Join us from May 10th through 12th as the-leaders of the flagships introduce their visions for the next four years. Come and ask questions, get involved, and provide feedback on our future endeavors. May 12th you'll hear from these projects:  Frontline Community Partnerships for Climate Justice: Partnering with diverse populations to research and discover locally led solutions to the climate crisis while identifying new green career pathways out of poverty. Biodiversity and Changing Landscapes: Pioneering new methods to explain and predict changes in ecosystems by monitoring wildlife, weather, soil, disease-carrying pathogens, and more to better understand the effects of climate change and human activity on nature and human health.

Join us from May 10th through 12th as the-leaders of the flagships introduce their visions for the next four years. Come and ask questions, get involved, and provide feedback on our future endeavors. May 11th you'll hear from these two projects: Equitable and Regenerative Cities in a Post-Carbon Future: Reimagining more equitable and resource-efficient metropolitan areas while safeguarding the food, fiber, fuel, and water that people and the planet depend on. Networks for Hazard Preparedness and Response: Preparing for floods and heat waves by designing new maps and tools that can be used by first responders, neighborhood associations, city governments, and planners.

Zheng O'Neill  (J. Mike Walker ’66 Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering, Texas A&M University) will give an overview of the opportunities and current research challenges associated with intelligent building operations towards smart and connected buildings and cities, and then provide summary on a few specific research projects that target some of these challenges. Zheng will end with highlights of opportunities for future energy efficient, resilient, and healthy buildings.  Part of the Texas Smart Cities presentation series.

GIS technologies, which use geographical data to map and analyze real-world problems, have immense potential to help us better understand public health issues, as well as to guide efforts to improve the overall wellness of individuals and communities. This seminar will allow participants to learn more about GIS research on campus and to kickstart a conversation about new opportunities across UT in the service of the Whole Communities–Whole Health mission. Learn more and register. Part of the Whole Communities–Whole Health Interdisciplinary Seminar Series.  

In this presentation, Tara Zimmerman (CI2020 Postdoctoral Research Fellow, School of Information) will discuss her qualitative research on social media users' information behavior which led her to coin the term "social noise." She will also introduce her next project which focuses on the technological affordances of Facebook and how those are perceived by users. Learn more and register.  Part of the Good Systems Postdoc Interest Group presentation series.

Given the on-going digital revolution and our present-day sustainability challenges, we have to reinvent the way cities and societies are operated. Dirk Helbing (Professor of Computational Social Science, ETH Zurich) proposes that the requirement of organizing societies in a more resilient way implies the need for distributed solutions, based on digitally assisted self-organization, and that this concept is also compatible with sustainability requirements and stronger democratic participation. In particular, Dirk will discuss the role that self-control approaches can play in the age of AI. Learn more and add to your calendar. Part of the Texas Smart Cities presentation series.

The real-time city is real! As layers of networks and digital information blanket urban space, new approaches to studying the built environment are emerging. The way we describe and understand cities is being radically transformed — as are the tools we use to design them. The Senseable City Laboratory's mission—a research initiative at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — is to anticipate these changes and study them from a critical point of view. This presentation will cover various SCL projects that showcase its engagement with societal issues to create better urban living. Learn more and add to your calendar.  Part of the Texas Smart Cities presentation series.