Pennsylvania State University
AC-9: Academic Research

List attached.

For Penn State's last STARS submission, based on 2009/10 data, a survey was sent to all faculty who conduct research at the UP campus, including all tenured and tenure-track faculty, as well as non-tenure track, PhD level, faculty in research positions. Survey results were used to compile an initial list of faculty who conduct sustainability research, and of sustainability research projects. The researchers so identified were added to a searchable database of faculty with expertise in sustainability, energy, and/ or the environment, maintained by the Penn State Institutes of Energy and the Environment. The database can be found here: http://www.sustainability.psu.edu/learn/researchers/expert-database For the current STARS submission we obtained a list of research grants active as of June 30, 2013, and reviewed this list to identify sustainability research projects, and faculty serving as lead or co-principal investigators of these projects. The faculty list was cross-checked with that developed previously to update and expand our list of faculty who conduct sustainability research. The previously developed list was cross-checked to ensure that faculty on it were still Penn State employees.

Examples of some recent accomplishments in sustainability research can be found on Penn State's sustainability website: http://www.sustainability.psu.edu/lead/spotlights/research

Total number of faculty engaged in research includes 2013 headcount of faculty (from Penn State Factbook Plus), with academic rank of professor, associate professor, or assistant professor; and research faculty with rank of senior scientist, senior research associate, or research associate (generally, all PhD level designations). Lecturers and Research Assistants were NOT included in the count. Likewise, the list and count of faculty engaged in sustainability research includes only faculty at those same academic and research ranks. Counts of academic departments: 19 faculty on our list of faculty who conduct sustainability research are appointed directly through a research institute or center that resides at the college or inter-college level, not through an academic department. Due to the difficulty of enumerating ALL institutes and centers at Penn State, our departmental numbers above include only academic departments, and faculty affiliated with them. The omitted research institutes with faculty who conduct sustainability research include the Applied Research Lab, the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, the Energy Institute, the Larson Transportation Institute, the Penn State Institutes of Energy and the Environment, and the Sustainability Institute.