, chemistry (Pitt Johnstown)
Community-Engaged Research in the Churchill Valley Greenway
Advisor: Patrick Shirey, geology & environmental science
Student: Elena Peiffer, environmental engineering
Design Spinel Ferrite Magnetic Adsorbents for Water Purification
Advisor: Guofeng Wang, mechanical engineering & materials science
Student: Yichen Yuan, materials science (Linda & Charles Sorber Scholar)
Hub for AI and Data Science Leadership
Environmentally Responsive Building Envelopes - Computational Evaluation and Optimization
Advisor: John Brigham, civil & environmental engineering
Student: Nathan Smith, mechanical eng & materials science
Ethical Modeling of Workers' Fatigue Using Wearable Sensors in a Dynamic Order Picking Task
Advisor: Setareh Kheiri, industrial engineering
Student: Sharvi Arora, computing and information
Learning Bird Soundscapes: Gaussian Process Models for Urban Biodiversity Monitoring
Advisors: Justin Kitzes, biological sciences; Amin Rahimian, industrial engineering
Student: Andrew Chen, computing and information
Using Machine Learning to Identify Wildlife Species in Field Audio Recordings
Advisor: Justin Kitzes, biological sciences
Student: Chloe Herron, computing and information
Leveraging Large Language Models to Accelerate Sustainability Analysis in Hospital Operating Rooms
Advisor: Natasa Miskov-Zivanov, electrical & computer engineering
Student: Jiakai Dai, computing and information
Sustaining Online Knowledge Commons in the Age of Generative AI
Advisor: Amin Rahimian, industrial engineering
Student: William Peralta, industrial engineering
Sustainable Healthcare
Assessing the Integration of Planetary Health Principles Across Health Science Curricula
Advisors: Michael Boninger; Lola Conti, health sciences
Student: Hayley Underwood, sports medicine & nutrition
Greenhouse Gas Emission Tracking and Transportation at UPMC
Advisor: Sydney Crum, UPMC
Student: Elijah Phillips, electrical & computer engineering
Re-Using Single-Use Lab Plastics in Biomedical Research
Advisor: David Gau, pathology
Student: Eva Ross, geology & environmental science (Fisher Scientific Scholar)
Energy Storage Project in Health Center or Office Building
Advisor: Kate Zettl, UPMC
Student: Rashid Ahmadov, biological science
Thriving Communities Through Regional Change: Integrating Circularity and Safety Principles in Environmental Design
Advisor: Tina Ndoh, public health
Student: Mariska Goswami, environmental and occupational health
Teaching Sustainability Through Pitt's Global Health Case Competition
Advisor: Cynthia Salter, public health
Student: Raehani Bandekar, public health
Green Clinic Initiative
Advisor: Michelle Varnell, health & rehabilitation sciences
Student: Zhimei Cui, nursing
Reimagining Dental Waste with Upcycling Solutions
Advisor: Claire Werner, dental medicine
Student: Prithvi Paruchuri, biological sciences