Science, Technology & Society website | Activities | EEI Affiliates

Faculty and students involved with the Science, Technology and Society program at Penn State bring a variety of interests and capabilities to the Environmental Institute. These can be broadly categorized into three areas: The Center for Sustainability, Environmental Policy, and Green Design.

Center for Sustainability

At Penn State Center for Sustainability, faculty, students, and members of the community are searching for more ecologically sustainable ways of living. Informing this manifold mission are such areas as ecological design, industrial ecology, community sustainability, land stewardship, food security, permaculture, biodiversity and right livelihood. In searching for solutions, necessarily collaborative and multi-disciplinary, the Center seeks to act as a catalyst for encouraging the interests and enthusiasm of a wide spectrum of students, faculty, administrators, staff, and residents from the surrounding communities.

• critical analysis of agricultural, ecological, nutritional, and political approaches to increasing food availability
• transportation economics and environmental economics
• environmental policy and management, the intersection of trade policy with environmental interests, and the importance of science and technology on regulation and conduct of environmental activities.

Green Design

This means not only having environmental objectives but moving them "upstream" to the design stage. In principle, this approach is more cost effective and it also recognizes that all engineering transforms the environment and that all engineering needs to build in environmental objectives. Further, green engineering means working within the limits of the ecosystem. Faculty do basic and applied research in thin-film photovoltaic cells, green buildings, bio-intensive farming, living machines, and solar heating, as well as the social, environmental, and cultural implications of technologies.