The Salata Institute Seed Grant Program supports new research, encourages new interdisciplinary partnerships, and enables faculty whose work is not normally in climate and sustainability to apply their expertise to the climate challenge. With the addition of these five awards, the Salata Institute now supports 37 research projects on understudied and emerging climate topics through this program.

The Salata Institute is aggressively expanding climate and sustainability research at Harvard University. Since its launch in June 2022, the Institute has awarded over $8.9 million in climate and sustainability research funding, supporting the work of 65 faculty from across the university. 

Harvard faculty members interested in the Salata Institute Seed Grant Program, which is supported by a gift from the Troper Wojcicki Foundation, can access the current call for proposals here to learn more about the program. Applications will be considered twice per year, with deadlines on the first Friday of February and of October.

New Aerial Monitoring Platforms for Wildfires

Principal Investigator: Jim Anderson, Philip S. Weld Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry

Climate-change-fueled wildfires are increasingly responsible for the destruction of homes and businesses, the loss of human life, and billions in economic damage. New monitoring tools carried aloft by high-altitude long-endurance (HALE) autonomous aircraft can provide data useful for advancing wildfire forecasts and helping fight these calamities on the ground.

With seed grant funding, faculty from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences will explore the feasibility of leveraging a suite of miniaturized instruments aboard a future generation of solar-powered HALE aircraft to better measure and address climate-fueled wildfires. 

Among other things, they will examine how measurements of soil moisture and vapor pressure deficits can allow firefighters on the ground to better predict how a fire will move. During an active fire a particle optical spectrometer mounted on a HALE flight can collect detailed information about smoke chemical composition and other information useful for identifying health hazards and providing information about fire spread in real-time. But at what stage of an active fire is such data optimally useful? Researchers will explore this pressing question.

Converting Wool Waste into Building Insulation

Principal Investigator: Jonathan Grinham, Assistant Professor of Architecture

In recent years, the wool industry has been scrutinized for its detrimental environmental effects due to its relationship to fast fashion and the meat industries, as well as its contribution to global deforestation and biodiversity loss through sheep grazing. Small ruminants, including sheep and goats, are responsible for nearly 500 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent annually. Wool textiles undergo carbon- and chemical-intensive processing to remove impurities and agrochemical contamination, resulting in environmental damage. 

Over the last few decades, the demand for wool in the fashion industry has declined due to increased competition from synthetic and plant-based fibers. Today, a significant portion of wool is discarded and enters waste streams.

With seed grant funding, faculty from the Harvard Graduate School of Design will explore upcycling waste wool into standardized, durable, non-toxic, insulative building materials that can provide deep energy retrofits at scale. A retrofittable cladding system composed of wool-biocomposite panels that provide weather durability and enhanced insulation properties without petrochemical products could shift part of the construction market away from carbon-intensive cement and PVC siding.

Workshop: Insurance and Climate Change

Principal Investigators: Peter Tufano, Baker Foundation Professor; Ishita Sen, Assistant Professor, Harvard Business School

The insurance industry plays a vital role in the economy and society—both as an investor and risk agent, but its role in climate change is under-researched. While insurers have long been aware of climate risk, critical research questions remain unaddressed or under-considered. 

For example: Are insurance contracts adequately reflecting climate-related risks? How can better catastrophe risk models be developed? Do households and firms have adequate coverage and which segments are most vulnerable? How do public-private mechanisms combine to construct the most cost-efficient insurance capital stack and socially equitable approaches and outcomes? 

With seed grant funding, faculty from Harvard Business School will host a workshop that brings together academics and industry leaders to address the significant gaps in knowledge. Research can highlight and inform how the insurance industry can broaden its role in expanding badly needed coverage (for example: parametric insurance triggered by hazard parameters, such as wind speed or storm surge) as well as its role in underwriting risks.

The workshop agenda aims to foster knowledge-sharing, greater awareness, and research innovation among the participants, as well as create opportunity for future collaboration. We will convene a core group of researchers with insurance agendas to create and catalyze their work. This will benefit and help make Harvard University a more prominent node in this growing and important body of work.

Climate Stress: Mapping Mental Health Vulnerabilities Using New Data-Driven Insights

Principal Investigator: David Williams, Florence Sprague Norman and Laura Smart Norman Professor of Public Health

Climate change will have a profound impact on mental health outcomes, generally, and particularly in vulnerable populations across low-and-middle-income countries in Africa and beyond. Vulnerable groups, including women, children, and low-income communities, are disproportionately affected by climate change. Social inequalities compound the impact of mental health stressors, as these populations often have limited access to care and support. Scarcity of data surrounding mental health in these vulnerable populations is stark and undermines efforts to address gaps in care and resources. 

With seed grant funding, faculty from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health will reanalyze data using advanced methodologies to develop models that better explain how various factors influence mental health among climate-vulnerable populations and test the feasibility of administering climate-related survey questions via a smartphone app across Sub-Saharan Africa. 

The Political Economy of Energy Transitions in the Middle East

Principal Investigator: Melani Cammett, Clarence Dillon Professor of International Affairs

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region stands at a pivotal crossroads. It is acutely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, including water scarcity, agricultural disruption, and displacement of vulnerable populations, as it also grapples with a significant reliance on fossil fuels. Within the region, the Gulf countries are working on energy diversification but remain heavily dependent on oil and gas revenues to power their economies. Other countries, however, exhibit diverse energy mixes, from the natural gas dependence of Tunisia and Lebanon to the oil and gas sectors in Iraq and Egypt, to the renewable energy strides made by Jordan and Morocco. While some countries are setting ambitious renewable energy targets, others are expanding coal and oil production or pursuing hydrogen production and other emerging technologies. 

With seed grant funding, researchers at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences will analyze variations in state approaches to decarbonization and energy transitions in the MENA region, working to reveal the underlying forces driving these transitions and the key binding constraints that shape their trajectories. They will publish a peer-reviewed scholarly article, several policy briefs and podcast interviews that provide a comprehensive political economy analysis of energy transitions in the MENA region, offering insights for policymakers, researchers, and stakeholders engaged in navigating the complex landscape of climate change mitigation and adaptation in the region and beyond.