The Mascaro Center supports an annual seed grant program aimed at engaging a core team of researchers who are passionate about sustainability. Seed grants support graduate student and post-doctoral fellows on one-year research projects.
2019-2020 RFPs
The Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation is pleased to announce five funding programs designed to help Pitt faculty and students engage in sustainability research, education and outreach. See summaries below with links to the full applications and program RPFs.
| Program |
Due Date |
Funding Decisions |
Expenditures |
| Conference Grants |
Sept 20, 2019 |
October 1, 2019 |
October 1, 2019 – June 30, 2020 |
| Faculty Programs in Sustainability |
Oct 25, 2019 |
Nov 29, 2020 |
January 1, 2020 – Dec 31, 2020 |
| NEW Communications Training Grants |
Nov 15, 2019 |
Nov 29, 2020 |
Spring 2020 |
| Research Seed Grants |
Jan 31, 2020 |
March 23, 2020 |
July 1, 2020 – June 30, 2021 |
| Student Groups Program Grants |
Rolling (Monthly Review) |
Rolling (Monthly Review) |
By June 30, 2020 |
Complete listing of awards between 2004-2020
2020-2021 Awards
A Circular Chemical Industry: Closing the Anthropogenic Carbon Cycle with Biomimetic Reactors
James McKone, Chemical and Petroleum Engineering
Mapping the Landscape of Seafood in Pittsburgh Markets: Do Safe, Sustainable and Accessible Meet?
Carla Ng, Civil & Environmental Engineering
Optimization of Traffic Signals on Pitt's Campus Road Network to Reduce Fuel Consumption and Green House Gas Emissions from Vehicular Traffic
Aleksandar Stevanovic, Civil & Environmental Engineering
Up-Cycling of Machining Scrap via Mechano-Chemical Attrition Enhanced Hydride-Dehydride Processing for Sustainable Ti-Powder Fabrication
Jorg Wiezorek, Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science
Ravi Shankar, Industrial Engineering
2019-2020 Awards
Towards Using Microbes for Sustainable Construction Materials: Feasibility Study
Sarah Haig, Civil & Environmental Engineering
Steven Sachs, Civil & Environmental Engineering
**Jointly funded by MCSI and IRISE
Chemical Recycling of Polyethylene to Ethylene
Eric Beckman, Chemical & Petroleum Engineering
Ioannis Bourmpakis, Chemical & Petroleum Engineering
Robert Enick, Chemical & Petroleum Engineering
Goetz Veser, Chemical & Petroleum Engineering
Investigating Flexible Piezoelectric Materials with Lower Water Pressures
Katherine Hornbostel, Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science
Amplifying the Efficiency of Tungsten Disulfide Thermoelectric Devices
Feng Xiong, Electrical
& Computer Engineering
2018-2019 Awards
Computational Methods to Design Efficient and Sustainable Chemical Catalysis
Peng Liu, Chemistry
Case Study of the Application of a Novel Integrated Thermoelectric
Device Applied to the Waste Heat Recovery of Fleet Vehicles
Matthew Barry, Mechanical Engineering & Materials Sciences
Shervin Sammak, Mechanical Engineering & Materials Sciences
Life Cycle Assessment Integration for
High-Performance Building Design
Melissa Bilec, Civil & Environmental Engineering
The Local Cost of Abandoned Oil and Gas Wells
Jeremy Weber, Graduate
School of Public and International Affairs
Dan Bain, Geology
Enable Data-Driven Quantitative Assessment of Building Resilience and Sustainability with Self-Powered Sensors
Hao Sun, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Jingtong Hu, Electrical and Computer Engineering
2017-2018 Awards
Protein lithography: a sustainable technology
for sub-5-nm nanomanufacturing
Mostafa Bedewy, Industrial Engineering
High efficiency refrigeration and cooling
through additive manufactured magnetocaloric devices
Markus Chmielus, Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Toward machine learning blueprints for greener
chelants
John Keith, Chemical and Petroleum Engineering
H2P: HydoPonics to Pyrolysis: An enclosed
system for the phytoremediation and destruction of perfectly persistent
emerging contaminants in our water
David Sanchez,Civil and Environmental Engineering
Carla Ng,Civil and Environmental Engineering
2016-2017 Awards
Student-based observations of soil moisture to
quantify dynamics at the intersection of natural and built environments
Brian Thomas, Geology & Environmental Science
Daniel Bain Geology & Environmental Science
Emily Elliott, Geology & Environmental Science
David Sanchez,Civil and Environmental Engineering
Learning about sustainability: social learning
via solar panel adoption
Andrea La Nauze, Economics
Graham Beattie, Economics
A novel process for efficient, decentralized
ammonia synthesis: towards fertilizer production with drastically reduced
environmental footprint
Goetz Veser, Chemical Engineering
β- Ga2O3 Nanoelectronics: A Path to a Sustainable
Semiconductor Technology for High Efficiency Electricity Conversion from
Renewables
William Stanchina, Electrical Engineering
Desalination of sequestration and release of
water in poly crystals
Sachin Velankar, Chemical and Petroleum Engineering
Pollination in the city: Designing urban
pollinator gardens that are resilient to air pollution
Tia-Lynn Ashman, Biological Sciences
2015-2016 Awards
Green Infrastructure Implementation Deepening
Interdisciplinary at the University of Pittsburgh
Michael Blackhurst, University Center for Social and Urban Research
Randy Walsh,Economics
Quantifying Reductions in Diesel-Related Air
Pollution Exposures across Downtown Pittsburgh
Jane Clougherty, Graduate School of Public health
Emily Elliott, Geology & Environmental Science
Developing CrAssphage as a marker of human
fecal pollution in the environment
Kyle Bibby, civil and environmental engineering
Indoor air impacts and Pittsburgh 2030 energy
district
Melissa Bilec, civil and environmental engineering
SHIELD: Sustainable, Holistic infrastructure
for enabling life-cycle-aware datacenters
Alex Jones,electrical and computer engineering
Managing the Water-Energy Nexus for Shale Gas
Production-connecting life cycle assessment with process systems engineering
Vikas Khanna, civil and environmental engineering
Measuring the Effect of Grid Voltage on
Building Energy Labs
Thomas McDermott, electrical and computer engineering