Center for Sustainable Energy, Environment and Economic Development

The Center for Sustainable Energy, Environment and Economic Development collaborates with the Institute for Advanced Materials, Nanoscience and Technology in coordinating campus activities related to Energy and Environment. These collaborations are built around four primary areas of education, research and outreach:

Energy Sciences is the collective name for a wide range of scientists whose work either creates new sources of energy or reduces energy use in key industrial processes;
Environment and Health includes scientists and social scientists who perform assessments of the environmental and health impacts of different energy systems, community designs, industrial processes, etc.;
Policy, Planning and Economic Development includes social scientists and scholars from the humanities exploring the ways in which energy-related human needs can be met while building a sustainable society.
Greening the Campus includes the campus Facilities, Energy, Housing, Grounds, etc., staff, dedicated to using the campus infrastructure as a living lab for education and research.

provided the initial funding for the activities in Energy and the Environment at Carolina, and continues to provide core support. We are especially grateful to them for this founding gift.

The Center for Sustainable Energy, Environment and Economic Development takes the lead on activities related to Environment and Health; Policy, Planning and Economic Development; and Greening the Campus. The Institute for Advanced Materials, Nanoscience and Technology takes the lead on activities related to Energy Sciences. To learn about any of these activities, or the participating students and faculty, follow the links in the left bar on this page.

Recent Developments

On Friday Dec. 4, 2009, Nicolai Laverov, Senior Vice President of the Russian Academy of Science and former Deputy Prime Minister of the USSR, spoke at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The free lecture was sponsored by the UNC Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies and by Dr. David McNelis, director of the UNC Institute for the Environment's Center for Sustainable Energy, Environment and Economic Development. Laverov, who is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering and won, this past year, Russia's equivalent of the Nobel prize for his contributions in the energy arena, gave a presentation titled, "Russia's Energy Future."