When Shejuti Wahed realized some Case Western Reserve University classmates were buying lab coats they might only need for one academic year and then discard, she took action to reduce the waste. Wahed launched a lending program to not only create a sustainable solution—but offer a practical alternative for students who couldn’t easily afford a new lab coat.
Soon, leaders in the university’s Climate Action Network—which facilitates sustainability projects—were providing Wahed with organizational support, mentorship and networking opportunities.
Shejuti Wahed received an award this past spring from CWRU’s Office of Energy and Sustainability for her work involving sustainability and climate initiatives. She is pictured with Dean Tufts, the university’s vice president for Campus Planning and Facilities.
This academic year, Wahed helped organize the campus Climate Action Month, with events ranging from film screenings and tree plantings in Cleveland neighborhoods to a “climate hope” book club—to counter the ecological despair she knows young adults increasingly feel.
“Climate anxiety is very real, especially for my generation,” said Wahed (CWR ’25), who graduated in May. She studied neuroscience and psychology to better understand how events—including rising temperatures and destructive wildfires and hurricanes—can exacerbate mental health challenges and inspire peers to pursue sustainable solutions. “Environmental problems don’t exist in a vacuum,” she added. “They affect every part of our lives.”
Such a multidisciplinary approach is a hallmark of the College of Arts and Sciences, home to decades of climate-related research on topics ranging from how melting Arctic ice is challenging geopolitical relationships to how more intense storms increase erosion around the Great Lakes.
Peter Whiting
“We’re a microcosm of how science—and the humanities—come together to address a global problem,” said Peter Whiting, PhD, a professor of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences and interim dean of the college from mid-2024 to earlier this year.
That vision of shared responsibility permeates the university—especially across the college’s diverse disciplines—from biology and chemistry to anthropology, economics, psychology, political science, cognitive science and more. Courses emphasize critical thinking, equipping students to analyze complex data and communicate with policymakers and the public. Meanwhile, community initiatives focus on practical impact through discoveries and inclusive local partnerships.
“We have an ethical responsibility, not just to generate research but to translate knowledge into action,” Whiting said. “Our students are the ones who will piece together new technologies, shape public policy and nurture a more sustainable culture. Yes, the situation is urgent, but the capacity for innovation is greater than we often realize.”
Recent data from global climate agencies underscore the urgency: Heat records were shattered in 2023 and again in 2024, exceeding 2.79 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial levels. Meanwhile, unprecedented southern California wildfires in early 2025 underscore that the world is seeing more frequent and severe disasters.
What follows are just a few of the many examples of work related to climate happening throughout the college and university.
A.W. Omta | Photo by Matt Shiffler
A.W. Omta, PhD, stood at the front of his “Weather and Climate” class last fall, drawing arcs on a whiteboard representing different emission scenarios. The lines climb steeply as he explains how rising carbon concentrations could push global temperatures up by as much as 6 degrees Fahrenheit by the year 2200.
“The greatest source of uncertainty is our own future behavior,” said Omta, a visiting assistant professor of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences. “We have a responsibility to future generations—any emission reductions we do now will affect their lives.”
Logan Corrales—a rising second-year mechanical-engineering major—is taking classes like Omta’s to immerse herself in the science behind greenhouse gases, convinced that understanding the data will help shape legislation and community action.
“When you see exactly where greenhouse gases come from, it’s easier to see what can be done,” said Corrales, who is involved with the Ohio Student Association, a grassroots advocacy organization that counts climate as one of its top priorities. “It’s not entirely hopeless, but if we don’t act on what we know, it will only get worse.”
Her classmate, environmental engineering major Josie Adsett, agrees. Passionate about green infrastructure—such as rain gardens and environmentally friendly wastewater systems—Adsett (CWR ’25), who graduated in May, sees pairing her engineering knowledge with deeper insight into weather and climate as essential.
“Education is key,” she said. “Even small temperature shifts can have a huge impact decades from now, so the more people who understand and share solutions, the better.”
Both students see the direct relevance of what they’re learning, and that’s by design. Across the college, faculty intentionally link classroom theory to real-world applications.
Cyrus Taylor
For instance, Cyrus Taylor, PhD, co-led a new seminar last fall on regional climate action planning, in which students participated in a regional decarbonization project funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The project is a collaboration with campus partners and faculty at nearby universities to help the City of Cleveland create a plan to reach net-zero emissions—that is, balancing greenhouse emissions with measures to remove or offset them—by 2050.
The seminar’s undergraduate and graduate students were responsible for developing a course in regional climate-action planning that could be a resource for other cities nationally as they undertake similar plans. The course development continued through the academic year.
“Students are not just learning about climate change, they’re actively working on solutions,” said Taylor, the Albert A. Michelson Professor in Physics and a former longtime dean of the college. He led the seminar with Matthew Hodgetts, PhD, the George B. Mayer Visiting Assistant Professor in Urban and Environmental Studies in the Department of Political Science.
“There appear to be no courses anywhere that really address these [regional planning] issues,” Taylor said. He and Hodgetts hope their course will be a significant resource for groups around the country doing regional climate-action planning in the years ahead.
“I’ll admit, the outlook can feel grim, but I try to stay hopeful. Even small progress can push things in the right direction.”
— Logan Corrales, a mechanical-engineering major
Throughout the college, researchers are striving to understand how a warming planet alters people’s lives—both locally and globally—and what can be done to protect communities and ecosystems alike.
Albert Colman
Amid accelerating changes, Albert Colman, PhD, sets his sights on both a far-distant past around the globe as well as current-day Cuyahoga County.
For example, he has investigated climate impacts from the separation of Antarctica and South America tens of millions of years ago, and is analyzing the chemistry of fossil tooth enamel from grazing animals in East Africa from more than 3 million years ago to better understand prehistoric climates.
“We are trying to deduce changes in the amount and patterns of precipitation,” said Colman, an assistant professor of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences.
“Such changes play a major role in shaping landscape ecology, which may, in turn, have influenced the evolution of pre-humans in gaining the ability to walk on two legs,” Colman said. He also is developing real-time air quality monitoring in Cuyahoga County, aiming to augment government monitoring.
“We want to detect neighborhood-scale variations in air quality—what people are actually breathing,” he said. “We also want to relate air quality to larger transitions toward green-energy production and the electrification of transportation, evaluating the potential public health benefits that may derive from actions primarily designed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere.”
Colman’s courses combine data analysis with hands-on fieldwork—giving students firsthand experience in studying how air, water and soil interact with human activity. This work increasingly occurs in urban environments, where students connect real-world measurements to broader climate and public health challenges.
“We can’t just measure a problem and walk away,” Colman said. “We owe it to the communities most affected by air pollution to work toward meaningful solutions.”
To understand planetary warming in a broader context, Darin Croft, PhD, studies fossils in Bolivia’s Quebrada Honda Basin, where life thrived 13 million years ago—when global temperatures were nearly 7 degrees Fahrenheit higher than today.
By examining fossils of mammals, reptiles and ancient plants, Croft, a professor at the School of Medicine, who also teaches biology, shows how past temperature rises radically altered entire landscapes.
“We’re getting into uncharted territory with today’s climate,” Croft said. “Sometimes you have to go deeper in time to get conditions that are similar.”
As the college’s climate research continues and expands, it will also have a prominent place in the university’s new $300 million Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Building (ISEB), slated to open in fall 2026. Designed around several multidisciplinary “clusters,” the facility is expected to accelerate discovery by teams of scientists and engineers.
Sarah Bagby
Sarah Bagby, PhD—co-leader of the ISEB’s ecology and climate cluster—is working with architects and fellow cluster leads to design labs that meet researchers’ evolving needs.
“We’re planning shared equipment rooms and communal workspaces—anything that encourages spontaneous problem-solving,” said Bagby, an assistant professor of biology, who studies northern Sweden’s rapidly thawing permafrost and its release of greenhouse gases. “If the right people are just a short walk away, you never know what ideas will come about.”
Such broad, interdisciplinary approaches to address global issues are exactly what major federal funders expect to see, said Grant Goodrich, PhD, executive director of the university’s Great Lakes Energy Institute, which works with faculty across campus to secure grants to further advance solar energy, water quality, sustainable manufacturing and other focus areas.
“Bold, integrative solutions move the needle for society,” he said. “When you connect all the dots—science, policy and community partnerships—you get real momentum.”
Cassi Pittman Claytor | Photo by D Marsz Photography
By 2017, a recycling site in East Cleveland had spiraled into a sprawling dump that the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency later ordered closed, leaving neighbors to endure noise, dust and environmental harm. For Cassi Pittman Claytor, PhD, an East Cleveland native, the Robson Junior Professor and an associate professor of sociology at the college, it felt too close to home; too close to people she knew.
“Environmental harm isn’t abstract,” she said. “When it affects your own community and people you know, it’s clear that everyone should have a voice in decisions about their health and future.”
That belief led Pittman Claytor and fellow CWRU Climate Action Network members Brian Gran, PhD, Ina Martin, PhD, and Taylor to conduct focus group sessions in East Cleveland, Cleveland’s Glenville neighborhood and with CWRU faculty, students and staff. Their goal: to provide a platform for the university community and local residents to voice their concerns about how changing conditions, including rising temperatures and fierce weather, affect their daily lives—and who should address them.
“Climate work can’t stay within university walls,” said Martin, director of research cores and operations in the university’s Office of Research and Technology Management. “Our neighbors have a wealth of insights into their own challenges—and real ideas for addressing them.”
For Gran, a professor of sociology, genuine two-way dialogue between members of the campus and nearby neighborhoods was key.
“This was about listening—really listening—to community members who’ve lived these realities,” Gran said. “They should have a central voice in shaping solutions.”
The researchers’ approach gained broader attention when Pittman Claytor detailed it during a workshop in February hosted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine in Washington, D.C., and focused on higher education and advancing sustainability initiatives.
“Higher education has a responsibility not only to educate, but also to act,” Pittman Claytor said. “That means reducing our own carbon emissions and engaging and collaborating with the people whose lives are most affected.”
Pittman Claytor also aims to launch a social-impact lab that conducts research, works with local policymakers and industry and collaborates on solutions to address community concerns around sustainability.
“This isn’t just about collecting data,” she said. “It’s about neighbors, families and our shared future.”
“Climate education here isn’t about a single class or program—it’s embedded across disciplines. Our goal is to prepare students to see climate issues through multiple lenses, equipping them to contribute to solutions no matter their field of study.”
— Cyrus Taylor, the Albert A. Michelson Professor in Physics