Emory Magazine Spring/Summer 2020

Sustainability @ Emory

40 Years of Woodruff Scholars

A Presidential Legacy

How Emory alumni, faculty, staff, and students are fighting the pandemic.

COVID -19

STORIES FROM THE FRONT LINES

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Emory Magazine VOL. 95 NO. 2

CONTENTS

4 Sustainability at Emory: A Better Place, Built to Last AIR

food

Find out how the university’s commitment to resilience and conservation drives research and sustainable practices on campus while empowering alumni to make a positive impact.

18 AIR

water

s h e lt e r

24 FOOD 30 WATER 40 SHELTER

COVID-19: Stories from the Front Lines Meet some of Emory’s real-life heroes who are fighting the coronavirus pandemic in different ways, from battling the disease firsthand to sparking hope in communities.

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THE ER DOCTOR

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THE NURSE ANESTHETIST

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THE MEDICAL OFFICER

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THE ER NURSE

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THE REMOTE LEARNING EXPERT

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THE SMALL BUSINESS OWNER

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THE STUDENT RESPONDERS

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CONTENTS

EMORY EVERYWHERE 55 WOODRUFF SCHOLARS AND FELLOWS PAY IT FORWARD

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58

CLASS NOTES

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IN MEMORIAM

Managing Editor Roger Slavens

Copy Editor Jane Howell

Executive Director of Content Jennifer Checkner

Senior Designer Elizabeth Hautau Karp

Associate Vice President, Creative Services Dave Holston Vice President, Enterprise Communications Doug Busk Contributors Carol Clark, Elizabeth Cobb Durel, Kelley Freund, Brian Hudgins, April Hunt, Mary Loftus, Martha McKenzie, Jay Moye, Kristin Baird Rattini, Kimber Williams

EDITOR’S NOTE

Art Director, Creative Services Peta Westmaas Photography Kay Hinton Stephen Nowland Production Manager Stuart Turner Senior Vice President, Communications and Public Affairs David Sandor University President Claire E. Sterk

50 3 E MORY NEWS INTRODUCING PRESIDENT GREGORY FENVES

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Emory University is an equal opportunity/equal access/affirmative action employer fully committed to achieving a diverse workforce and complies with all applicable Federal and Georgia State laws, regulations, and executive orders regarding nondiscrimination and affirmative action in its programs and activities.

Emory University does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, ethnic or national origin, gender, genetic information, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, and veteran’s status. Inquiries should be directed to the Department of Equity and Inclusion, 201 Dowman Drive, Administration Bldg, Atlanta, GA 30322. Telephone: 404-7279867 (V) | 404-712-2049 (TDD).

If the publication invites participation or attendance, include the following sentences regarding disability accommodations:

46 YOUNG ALUMNI AND STUDENTS VOICES OF THE NEXT GENERATION

MORE ONLINE AT EMORY.EDU/MAGAZINE

48 A WARDS CAMPUS SUSTAINABILITY INNOVATORS

EXPANDED FEATURES MORE COVID-19 FRONT-LINE STORIES AND MULTIMEDIA

50 T RIBUTE CLAIRE E. STERK’S LEGACY OF COMPASSION AND RESOLVE

VIDEO SEE HOW EMORY’S WATERHUB WORKS IN 360 DEGREES ALUMNI AND FACULTY STORIES ADDITIONAL SUSTAINABILITY SPOTLIGHTS

Should you need this document in an alternate format, or require a reasonable accommodation, please contact the Department of Accessibility Services at 404-727-9877 (V) | 404-712-2049 (TDD). Please note that one week advance notice is preferred.

Should you need this document in an alternate format, or require a reasonable accommodation, please contact the Department of Accessibility Services at 404-727-9877 (V) | 404-712-2049 (TDD). Please note that one week advance notice is preferred.

EMORY MAGAZINE (ISSN 00136727) is published quarterly by Emory’s Division of Communications and Public Affairs.

Nonprofit postage paid at 3900 Crown Rd. SE, Atlanta, Georgia, 30304; and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Advancement and Alumni Engagement Office of Data Management,, 1762 Clifton Road, Suite 1400, Atlanta, Georgia 30322.

Emory Magazine is distributed free to alumni and friends of the university. Address changes may be emailed to eurec@emory. edu or sent to the Advancement and Alumni Engagement Office of Data Management, 1762 Clifton Road, Suite 1400, Atlanta, Georgia 30322. If you are an individual with a disability and wish to acquire this publication in an alternative format, please contact Managing Editor Roger Slavens (address above).

No. 20-EU-EMAG-0051 ©2020, a publication of the Division of Communications and Public Affairs.

The comments and opinions expressed in this magazine do not necessarily represent those of Emory University or the staff of Emory Magazine.

ON THE COVER PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY KAY HINTON, EMORY PHOTO VIDEO

SEASONED LEADER Gregory Fenves had been president of the University of Texas (UT) at Austin since 2015. He served there for twelve years, first as dean of the Cockrell School of Engineering, then as provost, and finally as president.

MEET EMORY’S 21st PRESIDENT P H O T O G R A P H Y C O U R T E S T Y O F T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F T E X A S AT AU S T I N

T

he Emory University Board of Trustees announced in early April that Gregory Fenves, president of the University of Texas (UT) at Austin, was elected as the twenty-first president of Emory University by a unanimous vote of the board. He will assume office on August 1, 2020.

Fenves succeeds Claire E. Sterk, who announced her retirement in November 2019 after serving as Emory’s president since 2016.

“We are tremendously excited about the appointment of Greg Fenves, a world-class educator and brilliant leader,” says Bob Goddard, chair of Emory’s Board of Trustees and of the Presidential Selection Committee. “We wanted someone with deep experience leading a major research university and a stellar record of scholarship. We also sought an inspirational leader and a person of impeccable character. Greg Fenves embodies all that we hoped to find.”

The board chose Fenves by unanimous election, which took place after the Presidential Selection Committee led an intensive international search that included more than forty listening sessions throughout the Emory community and confidential interviews with diverse and prominent candidates.

“I am deeply honored to be named president of Emory University by the Board of Trustees,” Fenves says. “It has been

a privilege to lead UT Austin, which I believe is among America’s best public institutions of higher education.

I am excited to join one of the country’s finest research universities. Optimistic about Emory’s future, I am convinced that working together as one university, we will move Emory from the outstanding institution it is today to one of eminence.”

Goddard says the selection committee was impressed with the enormous impact Fenves had on UT Austin during his twelve years, first as dean of the engineering school, then as provost, and finally as president. Under his leadership, UT Austin has prioritized its outstanding faculty, cross-disciplinary research, and student success, and launched the first new medical school at a top-tier research university in nearly fifty years. Fenves has made diversity and inclusion a priority, successfully leading UT Austin to the US Supreme Court to defend the educational benefits of diversity in higher education in the landmark Fisher case. And he has been deeply engaged with UT Austin students throughout his presidency.

“The next decade will be critically important in the evolution of Emory as one of the nation’s eminent research universities,” Goddard says. “The board believes with Greg Fenves as our next president, we will have the key components to make significant advancements as an institution. And we are proud of what he has seen in Emory and that a university leader of such stature is attracted to the opportunities at Emory.”

Fenves is married to Carmel Martinez Fenves, a textile artist, and former small business owner. They have two adult daughters, a son-in-law and one granddaughter, all of whom live in Austin.

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EMORY MAGAZINE

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THE ER DOCTOR

THE SMALL BUSINESS OWNER

THE ER NURSE THE STUDENT RESPONDERS

COVID-19

STORIES FROM THE FRONT LINES 4

EMORY MAGAZINE

SPRING/SUMMER 2020

THE MEDICAL OFFICER THE NURSE ANESTHETIST

AN ER DOCTOR’S PERSONAL SACRIFICES Despite having to stay isolated from his family — including a newborn daughter — Emory emergency physician Justin Schrager soldiers on to treat COVID-19 patients and flatten the curve.

BY ROGER SLAVENS

J Meet some of Emory’s real-life heroes who are fighting the coronavirus pandemic in myriad ways. They’re battling the disease directly in emergency rooms and intensive care units.

Spreading truth (not myths) in the national media. Converting business operations to produce needed supplies. Organizing volunteer response efforts. And sparking some much-needed hope in their local communities.

ustin Schrager 08PH 12M 15MR wants nothing more than to come home from work and scoop up his weeks-old baby girl into his arms. But as an emergency medicine physician at Emory University Hospital—where he’s exposed every day to patients who have been infected with the highly contagious COVID-19 coronavirus— Schrager knows the daddy-daughter cuddles and the tickling of her tiny little toes will have to wait.

Since health care workers on the front line run a high risk of contracting the virus, he has to take extraordinary precautions to avoid bringing it home and passing it along to his family. That means after a grueling overnight shift in the ER, Schrager can’t even come home and rest in his own bed. He has to isolate himself from those he loves, holing up alone in their garage apartment. So close, yet far away.

He can’t even help his wife with changing diapers and the other nonstop demands of raising a newborn. Nor can Schrager help much in wrangling their other son and daughter—ages 4 and 6—who now find themselves stuck at home since their schools have closed. “We’re doing our best, though it’s just not the same as we had hoped

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this time to be,” Schrager says. “My wife was supposed to be looking run-down and coughing, like they have the common recovering, spending quality time with the baby, the kids busy seasonal flu, and then in a matter of a few hours be unable to in school, me helping out and everyone happy. Obviously, breathe, have to be intubated, and put on a ventilator.” that’s not happening because of the coronavirus.”

Luckily, Emory is prepared better than most for outbreaks They’re learning to make the best of it. On days off, when like the coronavirus. “Emory Healthcare, in particular, is blessthe weather’s nice, Schrager is able to spend time with his ed with national leaders in how to manage communicable family sitting and chatting outside in the yard or going on disease outbreaks, as well as how to treat patients and protect walks together—all at a healthy distance, of course. Otherwise, its health care workers,” Schrager says. “They’ve done literally phone calls, FaceTime, and Zoom meetings have become their everything I can think of to get us ready for pandemics like primary ways to stay connected.

COVID-19.”

Luckily his wife, Rachel Patzer 07PH 11G—a renowned And while Schrager is backed by excellent intensive care epidemiologist and associate professor in Emory’s School of and respiratory care teams, he knows that his counterparts Medicine—was better prepared than most for what needed around the US are suffering. “Doctors are getting hit hard as to happen when COVID-19 came to the US. “Both Rachel and patients flood the health care systems in a growing number I trained in epidemiology at the Rollins School of Public of hot spots, and they’re running into shortages of resources Health—where we met—and worked at the and even ICU beds,” he says. “I don’t want “Emory Healthcare, CDC,” Schrager says. “Then I went to Emory to imagine what it would be like to ask for medical school, and Rachel completed her a ventilator for a patient and be told there in particular, is blessed PhD. When the outbreak occurred in China wasn’t one available.” with national leaders and started moving from country to country, FLATTENING THE CURVE we tracked it and could read what direction in how to manage Another way to combat COVID-19 is to “flatten it was going in the weeks before Rachel went the curve” of infections, drawing them out communicable into labor with our daughter.” over time so hospitals and clinics aren’t Together, shortly after their baby’s birth, disease outbreaks, flooded with patients all at once. Schrager has the couple made the decision for Schrager to put himself in a unique position to help with as well as how to isolate himself from the rest of the family. “We the effort. surely weren’t the only people doing this betreat patients and Last year, he cofounded software company fore the sheltering-in-place declarations startVital with his brother-in-law Aaron Patzer to protect its ed,” he says. “Everyone working in emergency help hospital emergency departments manage services and critical care—doctors, nurses, health care workers.” their workload and triage patients. With the EMTs, support staff—knew early on they would outbreak of COVID-19, the duo foresaw an have to make life-altering changes to their opportunity to help people self-triage and hopefully keep many daily regimen to protect themselves and their families.” of those with mild symptoms—and unchecked anxieties—at But his wife wanted to spread greater awareness about home and out of the ER. the sacrifices health care workers and their families around The free online tool C19check.com was designed by the the globe were making. So Patzer turned to Twitter to share Vital team with guidance from the Emory Department of their story. Her message quickly struck a nerve on the social Emergency Medicine’s Health DesignED Center and the platform, and tens of thousands of people responded to her Emory Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response. thread. And then her message really went viral when former The website leverages an algorithm first developed by Emory US President Barack Obama retweeted it and added his own doctors more than a decade ago to manage and monitor the message of thanks to those on the front lines of COVID-19.

H1N1 virus pandemic.

Developing C19check.com to help flatten the curve was also “THIS DISEASE REALLY SCARES ME” driven by a very selfish motive, Schrager admits. “I promised At Emory University Hospital, Schrager still treats numerous my wife that while I’m unable to help take of the kids and she’s COVID-19 cases a day. He’s witnessed what the disease can do— having to manage everything on very little sleep, that I would and he’s afraid of it. spend my time in isolation to fight this epidemic in any way I “My fear threshold is pretty high, but this disease really could,” he says. “The sooner we can slow or halt the pandemic, scares me because it can cause people to become critically ill the sooner I can get out of the garage and be with my family.” very quickly,” Schrager says. “Patients can come into the ER

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ROOM TO BREATHE Nurse anesthetist Donté Flanagan has answered the call for experts to intubate and ventilate COVID-19 patients in New Orleans.

BY ROGER SLAVENS

D

onté Flanagan 04Ox 06N has one of the most difficult jobs on the front line of fighting COVID-19. As a certified registered nurse anesthetist (CRNA) based in hard-hit New Orleans, he’s been asked to cover emergency rooms and intensive care units to help in performing one critical task: Keep patients breathing.

“It feels like we’re in wartime here,” says Flanagan, who works at Touro Infirmary for LCMC Anesthesia. “My CRNA colleagues and I are definitely all stretching our scope of practice, going above and beyond our normal work inside of operating rooms. Since most elective surgeries and procedures have been postponed, we’re being asked to spend most of our time now in ERs and ICUs, helping to perform intubations, titrating sedation and paralytics, and administering mechanical ventilation.”

Intubation, in particular, is not only an unpleasant experience for patients, but also a tricky, specialized procedure. “On paper, it seems like a straightforward, step-by-step technique, but in practice every case is different and presents unique challenges,” Flanagan says. “With some COVID-19 patients, we are seeing some airway changes where they have swollen tissue inside of the oral pharynx or a narrowing of the trachea and the tissue around it. Having the repetitions—and the visual expertise at recognizing the differences in anatomy by sight and feel—is critical at reducing the number of attempts. Extra attempts can further compromise or damage the airway.”

Flanagan estimates that he’s performed ten thousand intubations so far in his ten-year career as a nurse anesthetist, compared with a nonspecialist who might have only performed a hundred. “There is a different level of comfort and expertise that goes with it,” says Flanagan, who serves on Emory’s Nurses Alumni Association Board. “There’s a much greater chance at success if we are the first ones to attempt to manipulate the airway. That’s why we’ve been pulled in.”

All of the COVID-19 cases that reach this advanced stage have to be treated with great seriousness. “We’re seeing patients coming in with pulmonary edema—fluid is building up in their lungs and they’re having a difficult time breathing,” he says. “Their tissues aren’t getting the oxygenation they need, and if we don’t intervene, eventually they just decompensate and go into acute respiratory distress or cardiac arrest.”

And Flanagan knows that even if he’s successful in his new emergency role, COVID-19 remains a difficult foe to beat.

“When I intubate a patient succumbing to the coronavirus, I do so knowing that in some cases I could be the last person they ever talk to,” Flanagan says.

SURVIVING THE NEW ORLEANS SURGE Hospitals in New Orleans saw a huge surge of cases in late March and early April, just weeks after hundreds of thousands of people enjoyed the city’s legendary Mardi Gras celebrations and traditional St. Patrick’s Day Parade despite the news that the coronavirus had reached the US. “I was screaming from the mountaintops about it, mainly because people just weren’t taking the risks seriously enough,” says Flanagan, who’s also worked as a CRNA in Atlanta and New York City. “I knew the outbreak was going to happen—as did so many of my health care colleagues—but it didn’t matter. Like clockwork, the patients started arriving in droves.”

And though the health care industry predicted it, New Orleans and Louisiana weren’t fully prepared for the onslaught.

“The hospitals were caught at first without the setup and the resources to fight the coronavirus,” Flanagan says. “At Touro, we had to convert two of our normal hospital units into isolation wards. And at one point our two main ICUs were completely filled with COVID-positive patients on ventilators. We even had a time where we couldn’t admit any more of them—we could only get them stabilized, intubated, and on a ventilator, and

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then have to ship them to another hospital that had room.”

Over time, the city and its hospitals began to work more collaboratively and the outcomes improved, Flanagan says.

“More units and floors in hospitals were turned into ICU units,” he says. “We were able to borrow ventilators from pediatric wards and hospitals where they weren’t being used. We got better at using and reusing personal protective equipment (PPE).”

While the first surge of COVID-19 patients has slowed, Flanagan hopes they’ve learned enough to be prepared for future waves.

HEAVY TOLL ON HEALTH WORKERS Seeing so many patients in dire shape levies a heavy mental toll on Flanagan and his fellow frontline workers. “It’s difficult witnessing the outcomes, watching people suffer or even die alone since their families can’t visit them with the heightened restrictions in place,” he says.

Additional stress comes from being forced to work long shifts and the increased risk of becoming infected himself.

“Our shifts are very fluid, changing daily, and my days off are not necessarily guaranteed,” Flanagan says. “And when staff members test positive for the coronavirus and have to be quarantined, that pulls them out of the rotation and puts a heavier load on the rest of us.”

Flanagan tries to maintain a positive attitude and remain in good spirits, but the daily grind of COVID-19 makes it difficult. “I’m still coming in to work, still heeding the call to serve others in need, but there’s a sense of anxiety you can’t entirely escape,” he says. “We’re all wearing masks and gloves and maintaining our distance from each other as best we can. The whole atmosphere has changed in the hospital—the isolation doesn’t just happen at home.”

Fighting the battle against the coronavirus day in and day out also evokes a kind of numbness—a defense mechanism—to what’s happening, Flanagan says. “When this is all over, those of us on the front lines are going to need a special debriefing or some other kind of catharsis to cope with what we’ve seen and what we’ve been through,” he says. “Every day we’re sharing stories with each other because we can’t keep it bottled up, but it’s not enough.”

When Flanagan does get some time off, he has two rules: No discussing his work and no watching the news. He’d rather decompress and spend quality time at home with his fiancée, even though he had to tell her from the start that they both had to live as if they had tested positive for COVID-19 and were likely carriers—even if they exhibited no symptoms. “We’re definitely getting to know each other better by going through this together, that’s for sure,” Flanagan says. “She’s been my solace.”

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A Voice of Truth and Reason Find out how Colleen Kraft, one of Emory’s leading infectious disease experts, has become a national media favorite for elevating science and cutting through the noise about COVID-19.

BY KELLEY FREUND

A

s an infectious diseases physician at Emory University Hospital, Colleen Kraft is no stranger to pandemics. Five years ago, she played a lead role in treating Ebola patients who came to Emory during the outbreak that started in 2014. Now she’s helping to coordinate her hospital’s response to COVID19 as an associate chief medical officer.

But what’s new for Kraft this time is that she is helping to shape the national conversation—and public health policies—on the coronavirus pandemic. Her disarming, no-nonsense demeanor, commitment to speaking the truth, and experience in treating some of the world’s deadliest infectious diseases has made her a frequent interviewee and guest commentator across national and local media these past few months.

Since early February, she’s made appearances on CNN and NPR programs, written op-ed pieces, and was profiled in the Los Angeles Times and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Kraft also was named to the NCAA COVID-19 Advisory Panel—where she’s helping provide counsel on when collegiate sports might start up again—and serves on Georgia Governor Brian Kemp’s coronavirus task force.

Despite a stacked schedule, Kraft made time to share how she’s balancing her ongoing medical and academic roles—she’s also an associate professor of infectious diseases and pathology at Emory School of Medicine— with her newfound spotlight in the public eye as a voice of reason.

Q: When did you start getting approached by media to speak publicly about infectious diseases and now, specifically, COVID-19?

KRAFT: Five years ago, when I was coordinating the Ebola response, I steered away from these opportunities. I put myself at the back of the line, so to speak. I lacked the self-confidence that I could speak to the media as well as my colleagues could. Fast forward to today and I’ve gained more experience, a lot of it coming from when I was making the scientific rounds to support my own research, which included speaking at a Food and Drug Administration hearing. I’ve really learned to enjoy this public-facing aspect of the job. I did my first interview with CNN in mid-February and I must be doing OK, because I keep getting asked to do it more.

Q: What kind of impact do you think you can have by sharing your knowledge and expert opinions with a national audience?

KRAFT: I look at these opportunities as a way to get

“I’m very passionate about my work and, particularly, in presenting the facts to the media and the public at large.”

the truth about COVID-19 out there to as many people as possible. I work hard to try and make challenging topics understandable and accessible, yet I’m not afraid to challenge the audience with a little bit more complexity than most people usually see on social media and the news. There are some topics that are too often made unnecessarily simple—including the coronavirus—so it’s important to me that people don’t take things on the most basic level hook, line, and sinker. Still, I’m trying to understand and justify the purpose of me being in the media so much. What I’ve come to realize is that I’m very passionate about my work and, particularly, in presenting the facts to the media and the public at large. It’s a different form of teaching for me, on a larger scale.

Q: How do you prepare yourself for these interviews and panel discussions?

KRAFT: I look at my sources of truth—which include the websites for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Georgia Department of Public Health—and read up on the

latest developments across the globe. I draw upon my years of experience in managing infectious diseases and what I’m seeing firsthand at Emory University Hospital and across the state of Georgia. I’ve been involved in a couple of tele-health town halls for Georgia Congress members Scott Davis and Hank Johnson.

Every speaking or media opportunity is a chance to get better at communicating.

Media training from Emory’s communications team has also been a huge help. It all gets easier with practice.

Right now, I’m involved in conducting some COVID-19 bioaerosol sampling in the hospital—testing the air in different units to see if we can detect the coronavirus anywhere. There’s still so much to learn about it.

Q: What can you tell us about the two COVID-19 advisory boards you serve on?

KRAFT: The NCAA panel

work at Emory—both as an associate chief medical officer for a major hospital and a university faculty member—with your new media role?

meets twice a week, and we talk about everything related to collegiate sports. They are really trying to be the trendsetters in this arena: When should people go back to practice? How should we use diagnostic testing? When can we resume sporting events? This panel was initially created to decide if the NCAA Men’s Final Four tournament would happen, but now it’s focused on when we can get things back to normal. Meanwhile, being on Gov. Kemp’s coronavirus taskforce has been a very interesting experience for me to better understand state politics and all its machinations.

KRAFT: The media engage-

Q: As you’re helping to

Q: How do you balance your

ments become a type of appointment that I may have once or twice a week, and provides a way to speak out to a bigger context. My typical work week is purposefully filled with a wide variety of different tasks; it helps break things up a bit and constantly gives me a different perspective on my work. At Emory, I teach, I consult, I lead, I research.

SPRING/SUMMER 2020

shape the conversation around this pandemic, what do you want to make sure people understand?

KRAFT: One of the things I want people to recognize is that we should not be critical of public health diagnostics when the United States doesn’t invest in it as a country. Similarly, people should realize that the Strategic National Stockpile can’t in EMORY MAGAZINE

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any way help on a scale like this pandemic. We live in a society where we don’t want to produce a single extra thing—be it a ventilator, mask, or anything—than we have to. So, when we live on that razor-edge margin of production and demand, our country cannot accommodate an outbreak. In the future, after we’ve learned new lessons, we have to decide: Do we want to be more creative about the reusing of things, or do we truly want to stockpile?

A Nurse Going Above and Beyond Alumna Kayla Lindros not only takes care of coronavirus patients, but also she has played a key role in ramping up drive-through testing in Atlanta.

Q: Your work life seems to be surrounded by COVID-19.

How do you escape that stress?

KRAFT: Lots of different things help to lessen the burden. I like to read novels.

I try to get some exercise or a walk in every day, and I love spending time with my kids.

They are on a second-shift schedule so I can see them more. I miss them in the mornings, but they’re up when I get home from work. We’ve been watching Disney’s The Mandalorian and other shows as a family.

Thirty minutes of that kind of escape is a big treat for me because otherwise I rarely watch TV. It’s a fun, grounding ritual we try to do regularly because everything else is so upside-down right now. Most important, when we’re together, we try not to talk about the coronavirus.

When I’m home, it’s time to relax and enjoy each other.

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BY ROGER SLAVENS

K

ayla Lindros 18N is more eager than most for the world to return to some sense of normalcy during the COVID-19 pandemic. After all, as an emergency department nurse, she’s been caring for infected patients for several months and she’s seen some of the worst the coronavirus can do. But as shelter-at-home restrictions are being lifted in a number of states, Lindros and many of her counterparts worry that we’re moving too fast— and that the general public will take it as a cue to drop their guard too soon.

“People who don’t know they have COVID-19, people who are asymptomatic, are now going back out into public and not taking enough precautions,” says Lindros, who works at Grady Memorial Hospital. “They don’t realize they are still putting others at significant risk and getting others sick. They don’t see what we see here in the emergency rooms and the ICUs.” While the number of infected have so far fallen short of the earliest epidemiologic predictions, what’s happened—and is still happening—in hospitals across the country has been a deadly serious matter.

“People of all ages and backgrounds—many with underlying medical issues but many who were otherwise healthy—are coming into hospitals with severe COVID-19 symptoms and being put on ventilators,” she says. “Some of them will wind up dying, and when they die in a

SPRING/SUMMER 2020

hospital, they frequently do it alone because visitation is still tightly restricted. My colleagues and I have often had to deliver the bad news to families. We are the ones who tell them they can’t come in to say goodbye to their loved ones.”

When she’s able, Lindros allows patients to borrow her iPhone so they can FaceTime with their spouses or kids.

“Even if they’re not dying, I still see COVID-19 patients isolated and afraid,” she says.

“When they do have human contact, it’s with doctors and nurses and specialists coming in gowns and goggles— they can’t even see our faces.

We see this every day and it’s demoralizing, but in a way it’s also motivating because it drives us to help them get better and get home.”

TREATING PATIENTS STARTS IN THE ER Grady Memorial Hospital, located in downtown Atlanta, has always been a high-volume hospital, with nearly 1,000 inpatient beds, Lindros says. “We treat a lot of the underserved, underinsured population,” she says. “But on top of our typical patient load, we’ve been hit hard by the surge of people throughout Fulton and DeKalb counties who have come in to be treated for COVID-19 symptoms.”

Outside the front doors to Grady’s emergency department, two medical trailers have been stationed to treat patients with relatively minor, non-coronavirus issues. “The goal is to keep these patients out of the hospital so they’re not exposed to people who may be really sick with COVID-19,” Lindros says.

When they enter the ER, patients are “then approached by health care workers in full personal protective equipment (PPE)— gown, goggles, face masks, gloves, everything—who do an initial triage,” Lindros says. “We screen everybody that comes into the hospital through the emergency department,” she says. “We take a full set of vital signs and then ask them about their symptoms. Do they have a fever, cough, chills, trouble breathing, abdominal pain, loss of smell, diarrhea? Based on our assessment, we determine if they should be put in

our respiratory emergency service area, where doctors and nurses will give them a much more thorough work up and determine if they need to be admitted.”

During these past few months, Lindros has been asked to work much more than she ever has. “At the worst of it—when our hospital has been full with regular patients and COVID-19 patients—I’ve worked twelve-

“I have to go about my life at work and home as if I’m positive and a carrier, even if I don’t have any symptoms.” hour shifts five or six days a week,” she says. “Luckily they’re rotating us through different departments so we don’t burn out. Not only am I doing the work of an emergency department head nurse, but also an ICU nurse and a step-down nurse, often all on the same shift.”

Lindros and her coworkers know they’ve been exposed to the coronavirus for a long time. “We figure that we’ve all contracted it at some point,” Lindros says.

“I have to go about my life at work and home as if I’m positive and a carrier, even if I don’t have any symptoms.”

Thankfully, she lives with two other nurses who well understand what she’s going

through and provide plenty of support. “We’re lucky we’re there for each other,” she says. “For other health care workers who have families, it’s been far more difficult— they’ve had to quarantine themselves in their own homes. When we can, those of us who are younger and healthier are stepping in and bearing the brunt of the exposure so that our older coworkers—those that risk passing COVID-19 on to their kids or have health risks themselves—don’t have to.”

VOLUNTEERS MAKING TESTING HAPPEN Lindros’s work fighting COVID-19 doesn’t end at the hospital. She also serves as cochair of the Fulton County Medical Reserve Corps, a group of clinical and nonclinical volunteers that respond in emergency situations like this. And through this group, she’s playing a key role in increasing the amount of coronavirus tests being conducted in Fulton County.

“For many people, it’s been difficult to get tested for COVID-19,” Lindros says.

“Fulton County and the Georgia Department of Public Health have set up drive-through testing areas for people who’ve been referred by their physician.

At these stations, they can get swabbed by nurses and physicians—most of them volunteers—without flooding emergency rooms and risking further exposure. The swab takes a few minutes,

SPRING/SUMMER 2020

with results coming back by four to five days afterward.”

Lindros volunteers to do some of the swabbing herself, but her primary focus in this effort is to act as a liaison between the medical reserve corps and a number of state and county agencies.

Additionally, she helps organize the volunteer response, making sure people are properly trained for whatever crisis Fulton County is facing She first got involved with the group during her time as a nursing student at Emory. She admits that she’s long been fascinated by infectious diseases and how hospitals and health care organizations leap to respond to outbreaks. “One of the main reasons I chose Emory for nursing school was because of how well the nurses and doctors handled the Ebola outbreak starting back in 2014,” she says.

While Lindros still worries about some people ignoring COVID-19 safety measures, she says that she’s been overwhelmed by the support health care workers have received from the general public. “So many people have stepped forward to help us out by following the guidelines or even going beyond to sew masks and donate food to hospitals,” she says. “For the most part, it’s like you’re witnessing something new—a sense of community that wasn’t apparent before. It makes me feel so good as a human being.”

EMORY MAGAZINE

1 1

Flipping the Switch to Remote Learning STA F F M E M B E R SA R A JAC KSO N WA D E R O S E TO T H E O C CA S I O N TO H E L P E M O RY CO L L EG E O F A RT S A N D SC I E N C E S FAC U LT Y T R A N S I T I O N TO T E AC H I N G M O R E T H A N S I X T H O U SA N D U N D E RG R A D UAT ES O N L I N E .

T

he announcement March 11 was simple and to the point:

“Effective immediately, Emory University will extend spring

break for students until Sunday, March 22, 2020, and transition to remote learning for graduate and undergraduate classes on

BY MARY LOFTUS

we are continuing to work with faculty who need additional support,” Wade says.

Knowing that students are

Monday, March 23, 2020.”

in many different time zones

ing for Emory College: More than five hundred faculty members

to technology may affect the

The actual transition, however, would be a mass undertak-

from a broad array of disciplines had less than two weeks to

move from a classroom setting to remote learning for six thousand undergraduates, now scattered across the country and the world.

Sara Jackson Wade, senior associate director of summer

programs for Emory College, was prepared. On March 5, she and Emory College lead web developer Brian Williams, along with marketing specialist Donna Morgan quickly built out a

website to assist faculty with academic continuity and provide

or may have limited access

ability to participate in classes,

Wade helped to make sure that classes were also available on demand. “Students are not

penalized if they can’t connect,” Wade says. “Faculty members record and post their classes.

There is quite a bit of flex.”

Most challenging are per-

remote teaching resources.

formance and studio classes

and Excellence, and Library and Information Technology Ser-

well as lab-based courses.

Partnering with Emory’s Center for Faculty Development

vices, Wade and many others offered crash courses to faculty

in how to use available remote-teaching technologies, such as Zoom and Canvas. Instructional workshops were recorded for

wider availability. “We had about sixty faculty in the college who

had previously completed our training,” Wade says. “And anoth-

like art, music, and dance, as

“But I will say, faculty members

are making it work, figuring out

creative solutions and really in-

teresting integration,” she says.

“I’ve worked longer hours

er couple of dozen who had taught online at other institutions.”

over the past month than I

courses a reality. Many who had previous online teaching

tired,” says Wade, who also

The faculty had less than two weeks to make their remote

experience instantly became peer consultants, helping others in their departments. “I feel like faculty have done an amazing

job, pivoting so quickly,” Wade says. “Faculty have to step back and decide what methods and tools are best for their courses, taking into account the size of the class, the type of material

they need to communicate, and the format they are most comfortable teaching in.”

In a remote teaching first-week survey, 85 percent of Emory

College faculty agreed that they had been provided the right

tools and resources to be effective while teaching online. “And 12

EMORY MAGAZINE

SPRING/SUMMER 2020

probably ever have, and I’m has three children at home— ages 5, 8, and 10—that she is homeschooling around

work projects. “For a situation I wish none of us have had to experience, it has also been

one of the most encouraging

and fulfilling times I’ve ever had professionally. I’ve never been more impressed by Emory.”

W

hen Robert Dawson 90C moved to Hawaii on a whim in 2008, he never dreamed he would run a rum distillery. Nor could he have imagined that he would twelve years later convert his operations to produce hand sanitizer for the state of Hawaii during a pandemic.

As COVID-19 panic began to set in across Hawaii, Dawson and his Kō Hana Distillers partner and cofounder, Jason Brand, saw an opportunity for their Oahu-based business to fill a critical supply gap on the island. “We kept hearing about a shortage of hand sanitizer and immediately knew we were in a position to help,” Dawson says.

“After all, the base ingredient for sanitizer is something we and the other two thousand distilleries across the US are already producing.”

Kō Hana is able to convert its still—normally used to produce its signature line of Hawaiian Agricole rum—to yield large batches of high-proof ethyl alcohol (ethanol), the main active ingredient in FDA-approved hand sanitizers and a natural

DISTILLING HOPE IN HAWAII Emory alumnus Robert Dawson has converted his farm-to-table rum distillery to make hand sanitizer, helping fill the gap for this much in-demand resource for fighting the coronavirus pandemic.

BY JAY MOYE

byproduct of the distillation process.

During a normal production run, quantities of ethanol are extracted during the distillation process and either discarded or used as a bespoke disinfectant.

“We usually keep it in spray bottles to clean our equipment,” Dawson says. “We’re honored to put it to good use at such a critical time.”

Dawson and his business partner reached out to the governor’s office for help in organizing a “hui”—a local coalition of complementary partners—to help produce, package, and distribute hand sanitizer to hospitals, first responders, correctional facilities, homeless shelters, food banks, nursing homes, and schools at no cost.

The state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs assisted Kō Hana and the Hawaii Agricultural Research Center in navigating the stringent regulatory approval process.

“We knew we wanted to do this completely aboveboard,” Dawson says. “Thanks to the governor’s office, we were able to secure a temporary FDA license as an over-the-counter drug manufacturer.”

The crew cranked out three hundred gallons of sanitizer in the first two weeks to send to the state for distribution in half-gallon jugs, as well as sixteen-ounce and personal-sized bottles.

The distillery is pulling double duty, alternating batches of ethanol and its rum for the foreseeable future. A local pharmaceutical lab is providing technical guidance, a food-service distributor is supplying bottles, and a printing company is donating the labels.

“It’s been really inspiring to have everyone come together in a time of need and donate their time and materials to the project pro bono,” Dawson says. “We’re all in this together.”

Student Leaders Help SORT the Volunteer Response A DY N A M I C D U O O F F U T U R E E P I D E M I O LO G I S T S F RO M RO L L I N S GET HANDS-ON EXPERIENCE IN DEALING WITH A MAJOR P U B L I C H E A LT H E M E R G E N CY.

BY MARTHA MCKENZIE

K

atelin Reishus 21MPH and

Paige Harton 21MPH had only

fulfill various administrative tasks.

“Katelin and Paige have been

been at Rollins School of Public

remarkable student leaders during

decided to join the Student Outbreak

says Allison Chamberlain, acting

Health for a few months when they and Response Team (SORT)—an

organization founded shortly after

9/11 to provide students with handson experience responding to public health emergencies. Both of them

this unprecedentedly hard time,” director of the Emory Center for

Public Health Preparedness and

Research and SORT’s academic adviser.

Reishus carves about twen-

were studying epidemiology and po-

ty hours a week out of her now

to emergency preparedness. Joining

help the GDPH monitor suspect-

tentially interested in a career related SORT, which today they serve as

copresidents, seemed to be a good fit. Neither Harton nor Reishus had

any idea the opportunity they were about to get.

Reishus was already working with

the Georgia Department of Public Health (GDPH) for her work-study

job when news of COVID-19 began to circulate. “In January, they were

online public health studies to

ed COVID-19 cases, coordinate requests for testing, and field

questions coming into a virtual call center. But today she does this

nearly eight hundred miles away at her family’s home in Dallas. “We’re

all sheltering in place, working from home, and trying to make the best of it,” she says.

Harton, meanwhile, has stayed

starting to prepare for the possibility

put and volunteers her free time

US,” she says. “They asked me to

center and acting as a Fulton Coun-

of the coronavirus coming to the

coordinate volunteers from SORT to help with the response.”

Soon, other organizations were

reaching out. Reishus and Parton coordinated sending SORT volunteers to the Centers for Disease Control

fielding calls for the CDC’s virtual call ty Medical Reserve Corps volunteer coordinator—all from the one-bed-

room Atlanta apartment she shares

with her husband and newly adopted Australian Shepherd puppy.

For both Reishus and Harton,

and Prevention (CDC), the Fulton

leading SORT through the pandem-

University Hospital to field questions

“Engaging in a real-world public

County Board of Health, and Emory

in call centers, help forecast personal protective equipment needs, and

SPRING/SUMMER 2020

ic has affirmed their career goals.

health emergency has been an in-

credible experience,” Reishus says.

EMORY MAGAZINE

1 3

OUR S U S TA I N A B L E F U T U R E

A BETTER WORLD

BUILT TO LAST SUSTAINABILITY AND RESILIENCY have long been core tenets of Emory’s mission to serve humanity with compassion and impact. Find out how the university is empowering and preparing its people—faculty, staff, students, and alumni—to make the Earth not only a better place for all, but also one that has a bright and lasting future.

BY KELLEY FREUND

S U S TA I N A B I L I T Y

BY THE NUMBERS

30

EMORY RANKS IN THE TOP

PHOTOGRAPHY GETTY IMAGES / STEPHEN NOWLAND

At

Emory, sustainability is far more than well-intentioned words or immeasurable goals written down on a page only to get filed away. No, sustainability means putting concrete ideas and intentions straight to work with a sense of urgency. It’s practicing what we teach. And it’s making an impact across all of humanity’s basic needs—air, food, water, shelter, and more.

The physical signs of the commitment are everywhere at the university, from the hundreds of trees that make Emory “a campus in the forest,” to the educational gardens that provide a safe habitat for pollinators. Here, sustainability is the fruit and vegetables sold at the weekly, on-campus farmer’s market, grown less than an hour down the highway at the university’s Oxford Organic Farm, or by local farm-to-table vendors.

In fact, nearly 40 percent of what is served in Emory Dining locations is currently sourced locally and/or sustainably—and efforts are underway to increase that number to 75 percent by 2025. You can even eat your French fries from the cafeteria guilt-free: The cooking oil is used to make a biofuel blend that powers the Cliff Shuttle System, one of the largest private transit systems in metro Atlanta, which takes 3 million car trips off the road each year.

The cutting-edge wastewater recycling facility on the Atlanta campus—called the WaterHub—is the first of its kind in the United States and has become a global model for the treatment and reuse of water, recycling nearly four hundred thousand gallons of raw sewage daily to produce water clean enough to flush toilets and heat and cool Emory’s buildings. Thousands of people have toured the facility since it opened in 2015, from Apple’s head of sustainability to the minister of infrastructure for Rwanda. (See more about the WaterHub on page 30.)

Meanwhile, more than 70 percent of campus waste is now diverted from landfills as part of Emory’s Zero Landfill Waste effort.

Walk across campus and you’ll find no landfill waste containers in any exterior space. And, inside Emory buildings, employees daily manage their own deskside waste to optimize proper sorting of these materials for compost and recycling, reducing the burden on

OF THE MOST SUSTAINABLE RESEARCH UNIVERSITIES IN AMERICA ACCORDING TO RATINGS BY THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SUSTAINABILITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION

TOTAL ENERGY CONSUMPTION HAS BEEN REDUCED BY

9%

SINCE 2015

BY 2025 THE GOAL IS TO CUT IT BY

25%

SINCE 2010 CAMPUS GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS DROPPED

26%

EMORY FACULTY HAVE CREATED OR MODIFIED MORE THAN

400 40

COURSES IN SUSTAINABILITY SUNNY DAYS Under the guidance of Ciannat Howett 87C, Emory’s founding director of the Office of Sustainability Initiatives, the university has made great strides in making sustainability and resilience a top priority on campus and in local communities.

SPRING/SUMMER 2020

ACROSS

ACADEMIC DEPARTMENTS

EMORY MAGAZINE

1 5

landfills and their surrounding neighborhoods.

Still, sustainability doesn’t just manifest itself physically. It’s also a driving purpose that pervades the university’s classrooms and laboratories.

Emory faculty are continuously developing and adapting curricula to anticipate the challenges of climate change, finite natural resources, social injustice, and much more. Students of all levels have opportunities to learn from and work alongside faculty on topics ranging

ECOLOGICAL EDUCATION Famer and educator Daniel Parson teaches Emory students at Oxford Organic Farm.

from air pollution to food ethics to public health. By offering more than four hundred courses across forty academic departments related to sustainability, the university is graduating future leaders who well understand these issues and are prepared to tackle them head-on.

For all of these reasons and more, Emory today ranks among the top thirty most sustainable research universities in the nation, based on a rating given by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education.

“Sustainability allows Emory to walk our talk in a very concrete way,” says Ciannat Howett 87C, the university’s associate vice president for resilience, sustainability, and economic inclusion. “It’s our ethics made manifest through the buildings we build, the transportation choices we make, the way we’re designing our campus, and the research we’re doing.”

Indeed, Emory’s commitment to sustainability aligns with its mission of creating positive transformation by educating new generations of ethically engaged leaders.

16

EMORY MAGAZINE

SPRING/SUMMER 2020

BACK TO THE START

But once upon a time, all of these efforts—now Emory mainstays—were in fact just words on a page—visions of what could be. In summer 1999, a small group of interested faculty, staff, and students—twenty-one to be exact—met for the first time to discuss sustainability issues on campus.

At the time, a decision to build a road through a long-standing forest area near the beautiful Lullwater Preserve generated some outrage on campus. That’s when Peggy Barlett, now retiring Goodrich C. White Professor of Anthropology, decided to form a committee that would steadily work towards managing campus change. They started by pulling invasive English ivy from Baker Woodland, took walks to learn about the local impact on environmental processes, and raised awareness about environmental issues on campus.

Two years later, Barlett helped to launch the Piedmont Project, a faculty development program that began to infuse sustainability and environmental issues throughout the university curriculum. The project laid the foundation for the adoption of a number of sustainability initiatives.

In 2005, university administrators took the next step and crafted its first ten-year vision focused on optimizing Emory’s environmental

LEADING IN LEED BUILDINGS The

new Emory Student Center earned the university’s first platinum LEED

(Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) rating—a designa-

tion that represents the pinnacle of

energy efficiency and sustainability practices in building design and

construction. In total, more than 3.7 million gross square feet of facility

space at Emory reside in thirty-six LEED-certified Atlanta campus,

Oxford College and Emory Healthcare buildings.

FOOD FOR THOUGHTFULNESS

The Oxford Organic Farm at Emory, one of the top thirty sustainable college-run farms in the nation,

cultivates food for Oxford Dining,

Emory Dining, Emory Farmers Market, and a robust community agriculture

subscription program. Nearly 40 percent of food served in Emory Dining Locations on campus is sourced locally and/or sustainably.

impact. Their commitment took the grassroots movement started by that small group of staff, faculty, and students, and formally turned sustainability into a fundamental principle of the university.

PH O T O G R A PH Y DA N I E L C R E A SY / K AY H I N TO N / S T E P H E N N OW L A N D

LOOKING TOWARD THE FUTURE

In 2015, Emory created its second ten-year vision statement—the 2025 Sustainability Vision—and set lofty goals to cement its status as a sustainability leader. During the past two decades, key building blocks have been put in place to create a more sustainable university—but Ciannat Howett, who has served as Emory’s founding director of the Office of Sustainability Initiatives since 2006, says the university still has miles to go.

In just five years from now, Emory hopes to have all non-potable water needs across the university to be supplied by recycled rain and wastewater. To reduce total energy use by 50 percent per square foot, the university will continue to explore options in solar energy and renewable energy microgrids. And by 2025, the university hopes to divert 95 percent of nonconstruction waste from municipal waste landfills.

And any new construction will be carbon neutral.

“Creating a sustainable campus is a journey,” Howett says.

“There’s no resting on our laurels.”

The thing Howett is most proud of regarding Emory’s approach to our world’s environmental crises is that the university is not satisfied in merely pointing out that sustainability issues are real and scary.

“We’re not just researching and writing reports, and then telling everyone else what to do,” Howett says. “We are implementing best practices ourselves, trying new things, embracing a freedom-to-fail mindset. We are an educational institution, after all. And if we aren’t willing to try things and learn and learn and learn, nobody else is going to do it.”

CLIMATE @EMORY CHANGE STRATEGIST Daniel Rochberg serves as Climate@Emory’s

chief strategy officer.

THERE’S IRREFUTABLE PROOF THAT THE EARTH IS GETTING WARMER, sea levels are rising, and weather is

becoming more extreme and unpredictable. Climate change is one of the most critical issues facing our world today, with its

effects impacting billions of people. In 2013, Emory launched

an initiative called Climate@Emory that draws on the expertise of hundreds of faculty members and students to advance climate change solutions at Emory and beyond.

“The goal of Climate@Emory is to take three of the things

that universities do well—teaching, research, and community

engagement—and apply them to climate change so that we can

do our part to make a difference on one of the defining challenges of this century,” says Daniel Rochberg, who has served as the program’s chief strategy officer for the past five years.

One of Climate@Emory’s flagship efforts is the Georgia

Climate Project, a consortium on climate change anchored

by nine of the state’s academic institutions. Since its launch in

May 2018, the project has convened a 430-person conference with attendees from more than 180 organizations, launched a

site that takes visitors on a virtual tour of state climate impacts, and developed a forty-question “research roadmap,” whose answers will benefit policymakers and practitioners.

In addition, Climate@Emory paved the way for the university

Read on to learn more about how Emory’s researchers, students, and alumni are

AIR

water

making a sustainable impact on: THE AIR WE BREATHE, THE FOOD WE EAT, THE WATER WE DRINK, and

food

s h e lt e r

THE SHELTERS WE BUILD.

to become accredited as an official observer to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 2014, and it has sent delegations to the Conference of the Parties (COP)

since 2015. Emory is one of only fifty American universities with official observer status at the COP each year. As part of the

Emory COP delegation and related initiatives, students can participate in a yearlong interdisciplinary course that emphasizes collaboration, knowledge, communication, and advocacy.

Another project, the Climate and Health Research Incuba-

tor, was recently launched by Rollins School of Public Health

to pursue projects that leverage Emory’s strengths in health,

development, and the environmental sciences.—Kelley Freund

SPRING/SUMMER 2020

EMORY MAGAZINE

1 7

AIR

BY CAROL CLARK AND APRIL HUNT

18

EMORY MAGAZINE

SPRING 2020

P IM PH HO OT TO OG GR RA AP PH HY Y G K EA TY THYI N TA OG NE S / K AY H I N T O N

TRACKING DOWN AIR POLLUTION’S

The COVID-19 pandemic shutdown has created a unique, natural experiment for Emory researcher Eri Saikawa

P H O T O G R A P H Y K AY H I N TO N

and her students.

or years, Eri Saikawa has tracked growing levels of dangerous greenhouse gases and researched ways to reduce them. As an associate professor in Emory’s Department of Environmental Sciences, she trains students to do the same. Together, they’ve held conferences, published papers, and served as delegates at the annual United Nations global climate talks.

Now the COVID-19 lockdowns have slashed air pollution levels faster than Saikawa or her students could have imagined. First in China, where COVID-19 was reported in December, then across Europe, and now in the United States.

“It’s an interesting natural experiment, for sure,” says Saikawa, an expert in public policy and the science of emissions linked to global warming. “Since not every industry has shut down, it may help us to better understand what emissions are coming from what sources. That could help guide the best strategies to improve air quality when the pandemic is over.”

This natural experiment has now become the focal point for Saikawa’s class Introduction to Atmospheric Chemistry. Previously, the students were set to do outreach projects for the Atlanta Science Festival, at K–12 schools and in Atlanta neighborhoods. COVID-19 changed those plans as the festival and other events were cancelled, and schools and universities shifted to remote learning.

FORCE OF NATURE

Emory’s Eri Saikawa is a global thought leader in air pollution and climate change public policy.

SPRING 2020 EMORY MAGAZINE

1 9

BEATING THE CITY HEAT PROJECT SCIENTIST, NATIONAL CENTER FOR ATMOSPHERIC RESEARCH

When summer heat

work on indoor heat and health

digits in the fourth-

O’Lenick says.

indexes soar into triple most populous US city, alumna

is currently under peer review,”

Nevertheless, she’s encour-

Cassie O’Lenick’s mission is

aged that her findings can make

O’Lenick, a project scientist with

and other urban areas.

clear: Help the most vulnerable. the National Center for Atmo-

life-saving differences in Houston At NCAR, O’Lenick also

spheric Research (NCAR), has

coordinates a research initiative

extreme heat and air pollution on

Innovator program where she

examined the health impacts of

the elderly population in Houston since late 2016.

NCAR research uncovered

that although air conditioner

access is widespread in Houston, certain populations either don’t have air conditioning or

don’t have the resources to use it

consistently and at a comfortable temperature. The project study,

called Heat and Ozone in Metro-

politan Environments: Assessing

called the Early Career Faculty works closely with university

professors and their students to

guide new research opportunities with NCAR scientists. Entering

its second year, the program had

been gearing up to host nine uni-

versity faculty members and their graduate students at NCAR for three months this summer, but

that’s been put on hold because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Even though we will not be

Indoor Risks (HOME-AIR), also

together this summer, we are

the built environment, and health

grant proposals, and making

looks closely at climatic variability, effects. “I was brought onto the

HOME-AIR study as an environmental epidemiologist, and our

20

EMORY MAGAZINE

collaborating remotely, preparing impressive progress on their reseearch,” O’Lenick says.

—Brian Hudgins

SPRING/SUMMER 2020

Saikawa is now asking her students to track current greenhouse gas emissions and air pollutants and compare them with levels for the same period in previous years, based on data from the US Environmental Protection Agency and global sources.

“The students will be among the first to study this,” Saikawa says. “That’s so much different than answering questions from a textbook. When you’re doing actual science, unexpected things happen that open up new questions. The students will be taking on real questions as they come up in real time.”

At the end of the class, in early May, plans called for the students to hold a webinar so that anyone interested in learning how the novel coronavirus impacted air quality and climate change could tune in and learn from it.

PINPOINTING THE GLOBAL IMPACT The pandemic also affected projects of Saikawa’s graduate students in Asia. Her lab has collaborations with universities in Nanjing, China, Tokyo, Japan, and Yongsei, South Korea.

“Our focus was looking at air emissions in East Asia in relation to climate change,” Saikawa says.

“Now we are broadening that to also look at how a pandemic affects air quality, climate, and economies.”

The researchers may be better able to pinpoint the impact of emissions from different sectors, including industries that are major users of fossil fuels, such as steel-making, oil, natural gas, and mining; electricity and other sources of power; and transportation in the form of motor vehicles, shipping, and tractors.

“China is the largest emitter in the world of carbon dioxide and most other air pollutants,” Saikawa says.

Even with the dramatic drop in pollution, as China ground nearly to a halt following the initial outbreak of COVID-19, the country had dangerously high levels of air pollution on some days. “That shows that the background level of pollution is really high, and how far China needs to go to clean its air,” Saikawa says.

She worries that all the gains made around the world could boomerang into even worse conditions than previous norms if economies go into overdrive to recover. The 2020 UN climate talks, set for Scotland in November, have been postponed until 2021. The conference venue in Glasgow where the conference was to be held has been used as a field hospital for patients with COVID-19.

PH O T O G R A PH Y K AY H I N TO N / S T E P H E N N OW L A N D

CASSIE O’LENICK 16G

data on demand. The hope is they can And the US Environmental Protection Agency recently announced continue the work when in-person classes resume. a sweeping waiver of its enforcement For research purposes, the project of regulations, due to the pandemic. offers Saikawa a new “Those that are hardway of exploring the est hit by the effects of sources and magnitudes the pandemic are those ur focus was of emissions linked to who are the most vulnerair pollution and global able in society,” Saikawa looking at warming. The emphasis says. “The suspension on collaboration across of environmental laws air emissions in the natural and social makes them even more sciences creates the vulnerable.”

East Asia. opportunity to turn ONGOING research into action.

Now we are EMISSIONS A computer science EFFORTS major because of her broadening that interest in data, Momo Prior to the pandemic to also look at Rutkin 20C joined Air lockdown, Eri Saikawa Emory at the start of her was leading her team how a pandemic junior year with plans to of “Air Emory” students clean the sensors’ code. on a project to install affects air She went on to tinker monitors and report air with ways to lower the quality from atop the quality, climate, price of the sensors Mathematics and Science while making them Center Building. Three and economies.” wireless, and helped of the six additional create the new app. planned devices were She just graduated in May—with planned to go up around campus a second major in environmental this spring and summer, and they science—most proud of community had created an app that shares the

CLEARING THE CALIFORNIAN AIR LAILA ATALLA 16C AIR POLLUTION SPECIALIST CALIFORNIA AIR RESOURCES BOARD

“O

For alumna Laila Atalla, clean air

isn’t just a matter of fighting pollution. It’s also a matter of environ-

mental justice. As an air pollution specialist

for the California Air Resources Board, Atalla works to help economically disadvantaged communities cope with the disproportionate burden they bear from environmental impacts.

Through the Cap-and-Trade program,

California charges companies for the polTHE AIR APPARENT Air Emory students helped install air quality sensors on campus last year, including on top of the Mathematics and Science Center Building.

lution they put into the air and then invests that money into the California Climate

Investments program. This approach has

funded many successful efforts, such as the Low-Income Weatherization program, which helped state residents reduce their energy use and costs, Atalla says.

“Working on the California Climate

Investments program is my dream job,” Atalla says. “The program is truly innovative, and

it yields positive, life-changing results. Capand-Trade has had wide-ranging impact,

from investing in clean energy initiatives to

funding transit-oriented affordable housing that helps people live closer to their jobs.”

—Brian Hudgins

YANG LIU ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH

How can data from

over a dozen global megaci-

air quality and human health

used to impact

mingham-Huntsville complex.

fires, and ambient air pollu-

outer space be

human health? NASA’s MultiAngle Imager for Aerosols

(MAIA) mission will study how different types of airborne

particles affect human health over the short term, long

term, and during pregnancy.

“This is the first time NASA

has ‘baked’ societal benefits

ties, including the Atlanta-BirThe maps will distinguish

between such pollutants as

sulfate particles from power

plant emissions, nitrates from

“More than 90 percent

breathes polluted air, which adverse health outcomes,” Liu says.

The pollution maps will

Liu helms an Emory team

be combined with population

consortium of scientists and

tential connections between

that is part of an international health organizations designing and implementing the

scientific objectives of the

$100 million MAIA mission,

which is scheduled to launch in 2022.

Under Liu’s leadership,

Emory’s team secured $2.1

million of the research budget to create algorithms that will

convert MAIA’s satellite imagery from low-Earth orbit into maps of air pollution com-

position and concentrations 22

His team has tested nov-

tandem with MAIA’s space-

combustion and wildfires.

is associated with numerous

An expert on air pollution,

on the ground.

sources, including fossil fuel

Yang Liu, associate professor Environmental Health.

has also kept one foot solidly

el designs for ground pollu-

carbon from a few different

of the world population

in Emory’s Department of

tion. But, at the same time, he

traffic emissions, and organic

and public health applications into a mission’s DNA,” says

related to extreme heat, wild-

health records to assess posite-specific particulate

mixes and health problems

such as cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. “We

tion sensors to be used in

based data. He’s dynamically downscaling climate models so that air quality measures can be analyzed on a much smaller geographic basis

that’s far more relevant for

local health policy decisions.

And his lab is also develop-

ing algorithms for integrating satellite-based models with

data from the rapidly growing number of low-cost ground pollution sensors coming online.

“Communities put up

selected the Atlanta region

their own monitoring net-

unique combination of parti-

pertise to analyze the data,”

because the Southeast has a cles, a robust base of health

datasets, and a strong cohort of epidemiologists to analyze the data,” Liu says.

Liu has previously used

satellite data to study the

impact of climate change on

EMORY MAGAZINE

SPRING/SUMMER 2020

works, but they lack the exhe says. “We’re developing

tools for them to clean and

benefit from their data. This has pretty significant impli-

cations in the citizen-science movement.”

—Kristin Baird Rattini

PH O T O G R A PH Y K AY H I N TO N

MAPPING EMISSIONS’ IMPACT— FROM SPACE

workshops planned to show Atlantans how to build and install their own sensors.

“I always knew I wanted to use technology for some positive impact, but I wasn’t sure how,” Rutkin says. “Now I’ve done something that contributes to people being more informed about how they go about their daily lives.”

Saikawa knows about that kind of impact. Although not directly tied to her emissions work, she also leads a team of Emory researchers working with residents in Atlanta’s Westside community to test urban soil for contaminants.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency launched a site investigation after the team found elevated levels of lead in the soil. Saikawa’s team is continuing to test in the area, while two of her master’s degree students are studying how different plants could help absorb some contaminants.

“We found that slag, the waste material from smelting, was causing high lead contamination,” she says. “The source that pollutes the air can also contaminate the soil.”

The focus on emissions is more direct in Saikawa’s other ongoing project, trying to create an early warning system that would alert the public about dangerous air pollution levels in the Hindu-Kush-Himalayan region of Nepal.

Students in Air Emory also are helping with that project, which will examine troves of meteorological and emission data across the region. Saikawa won a Microsoft AI for Earth grant last year, which provides the computational resources and support for the machine learning needed for that work.

For Yanbo Wang 21C, a rising senior studying applied math and statistics, the work six thousand miles away is just as personal as the work in Atlanta. Wang attended high school in Beijing and saw firsthand how bad the air pollution could become there.

“It’s interesting to think about this data as a health concern,” he says. “When you do, you can see why it’s a very important issue for us to understand and solve.”

Machine learning will help Saikawa sort and analyze the massive amounts of data for the early warning system. But once Air Emory’s team is able to make the Atlanta sensors efficiently solar powered, Saikawa will integrate them in that project, too.

“It’s very exciting, to learn together as we go,” she says.

WHERE THERE’S SMOKE Emory researchers such as Wesley Longhofer

continually look for ways to track and reduce air pollution.

‘GINI’ IN THE SMOKESTACK WESLEY LONGHOFER ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT

Forget the genie

at every fossil fuel-burning

Wesley Longhofer,

a sociological perspective.

in a bottle. For

it’s all about the “Gini” in the smokestack. An associate professor of organization

and management in Emory’s Goizueta Business School,

power plant in the world from Countries with a high Gini score emit more carbon

overall, but Longhofer and

his two collaborators found

fascinating contextual differences among nations.

Longhofer has adapted

For example, former

the Gini index—which

usually measures wealth

Soviet nations that joined

disproportionality of carbon

their emissions to meet EU

distribution—to evaluate the emissions across a nation’s

power plants. The higher the number, the fewer the plants accounting for the bulk of that country’s emissions.

“If a country with high dis-

the European Union lowered guidelines. “That tells us a lot

about how regional economic and political integration can

help mitigate climate change,” he says.

And the more connected

proportionality could target

a country to the global envi-

at the extreme end and

treaties or nongovernmental

this small set of power plants

organizations (NGOs)—the

get them to burn fuel more

efficiently,” Longhofer says,

“it can go a long way toward

reducing the sector’s overall climate impact.”

Tackling the World’s Largest Sites of Climate-Disrupt-

University Press, 2020), looks SPRING/SUMMER 2020

more likely it is to reduce emissions. “If we can get developing countries to

participate in these global

institutions,” he says, “maybe

Longhofer’s upcom-

ing book Super Polluters:

ing Emissions (Columbia

ronmental movement—via

they could grow their economies in more sustainable

ways that aren’t as harmful to the environment.”

—Kristin Baird Rattini

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PH O T O G R A PH Y K AY H I N TO N

FARMIN

Emory and the Conservation Fund are collaborating to build a pipeline for local,

24

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SPRING/SUMMER 2020

G

FOR THE

food

P H O T O G R A P H Y K AY H I N TO N

BY KIMBER WILLIAMS

A

s farmers go, you might consider Joe Reynolds “nextgen”—he didn’t grow up farming, didn’t inherit the rusty Georgia soil that he now works. In fact, for more than a decade he’s been raising organic crops on leased land—first in Douglasville, and more recently at East Lake Commons, a co-housing community in Decatur.

That places him among an emerging wave of “landless farmers,” a new generation of agricultural entrepreneurs with the will and skill to farm who lack a pathway to buying their own land outright.

However, a pioneering partnership between Emory University and the Conservation Fund is working to break down barriers

sustainable food production and create the next generation of growers.

SPRING/SUMMER 2020

EMORY MAGAZINE

2 5

to land ownership through a new, innovative program designed to support next-generation Georgia farmers and boost the supply of fresh, local, sustainably grown food for Emory’s campus and hospital communities.

IT WORKS LIKE THIS Through the Working Farms Fund initiative, the Conservation Fund will purchase farmland within a one hundred–mile radius of metro Atlanta, place conservation easements to permanently protect it from development and harmful environmental practices, and lease the land to farmers with a ten-year pathway to ownership, selling it to them at the end of their lease.

Not only will the program help unlock capital—especially for new, emerging, and underrepresented farmers—it will also safeguard existing farmland across a twenty-three county region surrounding Atlanta, securing farms for generations to come. Proceeds will be used to acquire more land, a revolving-fund model that will help grow the program and strengthen local foodways.

In turn, Emory will enter into food purchase agreements with those farmers —advance commitments to buy their sustainably raised crops and livestock that allow the university to 26

EMORY MAGAZINE

GETTING YOUR HANDS DIRTY Emory’s Oxford Organic Farm provides a hands-on educational experience for

students across disciplines.

purchase more fresh, local food at a savings. Those agreements provide a safety net for participating farmers, who can then use the university’s contractual commitment as bank-loan collateral for financing equipment, infrastructure, and other farm needs.

“We wanted to send a signal to farmers: If you grow sustainable food locally here in Georgia, we will buy it,” says Ciannat Howett 87C, associate vice president for resilience, sustainability, and economic Inclusion at Emory.

“Emory’s partnership with the Conservation Fund will ensure that farmers have a reliable market for their crops, while improving healthy and sustainable food options for our students, faculty, SPRING/SUMMER 2020

patients, and employees,” Howett says. “Together we can create an innovative new model for funding sustainable agriculture in our region.”

That will go far in helping Emory reach its own ambitious sustainability goal of procuring 75 percent of food served on campus—and 25 percent in hospitals—from local or sustainably grown sources by 2025, a critical underlying driver for the new initiative.

Contributing to a sustainable food system is deeply woven into the university’s sustainability vision. Sustainably produced foods help support environmental health, worker welfare, and wages, as well as preserve farm viability; working with

local providers also reduces the impacts of transportation, helping to lower the university’s carbon footprint, Howett says.

“Helping increase local food production is good for everyone,” she insists.

“Our sustainability goals also call for us to have a resilience plan—the ability to guard against disruptions to our supply chain.

With climate change, you need to think about food access, including what it could mean for Atlanta and Emory.”

Recently, the emerging coronavirus pandemic “has revealed many vulnerabilities in our food supply chain, and this program is a means to address that issue,” she adds.

Emory already employs a food purchase agreement

Recently, the emerging coronavirus pandemic “has revealed many vulnerabilities in our food supply chain, and this program is a means to

PHOTOGRAPHY KAKY HINTON / BECKY STEIN

address that issue.” with the university’s Oxford College organic farm, an eleven-acre field—donated by alumnus Trulock Dickson 72Ox 74C—adjacent to the Oxford campus that annually produces about twenty-five thousand pounds of fresh, healthy food for Oxford and Emory dining halls, CSAs, and farmers markets, as well as providing hands-on learning opportunities for students across many disciplines.

Expanding new food purchase agreements will also allow Emory faculty and students to conduct research with participating farms—from studying carbon sequestration, climate mitigation, and climate-smart agricultural practices to public health issues and purchasing models, notes Howett.

Since announcing the partnership last fall, the Conservation Fund has received a flood of

inquiries, from individuals interested in selling land or signing on to be a farmer in the program, to universities and institutions eager to replicate it. And within a few months, a database of about fifteen to twenty interested participants is already taking shape; some now lease farmland, others work existing farms and are poised to expand operations to help meet Emory’s needs, says Working Farms Fund Codirector Stacy Funderburke, who hopes to have at least five farms signed and operating by year’s end.

“There’s been tremendous interest,” Funderburke says. “I probably get, on average, a call a week about a new farmer interested in the program or supportive of what we’re doing, or existing operations interested in talking about Emory’s sustainability requirements, which is heartening.

Emory is a huge part of laying the groundwork for this—leading the way and setting precedent for how an institutional food buyer can do this. And it’s already paying huge dividends.”

Not only is the university helping draft templates for food procurement and long-term lease agreements for regional farmers, Emory has also lent instant credibility to the program, which should, in turn, help attract other large companies and universities. “Any

PLIGHT OF THE BUMBLEBEE BERRY BROSI DISTINGUISHED ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES There are more than species decreased their

floral fidelity, meaning they

twenty thousand

visited multiple different

species of bees

plant species instead of just

on Earth, more than birds

one. “This really matters,”

and mammals combined.

Brosi says. “Plants need to

So what’s the problem if one disappears? Berry

Brosi, Winship Distinguished Associate Professor in the

Department of Environmental Sciences, studies how

have pollen from the same species to be pollinated.

More of the wrong pollen

grains were deposited on flowers, which ultimately produced fewer seeds.”

bee communities react to

Writ large, that could

disturbances in both their

composition and their en-

possibly result in decreased

impacts of those disrup-

study at the Colorado lab is

crop production. Another

vironment and the potential

examining how accelerated

tions on agriculture and the

snowmelt might also impact

global food supply. “That’s

important, given the ongoing pollination.

Brosi is also investigating

environmental changes

current hive management

we’re experiencing around

practices for the European

the world,” Brosi says.

honeybee, the primary agri-

During his decade of

research at the Rocky Moun- cultural pollinator worldwide. tain Biological Laboratory in

He found that increasing a

tuned the science of DNA

diversity and selecting for

colony’s dietary and genetic

Colorado, Brosi has fine-

bees with higher resistance

metabarcoding of pollen,

which enables him to ana-

lyze the diets of bees. When he temporarily removed the

to parasites can contribute

to the health of this declining keystone species vital to the

most abundant of the eleven world’s food supply. bumblebee species from a

research plot, the remaining SPRING/SUMMER 2020

—Kristin Baird Rattini

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IN SEARCH OF THE LOW-EMISSION CHICKEN GILES SHIH 99G COFOUNDER, CHAIRMAN AND CEO OF BRI Giles Shih and his father

started BRI twenty years ago

to create bio-based products

that would help chickens, pigs, and other

livestock healthier in a sustainable way— without antibiotics. “We saw an opportunity to bring technology and innovation

from the laboratory into the marketplace,” Shih says. “We manufacture a feed addi-

tive that is sustainable for animals, people, and the environment. The animals absorb more nutrients and grow faster.”

Shih says that they are aiming for

a “low-emission chicken”—one that

excretes less waste and has a lower en-

vironmental impact, while providing more egg or meat protein.

BRI’s ultimate goal is to help farmers

grow healthier livestock on less feed. The company has worked with some of the largest poultry companies around the world in developing their products.

“Companies like the Tysons and

end users,” Shih says. “They are trying to optimize their yield and production while

also maintaining the health and well-being of their animals, especially in an age of in-

creasing awareness of food safety issues and focus on the connections between animal and human health.”

BOUNTEOUS HARVEST

About twenty student workers and more than one hundred volunteers help run the Oxford Organic Farm each academic year.

—Brian Hudgins and Elizabeth Cobb Durel 28

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SPRING/SUMMER 2020

PH O T O G R A PH Y K AY H I N TO N

Perdues of the world are our potential

P H O T O G R A P H Y K AY H I N TO N

time we talk to potential farmers or banks they are immediately struck by the power of our partnership with Emory,” Funderburke says.

Much of that foundational work—think basic research and contracts—has been handled by students at Emory School of Law’s Turner Environmental Law Clinic, which each year provides more than four thousand hours of pro bono legal representation to individuals, community groups, and nonprofit organizations seeking to protect and restore the environment.

In fact, it was Emory students who helped draft the initial memorandum of understanding for the collaboration, says Mindy Goldstein, a law professor who directs Emory’s Environmental and Natural Resources Law program and the Turner Environmental Law Clinic.

“This is not happening anywhere else, to the best of our knowledge, so we really have an opportunity to develop a model that could be pushed out across the country,” Goldstein says.

The idea for the Working Farms Fund came about, in part, because the Conservation Fund recognized that development throughout metro Atlanta was bringing with it the rapid destruction of viable agricultural land—more than 25 percent over the past decade.

“Buying land is incredibly hard for anyone, but especially for beginning, young, and minority farmers, who’ve historically found it nearly impossible,” Goldstein says. “Generally, in America, you inherit farmland. Institutional racism often precludes that, and beginning farmers are just not in the pipeline.”

Emory’s role in creating a path forward for those farmers is one aspect of the program that Goldstein finds exciting—building a strong, resilient food system upon a foundation of environmental justice.

The Working Farms Fund partnership should help correct those disparities while creating viable, long-term markets for sustainable food production, stretching well into the future. “We are pushing boundaries,” Funderburke agrees.

“There are a lot of great nonprofit programs to support farmers, conservation, and best practices.

But a program that also provides land access and a ready market, the ability to scale up and expand existing business?” he says. “That’s a dream.”

MINDFUL EATING JONATHAN CRANE RAYMOND F. SCHINAZI SCHOLAR IN BIOETHICS AND JEWISH THOUGHT

JENNIFER AYRES ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF RELIGIOUS STUDIES What goes into your food extends far beyond its

ingredient list. Two Emory associate professors plate up the moral, ethical, and spiritual components of

how and what we eat.

“Religious traditions have tried-and-true wisdom through

thousands of years of experimentation that is corroborated by

contemporary, cutting-edge science,” says Jonathan Crane, Raymond F. Schinazi Scholar in Bioethics and Jewish Thought at the

Emory Center for Ethics. In his book Eating Ethically: Religion and

Science for a Better Diet, Crane reframes our role in the food chain from consumer to eater.

“Consuming originally meant to squander and waste,” he says.

“That’s how the contemporary American food landscape teaches us to eat, in a way that’s inherently wasteful of natural resources and damaging for our bodies. By paying attention to our eating

practices, we reorient ourselves toward internal cues, rather than

external ones. And as eaters, we can better appreciate what needs to be sustained individually, and collectively, to eat.”

Crane regularly brings students to Emory’s Oxford Organic

Farm for hands-on learning opportunities.

Christian principles underpin the approach to ecology taken

by Jennifer Ayres 07G, associate professor of religious education for Candler School of Theology. “Christians are called morally to live gently on the Earth and to protect what many Christians call

God’s creation,” she says. “In Christianity, the Eucharist has a very

communal meaning. If we reimagine our food production and con-

sumption in relationship to this concept, it deepens our experience of that central religious practice and gives power to the work we do in the world to address imbalances in the food system.”

It’s not just a matter of eating lower down the food chain, Ayres

says, but cooperatively engaging in food production. “Co-ops

teach sustainable agricultural practices, while nurturing the dignity and agency of people when they learn how to provide food for themselves and their communities.”—Kristin Baird Rattini SPRING/SUMMER 2020

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WATER

Institutions around the world are paying close attention to Emory’s cutting-edge WaterHub, which has already reclaimed and recycled more than 300 million gallons of campus wastewater.

By Kimber Williams 30

EMORY MAGAZINE

SPRING/SUMMER 2020

PHOTOGRAPHY S KT AE Y PHHI ENNT ON NO W L A N D

A SMARTER APPROACH TO

“THE WATER HUB

EMORY MAGAZINE

SPRING/SUMMER 2020

EMORY TO BE A GOOD NEIGHBOR AND ALLEVIATE THE BURDEN ON THOSE NEIGHBORHOODS THAT HAVE BEEN HISTORICALLY OVERBURDENED.”

borhoods that have been historically overburdened,” she adds. “Also, why use drinking-quality water in university steam and chiller plants or toilets when recycled water is more than sufficient?

It helps lower energy consumption and reduce Emory’s carbon footprint, because now, we’re not sending water away to be treated, so there is lower embodied carbon.”

The university’s commitment to saving water isn’t new. A number of years ago, Emory officials took a long, hard look at water consumption, determined to double down on

its efforts to further reduce the water being used on campus. However, given the perpetual challenges of Atlanta’s water system, these leaders felt Emory was uniquely positioned to do even more—that it could push the envelope as a national leader in water conservation with new, innovative thinking, Howett says.

“We started scanning the horizon for technologies that would help us cut our water footprint in half and found this process being used in Europe and Southeast Asia,” Howett recalls. “Atlanta is one of the largest municipalities in the country reliant on the smallest watershed—that’s not a sustainable position, so we needed cutting-edge solutions.”

Developed through a private-academic partnership with eco-engineering

RESILIENT LEADERSHIP Ciannat Howett

(left) serves as Emory’s associate vice president for Resilience, Sustainability, and Economic Inclusion and director of the Office of Sustainability Initiatives. She played a critical role in making the WaterHub (below) a reality on campus.

firm Sustainable Water, the WaterHub was constructed on a modest campus footprint, operating within two facilities situated off Peavine Creek Drive. On one side of the road resides what looks like a lush, plant-filled greenhouse, while across the street sit concrete processing tanks that, to the naked eye, appear to be large, ornamental planting beds.

Together, they house a flourishing ecosystem—a dense web of real and synthetic plant roots that support critical microbial habitat for millions of naturally occurring micro-

organisms that digest the organic matter in campus wastewater.

Once water flows through a series of natural earth and plant bioreactors at both sites, it returns to the greenhouse for ultraviolet light sterilization and chlorination. Recycled water is distributed back to campus via a network of distinctive purple pipes, destined for steam and chiller plants—which heat and cool more than seventy buildings—and for toilet flushing in select residence halls, where the reclaimed water is tinted a subtle blue hue.

BREAKING THE ICE JUSTIN BURTON ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, PHYSICS It’s known as a glacial slushy, mosh pit or, for a bit of class,

icebergs, which can extend hundreds of

feet deep, spills out in front of the world’s

boundary. When some icebergs tip over,

forward motion. It’s one of the factors that

ates other calving events. Other calving

largest glaciers and can inhibit their

Justin Burton, an associate professor

in the Department of Physics, is striving to understand better as he researches dynamic ice loss, which occurs at the

boundary between ice and ocean, and

S P R I N G / S U M MSEPRR 2I N 0G 2 02 0 2 0E M O E RM YO MRAYG M A ZAIGNAE Z I N E 3 1 3 1

All told, the treatment cycle—which is quiet and odorless—takes about twelve to eighteen hours.

The system also offers a safety net: In the event of regional water disruptions, a fifty thousand gallon underground emergency clean water reserve remains available for campus heating and cooling.

“What’s really innovative is this smaller footprint, the idea of decentralized treatment and reuse that is taking place right on this campus—I think it’s our future,” says Christine Moe, Eugene J. Gangarosa Professor of

ice mélange. This granular mix of broken

P H O T O G R A P H Y K AY H I N TO N

P H O T O G R A P H Y K AY H I N TO N

31

IS AN EFFORT BY

PH O T O G R A PH Y K AY H I N TO N

E

very day, colonies of ravenous microorganisms—dwelling within the dense root systems of hydroponically grown plants—help clean and repurpose nearly four hundred thousand gallons of campus wastewater for non-potable uses. They’re just one part of the biological processes that make up Emory’s WaterHub, which in 2015 became the first facility of its kind in the US to harness the power of nature to recycle water for heating laboratories, cooling classrooms, and flushing toilets in residence halls.

Today, the WaterHub provides for nearly 40 percent of Emory’s total campus water needs says Ciannat Howett 87C, associate vice president for resilience, sustainability, and economic inclusion at Emory. “It’s also modeling a more resilient and sustainable alternative to traditional sewage treatment,” Howett says.

At most institutions, sewage is transported miles off-site, usually to poor and frequently minority neighborhoods. The

WaterHub is an important example of “internalizing those externalities,” notes Howett. “Rather than sending sewage away to impact our neighbors with odor, lowered property values, and other impacts, by constructing an aesthetically beautiful, odor-free, water recycling facility, Emory is showing a different approach to an institution managing and taking responsibility for the waste it generates.”

Like the university’s Zero Landfill Waste Policy, “the WaterHub is an effort

by Emory to be a good neighbor and alleviate the burden on those neigh-

accounts for around 30 percent of total ice loss. “That boundary is what’s going

to control the future of large ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica,” he says, “and ultimately control sea level rise.”

Through modeling in his lab, Burton

has identified some of the forces and glacial processes at work along that critical

they cause a domino effect that initi-

icebergs push on the glacier and cause earthquakes, the magnitude of which is influenced by the size and geometry of

the calved iceberg itself. With ice mélange, he’s studying how it not only affects the transport of warm water into the fjords,

but also can inhibit future calving events.

“The less ice there is, the more warming

there will be­–and thus, even less ice,” he

says. “Knowing the amount of ice cover-

age on the planet and predicting its future evolution plays a very important role in climate studies.” —Kristin Baird Rattini

SPRING/SUMMER 2020

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A Closer Look at Emory’s WaterHub

NATURE’S CLEANERS: GREENHOUSE Plants

Emo r y ’ s a c c l a i m e d, o n - s i te wate r re c y c l i ng c e nt e r —w h i ch j us t ce l e b r ate d i t s f i f t h y e a r of o pe r ati o n —h ar n e s s e s t he po we r o f n atur e to cl e an cam pu s wa s t e w a t e r f o r n o n - po tab l e us e s .

Longwood

reduce, reuse

Angel Trumpet

Native Water Canna

Ginger

Umbrella Palm

The WaterHub reduces the draw of potable water from Atlanta’s water supply by up to 146 million gallons annually.

Taro

Scarlet Rosemallow

Elephant Ear

Giant Calla Lily

Mexican Papyrus

HOW IT WORKS Emory’s WaterHub collects wastewater

ROOT POWER

from sites around campus.

Dense greenhouse and wetland plant root mass plus special

It’s pumped through bioreactors that

bio-fabrics provide thriving,

introduce colonies of microbes and then

high-density habitats for

through hydroponic bio-habitats.

microorganisms and beneficial bacteria—including Philodena,

Microorganisms consume nutrients,

Aquatic Earthworms, Rostrifera,

converting blackwater (from toilets)

Collotecha, and Amoeba—that

and gray water (from sinks, showers

break down waste and pollutants.

and dishwashers) into high-quality reclaimed water.

A portion of the water (about 2,500 gallons daily) is pumped to a nearby reciprocating wetland, home to more waste-eating microorganisms.

Moving bed bioreactors are used in the tanks to remove carbonaceous

The treatment

material.

process takes

12 to 18 hours.

A small amount of solid matter (roughly 1.5% of daily flow) is recycled into the sewer system.

Recycled water is clarified, filtered, and disinfected by ultraviolet light.

It’s then distributed through special purple pipes for campus reuse or storage.

PHYSICAL FACILITIES

And just a few hundred feet to

The main WaterHub

the south resides a series of

site is a nearly

underground, hydroponic

2,000-square-foot

processing tanks that look like

greenhouse.

large ornamental planters.

The Wa terHub recycles up to

400,000

of was tewa

NATURE’S CLEANERS: Wetland Plants

N

gallons

ter per day, g nearly

of Emo ry’s

Mallow

Pickerel Weed

Michael Street

total

water n eeds.

Steam Plant

Reusing the Water on Campus

More than 300 million

gallons of wastewater Iris

Mexican Petunia

Duck Potato Lords and Ladies

s

Golden Club

Reclaimed water goes to

have been processed since April 2015.

raoul hall

Emory’s steam plant and three campus chiller plants, as well as select residence

Purple Pipes A network of purple pipes, some 4,400-linear-feet worth, distributes clean,

hall toilets. A 50,000-gallon underground water reserve also provides a safety net for emergencies.

recycled water from the WaterHub across campus for a variety of non-potable uses.

The Woodruff Memorial Research Building Chiller PlanT

quad energy plant

Wastewater first enters the WaterHub system from sewer pipes around campus.

Clifton Road

woodruff library Chiller Plant

Illustrated by Nate Padavick

Acanthus

Arrow Arum

e

supplyin

40 perc ent Common Rush

w

michael street Chiller Plant

“IN CLASS, WE

ONE OF THE DEFINING ISSUES OF THEIR FUTURE.” ONE-OF-A-KIND CLASSROOM Professor Christine Moe

(left) uses the WaterHub as a resource for teaching students.

KEEPING POLLUTION AT BAY SEJAL CHOKSI-CHUGH EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF SAN FRANCISCO BAYKEEPER As the executive

“We’ve identified roughly 1,100 shoreline

director of San Fran-

cisco Baykeeper, Sejal

Choksi-Chugh 96OX 98C heads a

staff of fourteen people charged with stopping pollution and other threats from harming the San Francisco

Bay and its tributaries. The nonprofit

even has a patrol boat and a team of

sites where floods in these areas could deposit

more toxins into the bay,” Choksi-Chugh says. To educate residents about these shoreline threats, her team mounted a Google car camera on a

pontoon boat, sharing imagery of hundreds of

places that could be exposed to flooding due to sea-level rise.

Another important tenet of Baykeeper’s

10 volunteer skippers who regularly

mission is to promote cleaner energy sources.

activities.

coal facility expansion near the Bay,” she says.

monitor pollution and other harmful Baykeeper’s program centers

on two key intersections of science

and law. The first is investigating the

“There are a lot of proposals for oil refinery and “We are doing what we can to block them and fight for clean energy alternatives.”

West Coast water wars are another daily

scope of pollution around the Bay.

battle—with Baykeeper frequently advising

polluters and government agencies

consumption. “Right now, we have more water

The second is holding corporate

accountable to environmental laws

and policies to reduce the pollution.

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locals about the benefits of reduced water

being taken out of the rivers than is healthy,” Choksi-Chugh says. —Brian Hudgins

SPRING/SUMMER 2020

THOMAS CLASEN ROSE SALAMONE GANGAROSA CHAIR IN SANITATION AND SAFE WATER

HIDDEN CLEANERS A recipricating wetland (above) just a few hundred feet from the main WaterHub site houses hydroponic tanks hidden underground.

won fourteen national awards so far, recognizing the project for achievements in innovation, sustainability, environmental performance, construction, engineering, and land use.

And as Moe predicted, it appears that the WaterHub has become a model for other institutions. One week the facility may host visitors from Apple studying it in preparation for the construction of their new corporate campus in Austin, Texas; another week executives with the nonprofit Livable Buckhead tour it interested in how they can apply it to “future-proofing” properties for an era of water shortages.

In fact, Duke University officials have acknowledged plans to construct their own version of the WaterHub, projected to open next year.

“In terms of overall performance, it’s exceeded all expectations,” says Bob Salvatelli, director of business development for Sustainable Water. “As a model home, it’s been a watershed project. We bring clients there all the time—it’s an incredible showcase.”

With the challenges of climate change, Salvatelli anticipates interest in WaterHub technology growing across the next decade. Increasingly, states are already adopting water quality standards for the use of recycled water. Georgia has proven a leader, he adds.

And as water and sewer costs rise, the recycling facility offers a hedge on inflation. To construct the WaterHub, Sustainable Water shouldered all up-front costs to build and operate it.

Emory has a purchase agreement to buy back recycled water.

“Visitors can’t believe we were able to construct this state-of-theart technology with no upfront costs to Emory,” Howett says.

As the facility reaches its fifth anniversary, Howett can’t help but look back to the WaterHub’s opening in April 2015. “It felt like Emory was planting a flag, proclaiming that we are going to be leaders, not followers, in this space,” she says.

“I think the WaterHub represents what is best about Emory,” Howett adds. “In a way, it is our commitment to ethical, courageous leadership made manifest in bricks, mortar, concrete, and steel. That’s what makes me proud: When we say we want to be a place of innovation and discovery and we’re doing it.”

Thomas Clasen’s title says it all. As the Rose

Salamone Gangarosa Chair in Sanitation and Safe Water in Rollins School of Public Health,

he takes a holistic approach to environmental health

interventions in poor rural and informal urban settlements.

“These threats—poor sanitation, unsafe drinking water,

polluted air—all happen to the same people; it’s the same setting,” he says. “We’ve proven you can combine interventions without adversely affecting their adoption and potentially reap synergistic effects between them.”

In more than eleven years of research in Odisha, India,

the most promising program he evaluated piped water

into each household only after everyone in the village had a latrine—reinforcing how sanitation and water quality go hand in hand.

He’s on the leadership team of RISE (Revitalising

Informal Settlements and their Environments), which will guide settlements in Fiji and Indonesia in recycling their

wastewater and creating green space for food production.

In Rwanda, he evaluated a program that gave 104,000

households both a water filter and an improved cook

stove. Diarrhea decreased by 29 percent. While indoor air quality did not markedly improve, the frequency of

acute respiratory infections did. “Our hypothesis is that

the improvements to the gut from the water filter reduced systemic stress,” he says, “and enabled the respiratory system to respond better.”

Clasen just played a key role in shaping the World

Health Organization’s sanitation standards, more than forty years after the organization had passed drinking water standards. “If we get the sanitation right,” he says, “that

makes our job of maintaining the integrity of the water so much easier.” —Kristin Baird Rattini

SPRING/SUMMER 2020

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PH O T O G R A PH Y K AY H I N TO N

WHICH WILL BE

TESTING THE WATERS ON SANITATION

P H O T O G R A P H Y K AY H I N TO N

WATER SCARCITY,

Safe Water and Sanitation in the Rollins School of Public Health (RSPH) and director of the Center for Global Safe Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene at Emory.

“When I take my classes to see this facility, that’s what I tell them,” Moe says. “This is our future. It will be a model,” she adds. “And when visitors to our Center tour the WaterHub, they get excited, because they see the potential for other parts of the world.”

Moe has long used the WaterHub as a living laboratory for Emory students, who were monitoring the microbiology of wastewater samples even as the facility was preparing to launch back in 2015. In her course Water and Sanitation in Developing Countries, students collect and analyze wastewater samples before and after the WaterHub treatment process over a fiveweek period—data that is shared with the WaterHub facilities team—and examine the reduction in bacteria that indicate process efficacy.

Not only does the facility open their eyes to pressing issues, but also for a generation facing significant environmental challenges, the WaterHub offers a rare success story. “In class, we talk about water scarcity, which will be one of the defining issues of their future,” Moe says. “It’s nice to also be able to talk about solutions; it’s important to set that example.”

Since its installation, the WaterHub has drawn international interest from schools and universities, corporations and municipalities. And it’s

PH O T O G R A PH Y K AY H I N TO N

TALK ABOUT

A PASSION FOR RECYCLING KATELYN BOISVERT 20C ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE STUDENT

When senior Katelyn Boisvert talks with middle schoolers

about the science behind what’s going on deep within the root systems of

Emory’s WaterHub, she reaches for language that paints a vivid picture.

try in water awareness,” says Taylor

Spicer, programs manager with Emory’s Office of Sustainability Initiatives, who cofounded the docent program.

During the semester, public stu-

“Sometimes, it’s hard for them to visu-

dent-led tours are offered twice weekly.

it as a buffet line for microbes—an

students a thorough understanding of

alize what they can’t see, so I describe

environment where everything passes through and all the food gets eaten,”

laughs Boisvert, who studies environ-

mental science at Emory College of Arts and Sciences.

For the past two years, Boisvert

has served among a team of Emory

undergraduate and graduate students who work as docents at the Water-

Hub, which has attracted more than

five thousand visitors since the facility

Not only does the program give Emory the facility, it offers a chance to meet

other like-minded students and professionals, serve as a resource to peers

and professors, advocate for community water conservation, and polish their

professional skills. “It’s one thing to listen to someone else talk about the technology, but it requires completely different

skills to be the one describing the benefits and the process,” Spicer admits.

For Boisvert, the WaterHub actually

officially launched in April 2015. At any

helped seal her decision to attend Emo-

lanta area schoolchildren, Emory peers,

for a Woodruff Scholarship and touring

time, the curious may range from AtPH O T O G R A PH Y S T E P H E N N OW L A N D / K AY H I N TO N

engage communities across the coun-

and college students from neighboring

states to architects, facilities managers from universities or municipalities, and Fortune 500 business leaders.

The student docent program

launched less than a year after the

ry. “I was visiting campus as a finalist

the WaterHub was one of our options,”

she recalls. “I think the second I realized what was being done here (with water recycling) was when I realized Emory

was the place I was supposed to be.”

Growing up in Arizona, Boisvert was

WaterHub opened. Since then, about

always aware of water conservation, “so

trained to talk about the acclaimed

doing something about it was incredibly

a dozen Emory students have been water reclamation facility, providing

something well beyond basic information. “The Student Docent program

utilizes the WaterHub as a platform to

finding an institution that was actually exciting,” she says. “And Emory also

PLANT POWER Bananas (above), along with many other plants, grow inside the WaterHub’s main greenhouse facility (top).

had a fully developed Environmental

Sciences program with lots of research opportunities.”—Kimber Williams

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Building a New Model for

RENEWABLE POWER Alumna Sandra Kwak is on a mission to help Haiti ­—and the rest of the world­— by using the power of solar to solve widespread energy and environmental challenges.

BY JAY MOYE

Emory alumna Sandra Kwak 04C has used these words as something of a mantra in her mission to provide renewable energy to the close to one billion people across the globe who don’t have electricity. She founded social impact company 10Power in 2015 to create a new model for human development that provides clean energy and water, regenerates the natural environment, builds local economic opportunity, and empowers women of all ages.

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SPRING/SUMMER 2020

PHOTOGRAPHY C O YU RH TI N ES TY KA TO N OF 10POWER

oted inventor and futurist Buckminster Fuller once wrote: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

P H O T O G R A P H Y K AY H I N TO N

S H E LT E R

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POWER TO THE PEOPLE

“In many ways, my journey through Emory helped seed some of the inspiration driving me and my work with 10Power today,” Kwak says. “I was a rebellious kid, and when I came to Emory, I quickly found my group of renegades on campus and spoke out against global injustices. The university helped make me unafraid to speak truth to power.

Over time I recognized that I can’t swim against the stream and change the system—that in order to drive the massive changes that 42

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the climate crisis demands, I needed to make a change from within. And that’s what I hope we achieve with 10Power.”

Today, San Franciscobased 10Power finances, engineers, and installs commercial-scale solar energy projects in Haiti that customers can pay back over time. Kwak and her team see renewable energy as the gateway to improve lives and build sustainable communities.

An early deep-data dive zeroed in on Haiti as 10Power’s initial focus market. Kwak mapped all countries in the world on three axes respectively charting the cost of electricity, percentage of the population with electricity, and cell phone penetration.

Haiti—the seventh-poorest country in world, where 70 percent of the population lacks access to electricity— clearly stood out.

“Haiti’s economic and political structure is currently collapsing due to dependence on imported SPRING/SUMMER 2020

fossil fuels,” Kwak says.

“Haiti is a precursor for what could happen to our global economy if we don’t invest in climate solutions and start addressing the rich-poor divide now.”

A 10Power team in Port Au Prince sub-contracts with Haitian solar installers to support local economies and employ a workforce directly from the communities being served. The firm has installed solar and energy storage capacity at the UNICEF Haiti headquarters—the largest clean energy project on any UNICEF base in the world—as well as solar panels on two water purification facilities that provide clean drinking water to rural communities and schools. These energy projects support more than six hundred micro enterprises, most of which are operated by women.

Most recently, the company partnered with Tesla’s Give Power Foundation to build a solar-powered water desalination system that will provide clean drinking water to forty thousand people on La Gonave, an island off the coast of Haiti.

‘WE CAN SCALE SUSTAINABILIT Y EXPONENTIALLY’ The 10Power name was inspired by the “each one, teach one” moniker.

“I remember hearing it and thinking, ‘Why not each one, teach ten?’” says Kwak, who serves as the company’s CEO. “If each of us could inspire ten people in a way that’s so impactful that they, in turn, are moved to inspire ten more people, then we can scale solutions from the ground up. We don’t need to wait for institutions to make decisions. We can take power into our own hands and start to shift our system.

We can scale sustainability exponentially.”

Achieving B Corporation certification was part of the 10Power plan from day one, Kwak says. B Corps meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability to use the power of business as a force for good.

“The B Corp framework accurately represents what I stand for as an entrepreneur,” Kwak says. “The common thread for me, and for all of my teammates, has been leading with heart. As with all B Corps, our fiduciary responsibilities come secondary to our social and environmental mission.”

PHOTOGRAPHY COURTEST Y OF 10POWER

(Previous page)10Power Founder/ CEO, Sandra Kwak with Haitian solar partner Fred Brisson at an installation. (Left top) A Haitian team installs a solar project developed and financed by 10Power. (Left bottom) 10Power crew of Haitian solar installers working on a solar project for UNICEF Haiti Headquarters – the largest solar and energy storage on any UNICEF base in the world. Right: 10Power Founder/ CEO, Sandra Kwak

“I wanted to create prosperity without compromising our natural systems’ ability to support life.”

WORKING TOWARD A CARBON-FREE ENERGY SYSTEM

10Power was named a 2019 Best in the World Environment B Corp, and at the COP25 climate conference in Madrid, it announced—along with five hundred other B Corps—a commitment to net zero emissions by 2030. 10Power measures its progress in accordance with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, specifically: • No poverty • Gender empowerment • Affordable, clean energy for all • Climate action now These goals provide a helpful framework for 10Power to both map its impact and guide conversations with investors and NGOs, Kwak says.

Brenda Chew works as the senior

customer-distributed energy resouces—

Electric Power Alliance (SEPA)—a

panels—to benefit the electric grid. She also

manager of research for the Smart nonprofit organization that envi-

BRENDA CHEW 12C

sions a carbon-free US energy system by

SENIOR MANAGER OF RESEARCH, SMART ELECTRIC POWER ALLIANCE

researchers working on a number of

2050. Chew supervises a team of five

addresses the utilities’ role in planning to

cater to evolving customer preferences in adopting new energy technologies.

“It’s a lot more complicated than many

projects, as well as a new effort striving to

would think,” she says.

energy future.

consumers and their technologies—such as

educate the industry and facilitate collab-

and smart home devices—can work with

benchmark utilities’ transition to a clean

Chew and her peers are positioned to

oration between utilities, regulators, and

third parties—with the directive of keeping communication flowing.

“We are politically agnostic and do not

Her work with SEPA also addresses how

Wi-Fi enabled thermostats, electric vehicles, utilities to reduce energy usage at optimal times and ultimately lead to a cleaner and more efficient energy grid.

Chew developed a deeper appreciation

do any advocacy work,” Chew says. “We are

and passion for renewable energy abroad

tives to come together and have productive

United Kingdom. “The Bobby Jones Scholar-

able to get parties from different perspecP H O T O G R A P H Y K AY H I N TO N

including batteries, home devices, and solar

conversations on how we can transition to a carbon-free future. We can’t make

these changes without collaboration and education.”

An emerging business model Chew

routinely discusses with utilities is the use of

during her time spent in both Iceland and the ship I got at Emory enabled me to study and focus on the clean energy and sustainability space in the UK,” Chew says. “I gained an

international perspective and more exposure to the space I’m working in now.”

—Brian Hudgins

SPRING/SUMMER 2020

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MELISSA SMARR ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH

Shampoos, body

the seminal plasma, adversely

personal products

bility, and shape and, therefore,

affecting sperm motility, mo-

washes, and other

reproductive success. Through

may promise great shine and

her work with the HERCULES

fragrance but sometimes deliver something else: harmful chemi-

cals. Melissa Smarr, assistant professor of environmental health in

the Rollins School of Public Health, researches how environmental exposures to chemicals in personal

Exposome Research Center, she’s researching novel ways to assess vaginal exposure to chemicals in relation to various reproductive outcomes.

Her research into persistent

products and other sources might

chemicals, such as PBDEs used

and children’s health.

women exposed to higher levels

affect reproductive, prenatal, fetal, “Some of these chemicals are

short-lived, meaning that the body usually rapidly metabolizes them,” Smarr says. “Because of that, for

a long time, they were overlooked as potential hazards, until people started realizing these are the

chemicals we’re exposed to more frequently.”

Chemical concentrations in

the urine or blood have tradi-

tionally been used as the testing standard. But Smarr discovered significantly higher concentra-

tions of phthalate metabolites in

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as a flame retardant, found that of PBDEs had a significantly

increased risk of developing gestational diabetes. She also found that elevated concentrations of

certain PBDE formulations, called

lower-brominated PBDEs, seemed associated with an increased risk of pregnancy loss.

“So much focus is on air, water,

and soil pollution,” Smarr says. “By

paying more attention to exposure to these chemicals in consumer products, we can promote more

healthy, viable, and equitable communities.” —Kristin Baird Rattini

SPRING/SUMMER 2020

Kwak’s professional path to 10Power was assisted, in part, by the 2008 recession. Not long after finishing her joint bachelor’s degrees in political science and visual art through Emory College of Arts and Sciences, she went on to complete a sustainable MBA from Presidio Graduate School at a time of domestic economic collapse. President Barack Obama’s recovery package outlined measures to modernize the country’s energy infrastructure, including the installation of smart meters.

“Before, utilities would have maybe one meter reading per month, but suddenly they were awash with real-time energy usage data,” Kwak says. “That propelled me into working with big data for the smart grid.”

As director of marketing and ecosystems partnerships for AutoGrid Systems, she helped grow and scale the company—which uses energy data to help utilities balance supply and demand by providing customers with rebates, pricing plans, and energy-saving apps—into a global brand. The move was a logical segue from her prior role as cofounder of Poweroza, a pioneering smart building start-up focused on the commercial sector.

While Kwak’s work at AutoGrid fulfilled her passion for the environment and technology, something was missing. A lifelong organizer and activist, she felt pulled to address social injustices plaguing the world.

“Saving a ton of electricity feels really good,” Kwak says. “But you know what feels even better? Helping the environment while helping people. I knew I wanted to identify a large-scale challenge and use my skill set to make a big impact.”

While manifesting her next step, she reflected on the most rewarding experiences of her life. In grad school, she developed a micro finance model to help organic farmer cooperatives in Nicaragua secure solar-powered irrigation systems.

“That project sparked a big-picture idea to start a clean-energy-for-clean-water enterprise

PHOTOGRAPHY STEPHEN NOWLAND

CHEMICAL EXPOSURES GET PERSONAL

FROM BIG-PICTURE IDEA TO SOCIAL ENTERPRISE

that promotes regenerative development, gender empowerment, and access to technology,” she says. “I wanted to create prosperity without compromising our natural systems’ ability to support life.”

This mindset meshed with emerging movements like Extinction Rebellion and the Green New Deal. “People were beginning to talk about how we can create a more socially just and equitable world while simultaneously reversing climate change,” Kwak says.

P H O T O G R A P H Y A N N WAT S O N

MAKING THE CASE FOR INVESTING IN SUSTAINABILIT Y In fact, 10Power just launched a Renewable Energy Access Donor Advised Fund (DAF) to raise philanthropic capital to underwrite solar loans in “risky” markets like Haiti.

DAFs have come under fire of late, with many seeing the funds as tax shelters for wealthy, would-be philanthropists. Less than 20 percent of the $100 billion currently invested in DAFs goes to charitable causes, Kwak says.

“We’re creating a case study that demonstrates how for-profit social impact enterprises can use DAFs to create pools of capital for businesses like ours to grow and ultimately help solve some of the world’s biggest challenges,” she explains. “From the donor’s perspective, this is attractive because it puts the money to work.

And opposed to a one-time grant that supports a single project, this money can be returned again and again to our fund. We’re using it to underwrite more and more solar projects so it could potentially have an exponential impact.”

Kwak notes that while companies exploiting the earth are swimming in financing options, ironically, social enterprises like 10Power are largely shut out. “If you factor climate into investment risk, no extractive companies should be able to raise capital,” she says. “Investors should be fighting over companies like ours, but the way capital markets are structured, it’s just the opposite. Social and environmental impact companies are struggling to find appropriately matched capital sources. That’s what I want to change.”

ENERGIZED TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE MANDY MAHONEY 99Ox 01C 06L PRESIDENT OF THE SOUTHEAST ENERGY EFFICIENCY ALLIANCE

For Emory alumna

citizens. These organizations col-

president of the non-

as the US Department of Energy

Mandy Mahoney,

profit Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance (SEEA), energy effi-

ciency is not measured strictly in numeric terms on a chart. It also can be a matter of life or death.

SEEA is collaborating with a

green building consulting firm,

SK Collaborative, the Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation, and others to implement a program

called Room to Breathe. It identi-

fies families with children battling

serious pediatric asthma who are

living in rental properties in Atlanta and helps them access home

laborate with each other, as well and state energy programs.

SEEA has thrived as an organization under the leadership of

Mahoney, who previously served as the director of sustainability

for the city of Atlanta. “I am very proud of how we have worked

as a team to grow from an early stage, start-up nonprofit into a

high-functioning stable organization,” she says. “Focusing on

external partnerships and stakeholder engagement has served us well.”

While working for the city of

health and energy improvements.

Atlanta, Mahoney built strong

hit, SEEA was aiming to complete

academic, corporate, nonprofit,

Before the coronavirus pandemic home assessments for Room to Breathe by the end of the year.

The next step: Compiling data to make a case for insurance companies to replicate the program for their customers.

As one of six regional energy

efficiency organizations, SEEA is part of a national network

dedicated to leveraging energy efficiency for the benefit of all

regional relationships in the

philanthropic, and government

sectors that have served her well at SEEA, she says. “At SEEA, we serve as a conduit for sharing best practices among a wide

range of stakeholders,” Mahoney says. “Knowing how to capitalize

on the breadth of industry knowledge shapes how we approach resource development and delivery.” —Brian Hudgins

SPRING/SUMMER 2020

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4 5

V

oices

M

OF THE NEXT GENERATION IN SUSTAINABILITY Compiled by Emily Wayrauch

ANY of Emory’s current students and recent

able impact on issues ranging from climate change to

at the university about sustainability and

leaders have to say about their work in sustainability

graduates are applying what they’ve learned

resiliency to the world at large—already making a siz-

environmental justice. Here’s what seven of these new and how Emory helped prepare them for it.

Daniel Uribe 19C Energy analyst at Cherry Street Energy; member of Emory Climate Analysis and Solutions Team (ECAST), a campus environmental group; member of the EmPower project, an Emory program which teaches middle school students about energy efficiency

“There is a myth that you can’t be environ-

mentally minded and economically prudent.

But they can and do coexist. I can see the

symbiotic relationship between solar energy and energy efficiency techniques as a way

to diminish the carbon footprint, and at the same time to help people save money.”

Savannah Gentry Miller 16C Vice president of Sustainability at Better Earth, a compostable food packaging company; former program strategist for Exposure Labs, where she helped promote Chasing Coral, a Netflix film “I worked at the Emory Office of Sustainability when we were creating the Zero

Waste program, educating sororities and

fraternities and clubs about the power of com-

postable products. And now, years later, I’m going to

sales meetings and boardrooms and doing education there.

Regardless of major, all Emory alums have the exciting responsibility to help educate our peers about what we learned at Emory and how to make changes in our own community.”

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SPRING/SUMMER 2020

Sienna Nordquist 20C International studies and economics student; senior adviser (Americas) for the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network—Youth

Ellen Dymit 19C

Zola Berger-Schmitz 19C

Fulbright Scholar in Tromsø, Norway, where she’s examining post-release survival of captive-reared Arctic foxes

Master’s degree candidate in environmental policy at London School of Economics; cofounder of Universities for a Greener Georgia “When we talk about sustainability, we

think about improving the environment.

We have to look at it in a more holistic way,

too. Sustainability can mean resilience across

sectors, including business risk. Universities like

Emory are an essential bridge between the private and public “My honors research project focused on salamander aggression and territoriality,

using salamanders I captured in Lullwater

Preserve. Now, I study arctic foxes, one of

sector, creating networks to share information from expert

professors. As an Emory delegate to the UN Climate Talks, I was inspired to get a broader perspective on international climate policy and economics.”

the International Union for Conservation of

Jamani Montague 19C

Natures’s top ten climate flagship species.

People underestimate the complexity

National membership coordinator at Critical Resistance; former Udall Scholar

of interventionist wildlife conservation

measures, particularly species reintroduction efforts. This brings up a complex set

of ecological concerns, and it has been a

privilege to work alongside an international

“Sustainability education helped

these questions.”

valuing all living beings. We

me develop principles around

team of impassioned wildlife ecologists on

are all connected. Freeing the

Aaron Klingensmith 22C

“At Emory, I was fortunate to PHOTOGRAPHY PROVIDED BY ALUMNI AND STUDENTS

host a faith roundtable discus-

“Many students are

student religious groups. On

as a transit option

members of Emory’s different campus and across the globe, I’m honestly really inspired by

how different faith groups have come together to tackle the

issue of climate change. There is so much overlap between how faiths do sustainability

work and the importance of

their religious members acting as stewards for the Earth.”

and our society of patriarchy, racism, capitalism, and other

Environmental science and economics student; project coordinator of Let’s Ride MARTA

sion about sustainability with

Earth means ridding ourselves

forms of oppression. I’m not out here saving trees and releas-

ing animals from cages while

advocating for people to be in

them instead. All living beings

unaware of MARTA

should be free. We depend on each other for survival.”

or don’t know

how to use it. My project hopes to change

these things by

helping students learn how to use MARTA safely and efficiently to explore Atlanta. With plans to

expand MARTA rail into the Emory area through

the Clifton Corridor, more Emory students need to ride MARTA to show their support in order to speed the process along.”

SPRING/SUMMER 2020

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4 7

EMORY’S TOP 2020 SUSTAINABILITY

INNOVATORS Robert S. Hascall Sustainability Innovators

H E A LT H C A R E

Bree Ettinger

Tjuan Dogan

Rebecca Philipsborn

SEN IOR LECT U R E R , D EPA RTMEN T OF M AT H E M AT I C S

AS S I STAN T VI C E PRESI D E N T, SO C I AL I M PACT I N N OVATI O N

PE D I ATRI C I AN AN D AS SISTA NT PRO F ES SO R O F PE D I AT RIC S

Bree has consistently demonstrated that applied mathematics can help support and shape sustainability policies and advocacy in meaningful ways. For the past several years, she has led students in analyzing the university’s annual Sustainability Literacy Survey to help assess the effectiveness of the Emory’s sustainability initiatives and served as faculty adviser and a leader of the Piedmont Project and the Resilience and Sustainability Collaboratory.

Since joining Emory’s Office of Government and Community Affairs in 2018, Tjuan immediately made an impact in elevating sustainability as a priority for her division. With more than a decade of experience in corporate social responsibility, Dogan recognized immediately that sustainability held great value for Emory in enhancing the institution and its relationships and has taken the lead in communicating this with local and global communities.

A primary care pediatrician at Emory and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, Rebecca leverages her medical, public health, and environmental science and policy expertise to elevate Emory’s leadership in sustainability and resiliency. She advises Emory Healthcare and Health Sciences on integrating climate solutions and sustainability into operations, medical practice, and curriculum, as well as works closely with Emory medical students to integrate climate solutions into medical education at all levels.

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P R OV I D E D B Y FAC U LT Y, S TA F F A N D S T U D E N T S

S TA F F

PHOTOGRAPHY

FA C U LT Y

E

very year, Emory’s Office of Sustainability Initiatives recognizes the university’s top students, faculty members and staff who employ research, academics, engagement, and leadership as champions of sustainability on campus and in the broader community.

These 2020 honorees exemplify the communitybuilding, kindness, and vision embodied by the award’s namesake: the late Robert “Bob” Hascall, Emory’s former vice president of campus services who served as a dedicated environmental steward and pioneer in green facilities and operations.

Outstanding Sustainability Representative

U N D E R G R A D UAT E S T U D E N T

G R A D UAT E S T U D E N T

Sara McKlin SITE OPERATIONS COORDINATOR, CAN D L E R SC HOOL O F THEO LOGY

Claire Dakhlia 20C

Elena Jordanov 16Ox 18C 20PH

EM ORY COLLEG E O F ART S A N D SC IE N C ES

RO L L I N S SC HO O L OF PUB L I C HE ALTH

Claire demonstrated her commitment to sustainability practices and peer education in the many leadership roles she has held on campus. Recently she worked as the Sustainable Food and Farmers Market intern, bringing her outreach and communications talents to the market community to improve vendor relationships and educate students about sustainable and local food. She also challenged other campus organizations such as Residence Life, the College Council, and the University Center Board to integrate sustainability best practices into their operations.

A humble, effective leader and researcher, Elena has tackled many sustainability issues as an Emory graduate student.

She helped pilot Emory’s Lab Freezer Challenge in the chemistry department, conducted fundamental research and outreach in support of the Green Labs program, assisted with the Rollins lab recycling program, and helped the Climate Action and Resilience Taskforce to launch the Emory Resilience Framework. She even made time to lead public tours at Emory’s WaterHub as a student docent.

As a university Sustainability Representative, Sara has shown a deeply rooted curiosity and commitment to implementing Emory’s Zero Waste Policy. Alongside her Candler School of Theology colleagues, McKlin led the school to win the university’s 2019 Recycling Competition by diverting more than thirty-seven thousand pounds of waste from landfills in the month of October. She regularly contributes new ideas to Emory’s Waste Task Force, working to reach Emory’s goal to divert 95 percent of waste from landfills by 2025.

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PH O T O G R A PH Y K AY H I N TO N

A LEGACY OF COMPASSION AND RESOLVE > Claire E. Sterk made history as Emory’s first woman president and advanced the university’s commitment to justice and humanity.

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commitment to putting ideas to work for the sake of justice and humanity has guided Claire E. Sterk throughout her career in higher education, from her groundbreaking work as a researcher and teacher to her service as provost and president of Emory University.

Taken together, Sterk has dedicated twenty-five years of her life to Emory University— most recently as Emory’s twentieth president, making history as both the first woman and first social scientist by training to hold that esteemed office. As she now prepares to retire from her presidential role and begin her next chapter, she leaves behind a legacy of compassion and resolve that is palpable through all of her achievements.

By helping to guide the complicated annexation of Emory into the city of Atlanta—a move many have described as a “hundred-year decision”—and overseeing

unprecedented university fundraising while building a foundation for the future through her One Emory: Engaged for Impact Strategic Framework, Sterk time and again demonstrated an ability to facilitate transformational change.

She entered the president’s office in 2016 eager to build on Emory’s foundational strengths. In inaugural remarks, Sterk described her vision for nurturing the university’s continued growth as a diverse, inclusive institution committed to excellence, regionally and globally engaged, drawing students driven to make a difference in the world.

“Now is the right time for Emory to seize its ambition,” she urged. “We will make the right choices and leap forward. And as ‘the wise heart seeks knowledge,’ let’s use our place of privilege, of being this amazing, educational, social, and humane institution, for optimal impact.”

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To that mission, Sterk brought her own global perspectives—born in the Netherlands, she is Emory’s first international president and speaks four languages—a deep passion for education and an ethic of hard work and service honed from her earliest childhood experiences.

Raised in the small coal-mining town of Kerkrade, the Netherlands, Sterk is the eldest daughter of parents whose own educations were cut short by the disruptions of World War II. Her father became a house painter and later a janitor at Sterk’s high school. She was the first in her family to receive a high school diploma and attend college, working to earn a PhD in sociology from Erasmus University in Rotterdam and her doctorandus degree in medical anthropology from the University of Utrecht.

Encouraging Sterk to pursue her deep love of learning, her parents also supported the moral and ethical application of education, the higher calling of applying knowledge in the service of others. “If you are willing to be open to others,” her mother insisted, “the most beautiful things will happen.”

That ethic would provide a compass throughout Sterk’s career, whether examining social disparities as a cutting-edge public health researcher, advancing difficult campus conversations about diversity and inclusion, or helping first-generation students to find a sense of belonging at Emory.

In fact, Sterk’s special care for building broader community—insisting that all voices are heard—has become a hallmark of her Emory legacy. “Diversity and inclusion, her strong efforts to make Emory a university for the twenty-first century—I’ve really been very impressed by that, her willingness to move Emory to the next level, from excellence to eminence,” reflects former Georgia State Supreme Court Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears 80L, who has served on Emory’s Board of Trustees since 2010.

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A SCHOLAR FIRST AND FOREMOST

A pioneering public health scholar, Sterk came to Emory in 1995, joining the Rollins School of Public Health as an associate professor in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Health Education, where she taught and pursued research in addiction, mental health, and HIV/AIDs. As she steps down as president, Sterk will return to her scholarship as a professor in the Rollins School of Public Health. “I have never lost my passion for public health,” she explains. “And I look forward to resuming my work on some of the most important issues of our time, such as the opioid crisis, access to mental health, and global child health.”

She shares a dedication to public health research with her husband, Kirk Elifson, a research professor in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Health Education at Rollins School of Public Health since 2006. “Claire works so hard because there’s so much to be accomplished,” he explains.

“She cares so much about whomever she’s working with, whether it’s individuals that need her help with respect to substance abuse or HIV prevention or a faculty member who needs some guidance, a student, the provost, or her assistant.”

Elifson reflects upon her accomplishments with pride. “Claire has built upon the shoulders of previous presidents, and we’re on an upward trajectory that will continue,” he says. “We look forward to watching newly appointed President Gregory Fenves take Emory to even greater places.”

Sterk will leave office with the rare distinction of having served the university as a faculty member, department chair, provost, and president, notes business executive Bob Goddard III, chair of the Emory Board of Trustees.

“All of us who have had the privilege of working with Claire know her as an accomplished and highly recognized social scientist and as a person of great enthusiasm, dedication, and loyalty,” Goddard says.

“I believe deeply in the good and important work we do, in an age of cynicism, with so many focused on the divisions in our society, Emory continues to represent what a talented, diverse and motivated team can achieve together.”

Sears praises Sterk’s deft skill at keeping the university on its course while simultaneously navigating complex issues and interests. Free speech. The plight of undocumented college students. The unprecedented disruptions of a global pandemic across higher education. Guided by intellect, compassion, and leadership, Sterk has met each challenge with creativity, resolve, and warmth, says Sears.

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“Claire has a lot she can be proud of,” Sears says. “She has left an indelible mark on the university that will live for a long time.”

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“I was proud to serve on the search committee that selected her as president, and I’m pleased that, after taking a well-deserved sabbatical, she will continue her service to Emory as a member of the faculty.”

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MAKING A LASTING DIFFERENCE

Sterk also helped open a new Emory Student Center, supported the restoration of Convocation Hall, invested in elevating student success, and oversaw work on a new university master plan, which undergirds her One Emory goals—enhancing connectivity and institutional identity, fostering an unparalleled undergraduate experience, advancing research growth and partnerships, engaging the greater Atlanta community, and promoting stewardship.

Once in office, Sterk quickly focused on As the primary architect for the One three commitments she’d presented at her Emory strategic framework, Sterk has helped inauguration. The first was to help move position the university for future growth Emory from a diverse community to a with both ambition and pragmatism, says more inclusive one—a pledge she fulfilled Jan Love, interim provost and executive by expanding opportunities for campus vice president for academic affairs. “The discourse, supporting diversity in underframework marks a defining moment for graduate recruitment, and appointing both Emory, pushing us to achieve the academic a chief diversity officer and a university eminence that lies well within our reach.” ombudsperson.

From strategic hires to enhancing the Her second commitment: To engage student experience, “she has been a dynamglobally, in the broadest ways, with Emory’s ic, thoughtful, and creative leader who’s many communities—whether around demonstrated a deep commitment to investthe corner or across the world. There, her ing in faculty while supporting the academic success can be measured in many ways, not success of our graduate and undergraduate least of which being the $14.8 billion impact students,” notes Love. the university has upon the region’s econoBeyond developing critical infrastrucmy and its new status as the region’s largest ture, Sterk’s greatest impact has been her employer. Emory has continued as a leader investment in people—the students she’s in health care as well, with national and supported, key campus appointments, and global advances to help end HIV transmisthe talented Emory faculty members and sion and the spread of diabetes, curtail the administrators that she’s attracted, hired, and US opioid epidemic, and most recently to advanced, says Brad Currey, a trustee emeridevelop and test new antiviral compounds tus and past chairman of the Emory Board of that could help treat COVID-19.

Trustees.

Sterk also vowed to lead by support“She’s been an inspiration to young ing and employing Emory’s qualities of people, young men and young women, to excellence, distinctiveness, and relevance. do more than just teach a course, but also to During her tenure, the university not only help run a university,” Currey says. received historic levels of research funding Now, as both Emory and its president but also its largest gift to date—$400 million prepare to step into the future, Sterk sees the from the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation to university poised to continue its time-honbuild a new Winship Cancer Institute Tower ored mission to educate exceptional students, TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF SERVICE in Midtown and a new Health Sciences contribute to the common good, and meet Research Building on Emory’s main campus, Since coming to the university in 1995, Claire Sterk has made her mark as a the challenges of an ever-changing world. both aimed at improving the lives of public health researcher, beloved teacher, and effective academic leader.

“I believe deeply in the good and importGeorgians through innovative patient care ant work we do,” she says. “In an age of cynmodels and new cures for disease. Last year, icism, with so many focused on the divisions in our society, the O. Wayne Rollins Foundation also pledged $65 million Emory continues to represent what a talented, diverse, and toward a third Rollins School of Public Health building on motivated team can achieve together.”

Emory’s Atlanta campus; construction began this spring.

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40 YEARS OF COMMUNITY:

Woodruff Scholars and Fellows Pay It Forward PHOTOGRAPHY CHRISTOPHER OQUENDO / EMORY UNIV ARCHIVES

By Beth Sherouse

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hen Sharon Barnes 84L learned she had been awarded a Woodruff Fellowship to attend Emory School of Law, her life changed forever. Her husband had recently passed away, leaving her in a deep depression. To make matters worse, she remembers, “I was in the process of getting a loan for a house because the child murders were happening in the city of Atlanta, and I had these two little kids, a baby and a toddler.”

Barnes worried that the loan company would deny her application since her only income for the next three years of law school would be her Social Security survivor

STRENGTH IN GROWING NUMBERS Top: The first class of Woodruff Scholars with Robert W. Woodruff.

Bottom: Emory students and alumni celebrated the transformative effect of Robert W. Woodruff’s 1979 gift and their collective impact on the world at the fortieth anniversary celebration, held in late February.

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REMEMBERING THE GIFT Top left: (left to right) Sharon Barnes 84L, Dennis M. Sweetnam 85L, Mark G. Pottorf 85L, Kelly Rowe 85L, Beth Fleming, Gerard Gaeng 84L, Barbara Jo Call 85L. Top Right: Former Emory President James Laney (right) with Robert W. Woodruff. Bottom left: Atlanta Constitution article dated November 9, 1979.

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CELEBRATING THE FORTIETH ANNIVERSARY Since the first class of Woodruff Scholars matriculated at Emory College in fall 1980, more than 2,850 undergraduate and graduate students have received this esteemed recognition of their achievement and potential. More than two hundred and fifty of these current and former Woodruff Scholars and Woodruff Fellows came together in late February 2020 to celebrate “A Community Built for Impact: 40 Years of Woodruff Scholars, Fellows, and Professors.” Their stories reveal the program’s transformational effect—not only on Emory and Atlanta, but on the people they encounter across the country and around the world.

Building on the fortieth anniversary celebration, Emory Advancement and Alumni Engagement is working to bring current and former Woodruff Scholars and Fellows together, strengthen their relationships, and increase this distinguished group’s engagement with the larger Emory community, the nation, and the world.

As former President James T. Laney remarked during the anniversary event, Woodruff would be proud of both the community and the impact his gift has created. Woodruff Scholars are making their mark—from Fortune 500 companies to nonprofits

PHOTOGRAPHY CHRISTOPHER OQUENDO / EMORY UNIV ARCHIVES

benefits. “But when the loan company found out that I was awarded a Robert W. Woodruff Fellowship and I would be going to Emory University law school, then the bank said ‘for sure,’ ” she recalls, “because they had that much faith and respect in the name Robert W. Woodruff and the name of Emory.

“I felt as if God was telling me ‘Yes, Sharon, it’s the right decision.’ Emory had faith in me. The Robert W. Woodruff fellowship committee had faith in me, so I wanted to do all I could to show appreciation for being awarded that fellowship,” Barnes explains.

Since then, she has become a leading trial attorney, handling more than two hundred and fifty jury trials and mentoring other attorneys. In the spirit of the gift that so changed her life’s trajectory, she also gives back to her Atlanta community by helping those in need: “Robert W. Woodruff gave me my law degree, which I didn’t have to pay for, so I did pro bono work, helping folks who just couldn’t afford an attorney, doing wills and the like for senior citizens. I hold myself out as a professional, not aloft from people, but as a servant of people, to help ease their minds during a critical stage in their lives.”

working to meet the needs of communities around the globe.

They are paying forward the generosity of their benefactor and living by Woodruff’s favorite maxim: “There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit.”

For Barnes, as for many of the program’s alumni, Robert W. Woodruff’s generosity looms large in their careers and their lives. “The opportunity to be a Woodruff Fellow gave me a gift and an opportunity that I just wanted to share with other people,” explains Amy Levine-Samuels 83B, who earned an MBA with the fellowship. “Throughout my career at the The Coca-Cola Company, I’ve always looked to the people around me and tried to make them better, smarter, to share what I know, share my inspirations and philosophy on business. I’ve tried to be a role model and share the spirit of kindness and giving in everything that I do.”

university from 1977 to 1993.

To determine the best use of such a generous investment, Laney appointed a committee chaired by Howard Lamar 45L 75H, who was serving as dean of Yale College and would later become president of Yale University. The committee included administrators from the University of California, Berkeley;

Harvard University; Brown University; the University of Pennsylvania; and the University of California, Los Angeles. After much discussion and research, the committee decided Emory should use the gift to support its most valuable asset—students and faculty.

The Woodruff Scholars and Fellows program has

“This group has pushed me to grow, constantly providing inspiration and broadening my perspectives as it encourages me to think in ever more nuanced ways about my inherited human responsibilities to my communities, to society, and the larger world.”

—Pushkar Shinde, Woodruff Scholar

‘THE GIFT’ THAT KEEPS ON GIVING In many ways, this spirit of generosity among Woodruff Scholars and Fellows is borne of the unique nature of the 1979 gift itself—$105 million from the Emily and Ernest Woodruff Fund, which was, at that time, the largest philanthropic gift to higher education in the nation’s history.

The gift was unrestricted, which reflected Woodruff’s confidence in the leadership of President Laney, who led the

AUDIENCE WITH HIS HOLINESS Pushkar Shinde, Woodruff Scholar (bottom right), and other Emory students with His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama.

become a strong, supportive community that continues to open up opportunities and prepare current students for success. As sophomore and current Woodruff Scholar Pushkar Shinde 22C reflects: “In line with the visions of Mr. Woodruff and President Laney, the gift has helped to create an extraordinary community of people, each with unique experiences and viewpoints, dedicated to bettering the world around them, and one which I am profoundly grateful to be able to be a part of. It has provided a group of colleagues, mentors, and friends to whom I know I can return, no matter the situation.”

Shinde’s experiences in his first two years as a Woodruff Scholar reflect the amazing opportunities the program creates. He was able to play on the varsity men’s tennis team, participate in Emory’s IDEAS interdisciplinary research fellowship, meet Jane Goodall, and travel with the Emory Tibet Summer Study Abroad where he met His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama.

“This group has pushed me to grow, constantly providing inspiration and broadening my perspectives as it encourages me to think in ever more nuanced ways about my inherited human responsibilities to my communities, to society, and the larger world,” he explains. story continues on page 59

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WOODRUFF CELEBRATION

Far left: Emory President Claire Sterk (left) with Woodruff alumna Molly Parmer (right). Right: Amy Levine-Samuels with President Emeritus James Laney.

IMPACT ON THE WORLD

PHOTOGRAPHY CHRISTOPHER OQUENDO / EMORY UNIV ARCHIVES

Jessica Rollin 11M 16MR and Francois Rollin 09M 09PH, both Woodruff Scholars, met at Emory School of Medicine and got to know each other on clinical trips to Haiti. Because of the financial support their scholarship provided, after graduation they were able to take the skills they learned at Emory School of Medicine and Grady Memorial Hospital and provide much-needed health care to members of the Zuni nation in New Mexico. “We see a lot of the effects of poverty,” Jessica wrote in a 2017 story about their work. “In this regard, it is not too different from our work at Grady. Poverty has a profound impact on the health and well-being of entire families, and here we see that much more intimately than we did in Atlanta.”

Jessica, who now works as a psychotherapist in Atlanta, credits the Woodruff Fellowship with inspiring her and Francois to make an impact on the world: “The idea—knowing that you are given this opportunity that you may not an attorney and expert on auto regulatory compliance, is executive vice president and chief officer of TrueCar, a company that he joined in 2014.

90s Patricia R. Harris 91MN of Atlanta, an adjunct professor with the Tuskegee University School of Nursing, is working to establish their first Master of Nursing program with a focus on community and mental health nursing. This will be the first expansion of Tuskegee’s School of Nursing since 1954.

Charles L. Venturi 92C of

Lighthouse Point, Fla., and Aaron R. Resnick 94C of Miami Beach, Fla., cofounded the Little Lighthouse Foundation in 2010. The foundation provides 20 to 25 programs a month to underserved children in Miami-Dade County at partner facilities, and hundreds of companies use the foundation as their volunteer platform. In 2019, Little Lighthouse Foundation received the Jan Pfeiffer Distinguished Service Award from the Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce for its contributions to South Florida.

Richard J. Warren 92L of Atlanta is copresident of WarnerMedia Distribution, an

have had otherwise—gives you the sense of what’s possible.”

For many Woodruff alumni, the funding transformed their lives, making higher education possible when financial considerations would have otherwise prevented them from realizing their dreams. “Kids like me don’t become attorneys,” explains Atlanta criminal defense lawyer Molly Parmer 12L. “Growing up in poverty, surrounded by crime, my life was focused on mere survival from day one. I wasn’t destined for prestigious private education and a powerful career, no matter how well I did in school. Life is different on the margins.”

Parmer now fights to defend those very people whom the criminal justice system continues to marginalize, and she credits her success to “the opportunity to attend a top-tier law school on a full scholarship with a stipend every year and being welcomed into a community” of Woodruff Scholars who supported her every step of the way. “All I can say is that it’s good to be the exception to the rule.”

AT&T subsidiary that oversees distribution of all Turner channels, HBO, Cinemax, and HBO Max. Daniel Bachrach 93C of Winter Park, Fla., is a partner with the law firm of Foley and Lardner where he practices real estate law and is a member of their Hospitality and Leisure Industry team in their Orlando office. Bachrach was included in The Best Lawyers in America 2020.

Debra E. Houry 94C of Atlanta, director of the National Center for Injury Control and Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was elected to membership in the National Academy of Medicine in October 2019.

This is one of the highest honors in the field of health and medicine and recognizes individuals who have made major contributions to the advancement of the medical sciences, health care, and public health.

Bryan M. Kujawski 94BBA 97MBA of Jackson, Wy., is founder and chief executive officer of HeadLimes, a drink accessory that clips on the side of glasses and bottles and is used to funnel fruit juice into a beverage.

J. David Stevens 95G 97PhD of Midlothian, Va., associate professor of English and chair of the Department of English at the University of Richmond, is the author of a collection of short stories

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about the cultural intersections between China and America entitled I and You published by Arc Pair Press.

Peter G. Davis 96MBA of Atlanta is chief executive officer of GreenPrint, a company offering turnkey sustainability services, which is on the Inc. 5000 list of the nation’s fastest growing privately held companies.

M. Elizabeth Paulk 96M of Dallas, Texas, leads the Parkland Palliative Care program that she helped found 20 years ago as a faculty member at UT Southwestern Medical Center. Parkland was one of the first programs in the state and is one of the largest palliative care programs in the US.

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In these uncertain times, there is one thing we know for sure: We are stronger together.

The people of the Office of Advancement and Alumni Engagement are not only honored to serve the Emory community—we are proud members of it.

Thank you for stepping up to meet the immediate and longterm needs presented by this pandemic.

While we are not surprised by your generosity and willingness to help during this difficult time, we are grateful.

momentum.emory.edu Share how you are helping your community using #EmoryTogether on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

E M O RY E V E RY W H E R E

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E D I TOR’S NOT E

Best-Laid Plans

I hadn’t planned on writing an editor’s note for this issue of Emory Magazine. In fact, I don’t think I’ve written one in the past twenty years—not even to introduce myself to readers when I took the helm of a new publication. (For the record, I am indeed new to Emory and this is my first issue editing the magazine. Hello!) Ideally, I would rather remain in the background and let the inspiring stories speak for themselves and have the beautiful imagery take center stage.

But then again, I hadn’t planned on having to rethink the entire magazine midway through the production process. Our cover story was supposed to be about Emory’s longstanding commitment to sustainability and resilience, showcasing the many ways the university is leading the way in sustainability research, teaching, practice, and more. Months of meetings and discussions and organization had gone into it.

COVID-19 changed our best-laid plans. Just like it did for everyone else on the planet.

As the pandemic soon became the most dominant thought on our minds here at Emory, I knew we had to share with you some of the impact that your alma mater— and its alumni, faculty, staff, and students—were having on the frontline response to the coronavirus. Not surprisingly, I received a big dose of perspective when I started contacting and interviewing health care workers whose lives were upended and put at considerable risk by COVID-19.

Talking to Justin Schrager, an ER doctor making huge personal sacrifices to treat the sick coming into Emory

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University Hospital, brought the crisis closer. He was betting his own health and isolating himself from his family, including a newborn daughter, to treat patients and “flatten the curve.” I next spoke with Donté Flanagan, a nurse anesthetist in New Orleans who heeded the call to use his expertise in intubation and ventilation to help some of the worst afflicted be able to breathe. Flanagan told me he knows whenever he intubates patients, there’s always a chance he may be the last person they ever speak to.

I learned very quickly that facing a little more challenge in putting together a magazine was a minor inconvenience that paled in comparison to what these frontline workers were being called to do. Other Emory leaders also have been stepping up in a number of different ways. They include an associate medical director acting as a voice for truth and reason in the national media, an ER nurse pulling double duty to help coordinate drive-through testing, a tech-savvy administrator guiding Emory’s faculty to adjust quickly to remote teaching, a small business owner using his rum distillery in Hawaii to make hand sanitizer for local hospitals, and future epidemiologists recruiting fellow students to volunteer for the response.

Flip to the front of the magazine, and you can read all of their compelling stories of resourcefulness and resilience.

But know that they represent just a small sample of the things Emory and its people are doing to fight the coronavirus and aid humanity during this extraordinary time.

In these pages, you’ll also find that resilience isn’t the only common ground shared by the pandemic response and the concept of sustainability. Through careful thought and execution, we were not only able to keep a great deal of our planned sustainability focus intact, but also we were able to update these stories to demonstrate the ways conservation and global health issues are interconnected.

What we couldn’t fit into print, we’ve published online at emory.edu/magazine in greater depth. Be on the lookout over the next several months for our digital storytelling to ramp up with more dynamic content—published more frequently—as we retool Emory Magazine’s web offerings.

Stay healthy and safe,

Roger Slavens, Managing Editor

Plan big.

Codes (like this) store loads of information, including URLs and web addresses. You’ve probably seen them in magazines (like this) and wondered what they’re for.

Point the camera on your smart phone at that tiny little box above to unlock a new world of possibility.

We’ll wait.

Now you can see for yourself how planning big can shape Emory’s future.

with the imagination to look deeper.

To search for meaning inside the square and outside the box.

Your planned gift will not only establish your legacy, it will ensure ours. Emory can do remarkable things thanks to you.

Someone with the vision to plan big.

Success starts with a plan, made possible with a gift from someone

Like you.

Contact the Emory Office of Gift Planning and let’s discuss your plan.

giftplanning.emory.edu 404.727.8875

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