Institute for Computational Sustainability facts for kids
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| Established | 2008 |
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Field of research
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Computational sustainability |
| Director | Carla P. Gomes |
| Campus | Cornell University (primary) |
The Institute for Computational Sustainability (ICS) is a special group of scientists. They started in 2008 with help from the National Science Foundation. Their main goal is to use computer science to solve big problems about how we use our planet's resources. This is called computational sustainability.
Imagine using computers to help protect nature, manage energy, or make sure everyone has enough food. That's what ICS tries to do! They believe computer experts can make a huge difference in managing our natural world better. The institute is led by Carla Gomes. It brings together smart people from many universities and organizations. These include Cornell University, Bowdoin College, and the Conservation Fund.
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Meet the ICS Team
The team at ICS is made up of many different kinds of scientists. They are computer experts, biologists, environmental scientists, and even economists. These experts come from 7 different colleges and 12 different departments!
The main leaders of the team are:
- Carla P. Gomes from Cornell University (She is the Director of ICS).
- David Shmoys from Cornell University (He is the Associate Director of ICS).
- Thomas Dietterich from Oregon State University (He is a Deputy Director for ICS at OSU).
- Mary Lou Zeeman from Bowdoin College (She is a Deputy Director for ICS at Bowdoin).
What Are ICS's Main Goals?
The National Science Foundation gave ICS a special grant called "Expeditions in Computing." This grant helps ICS reach important goals:
Using Computers for Sustainability
ICS wants to bring "Computational Thinking" into the world of sustainability. This means using computer science ideas to:
- Find new ways to understand problems about our planet.
- Create new challenges and methods in computer science. Think of it like how "computational biology" helps us understand living things using computers.
Creating a New Field: Computational Sustainability
ICS aims to create a brand new area of study called Computational Sustainability. This field focuses on:
- Using computer methods to find a balance. This balance is between what the environment needs, what the economy needs, and what people in society need for a good future.
Building the Institute for Computational Sustainability
The ICS also wants to:
- Do and encourage research in Computational Sustainability.
- Build a strong community of researchers. This community will include many more people than just the first team members.
How the NSF Supports ICS
In 2008, the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced a five-year plan. This plan was to support research in computational sustainability. Here's what the NSF said in their press release on August 18, 2008:
The NSF created four new "Expeditions in Computing." Each of these grants gives $10 million to research teams. This money helps them work on big research ideas. These ideas promise to make huge progress in computing and help society a lot.
One of these expeditions is called "Computational Sustainability: Computational Methods for a Sustainable Environment, Economy, and Society." Carla Gomes and her team are leading this project. They are from Cornell University, Bowdoin College, the Conservation Fund, Howard University, Oregon State University, and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
They will explore how to develop and use computer methods. These methods will help create a sustainable environment, economy, and society. The team will work on challenges that computers haven't usually tackled. They hope to create a new field of computational sustainability. This is similar to how computational biology grew in past years. This new field will bring together different areas of study. These include how to solve problems, understand changing systems, and use machine learning. The research team includes many different types of scientists. They are computer scientists, mathematicians, economists, biologists, and environmental scientists.
