Faculty Innovation Awards
Seeding the Future of Sustainability Research
Our Faculty Innovation Awards provide seed funding for innovative, original research that accelerates the development of new solutions to global environmental challenges.
Applications for our 2023 award cycle are now closed. Please check back in early 2024 for information about the next award cycle.
About the Awards
The Faculty Innovation Awards each provide up to $50,000 in support of USC faculty research that improves our knowledge about, or offers solutions for, global environmental and sustainability challenges.
Research must align with one of the Wrigley Institute’s three interdisciplinary Research Centers. The centers cover distinct but interrelated themes:
- Earth & Environmental Systems This center focuses on the natural systems that combine to form our environment, with the goal of investigating phenomena and developing scientific insights about our changing planet.
- Applied Environmental Solutions Projects within this center convert science into action by testing the feasibility of new ideas and determining how to turn them into workable practices and technologies.
- Social Transformation This center draws on the social and behavioral sciences, arts, and humanities, to investigate how people think, what they believe or perceive, and how they behave regarding the environment.
Eligibility for Faculty Innovation Awards is open to tenure-track and RTPC faculty from all USC departments and schools, and proposals may come from single investigators or teams working within or across USC divisions. Research funded under this program should yield scholarly publications and other forms of high-impact outreach during the 24 months that an award is held. Successful candidates will be identified as Wrigley Institute Affiliated Faculty Members. 2022 Faculty Innovation Award recipients are eligible to apply, but must propose a new project for this funding cycle.
2023-2025 Faculty Innovation Award Winners
William Berelson
Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Professor of Earth Sciences, Environmental Studies and Spatial Sciences
Sponsored by the Jordan and Andrea Lott Foundation
Project: Ocean Impacts of Emerging Carbon Sequestration Methodologies
Research Center: Applied Environmental Solutions
Carly Kenkel (with Adib Mustofa)
Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Gabilan Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences
Project: Defining coral biodiversity for conservation and restoration in Indonesia’s Coral Triangle
Research Center: Earth and Environmental Systems
Smaranda Marinescu
Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Associate Professor of Chemistry
Project: Biologically Inspired Materials for Solar-to-Fuel Technologies
Research Center: Applied Environmental Solutions
Alexander Robinson
School of Architecture
Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture
Project: Establishing a Los Angeles River Observatory toward nature-based infrastructure and community stewardship
Research Center: Social Transformation
2022-2024 Faculty Innovation Award Winners
Laura Melissa Guzman
Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Gabilan Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences
Project: Modeling the effects of climate change and pesticide use on pollinator biodiversity
Research Center: Earth and Environmental Systems
Matthew Kahn (with Rob Metcalfe)
Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Provost Professor of Economics and Spatial Sciences
Project: Educating home buyers about climate change-related flood and fire risks to specific properties
Research Center: Social Transformation
Kelly Sanders
Viterbi School of Engineering
Dr. Teh Fu Yen Early Career Chair and Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Project: Evaluating how Los Angeles’s adoption of renewable energy will affect the city’s air quality
Research Center: Applied Environmental Solutions
Sam Silva
Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Assistant Professor of Earth Sciences
Project: Using artificial intelligence to predict cloud formation and model the relationship between clouds and climate
Research Center: Earth and Environmental Systems
Gale Sinatra (with Wändi Bruine de Bruin and Norbert Schwarz)
Rossier School of Education
Stephen H. Crocker Chair and Professor of Education and Psychology
Project: How climate change terminology affects public attitudes toward and willingness to take action on climate change
Research Center: Social Transformation
Travis Williams (with Clay Wang)
Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Professor of Chemistry
Project: Creating antimicrobial coatings that are minimally toxic to marine life
Research Center: Applied Environmental Solutions