NEWS
-
UGA’s 2026 Charter Lecture focuses on AI-human co-evolution and climate risks
Regents’ Professors Elena Karahanna and J. Marshall Shepherd explore technological transformation and extreme weather impacts Two of the University of Georgia’s most distinguished scholars took the stage at the Chapel on March 25 to discuss the “mutual co-evolution” of humans and artificial intelligence and the rising risks of a more…
-
Resilient Futures Podcast: The Gospel of Grass
Patrick Keyser knows the grass may not always be greener–but there’s still a lot to learn from it. Since long before European colonization, grasslands have a rich history as one of North America’s most diverse, resilient, and iconic landscapes. These ecosystems are the epicenters of agriculture in the US, but…
-
Paper outlines pathways to equitable flood adaptation
Many flood adaptation measures exacerbate existing environmental injustices. A new UGA-coauthored perspective suggests strategies to break the cycle. While parts of New York and New Jersey were “building back better” after Superstorm Sandy, residents of flood-prone public housing in Rockaway, Queens, were left without heat or running water for years. A…
-
UGA Researchers create framework for understanding longevity and flood-risk mitigation of coastal marshes
Salt marshes are the quiet heroes of the coast, working behind the scenes to sequester carbon, buffer coastal towns from flooding and provide beautiful recreation spaces for tourists and locals alike. In a new grant through the U.S. IOOS Coastal and Ocean Modeling Testbed for $1.5 million, University of Georgia…
-
Meet our IRIS Affiliates: Qiong Wang
Today we’d like to introduce one of our newer IRIS affiliates, Qiong Wang, an Assistant Professor in the College of Environment and Design, through a Q&A on her research. Qiong joined IRIS in the spring of 2025–and one year later, her team’s project, AI-Driven Decision Support Platform for Smart Disaster…
-
IRIS affiliate faculty represented across four Presidential Seed Grants
We’d like to offer our congratulations to the IRIS affiliate faculty who were represented across four different Presidential Seed Grants.
-
Students reimagine retired school buildings to revitalize Georgia small towns
What do you do with an empty building? These students want to give vacant spaces new life. A crew of engineering and landscape architecture students in last fall’s Sustainable Buildings Design course had a unique final project: designing new futures for disused school buildings. These adaptive re-use projects focused on…
-
Heat poses additional risks post-hurricane
A new study from the University of Georgia suggests hurricanes may now pose an additional danger to people through heat exposure. Hurricanes threaten lives and cause significant economic damage. But their risks extend beyond just the storm itself. “People tend to think of rainfall, storm surge, high winds and tornadoes as…
-
New Resilient Futures Podcast: Making Sense of SETS
This month, Alysha Helmrich is our host and guest! This short episode discusses social-ecological-technological systems and sensemaking. She explores urban systems as SETS, positions SETS thinking for sensemaking, and identifies four modes of SETS to build requisite variety. To learn more, follow the links below! Links:Foundational reading on SETSMain perspective…
-
IRIS Graduate Ada Chimsulukeme awarded WEDA Fellowship
Congratulations to one of our most recent grads, Ada Agbogu Chimzulukeme on being awarded a Western Dredging Association Fellowship! WEDA Fellows work to assist WEDA members and commissions in their goal of being the center of dredging excellence. Ada graduated with a master’s in Civil and Environmental Engineering with emphasis in…
-
UGA Researchers engineer safer road crossings for wildlife and people
Why did the turtle cross the road? Hint: it wasn’t just to get to the other side. John Maerz, Dennis and Sarah Carey Distinguished Professor of Forestry and Natural Resources and a Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, can tell you exactly why turtles…
-
Charting the path to a greener world: Past, present, and future for Nature-based design standards
In a new publication from ASCE Open, the multidisciplinary journal of the American Society of Civil Engineers, a team of experts from across academic, government, industry and nonprofit organizations are calling for a better future for natural infrastructure. Nature-Based Design Standards: Past, Present, and Future argues that the challenge isn’t…
