ASU professor elected to National Academy of Sciences

April 30, 2014

Janet Franklin, a professor in Arizona State University’s School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

Franklin is one of the 84 new members and 21 foreign associates from 15 countries elected to the academy. Election is considered one of the highest honors that can be accorded a scientist or engineer. portrait of ASU professor Janet Franklin Download Full Image

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is an honorific society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the advancement of science and technology, and to their use for the general welfare of society. NAS members and foreign associates are elected in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. Franklin’s research is focused on the dynamics of terrestrial (land) plant communities at the landscape scale.

She said she was shocked when she got the call from the academy, but was happy about how proud it made her father.

“He took me to my first public science lecture when I was 12 – it was Linus Pauling,” Franklin said. “It made me want to be a scientist and solve puzzles.”

Working with the idea that Earth is a whole, living organism, Franklin’s research addresses the impacts of human-caused landscape change on the environment and its long-term implications for the environment and all things living in it. Combining statistical modeling, computer simulation, geospatial data and spatial analysis with field work, Franklin and her colleagues have shown:

• Remote sensing-based estimates of tree and shrub cover in arid rangelands reveal the disproportionate contribution of woody plants to ecosystem processes and services (nutrient and water cycling, livestock grazing) in Africa and the American Southwest.

• In the California biodiversity hotspot, increases and decreases in fire frequency occurring in the same region as a result of human activities can have devastating consequences for biodiversity and ecosystem services in a mosaic of natural communities that would otherwise be resilient to natural disturbance.

• By developing novel linkages among methods that address processes at different scales (ecological populations, species ranges, land use, land forms, regional and global climate), her work has revealed synergies among human impacts (land use change, climate change, invasive species) leading to habitat loss and species decline.

• New insights into the role of prehistoric humans in shaping ecological communities in the Pacific and Caribbean islands, and powerful forecasting tools for managing contemporary landscapes in the face of global change today.

Franklin, who also is a senior sustainability scientist in ASU’s Global Institute of Sustainability, has published more than 120 refereed papers in a wide variety of scholarly journals. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, NASA and the National Geographic Society. She has also worked closely with the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Geological Survey.

The School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning is an academic unit in ASU's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Skip Derra

Director, Media Relations and Strategic Communications

480-965-4823 skip.derra@asu.edu

ASU among 16 teams chosen for EcoCAR 3 competition

Arizona State University has been chosen to work on the EcoCAR challenge to reduce energy consumption and emissions in the car of the future.

Read the article

ASU among 16 teams chosen for EcoCAR 3 competition

April 30, 2014

The U.S. Department of Energy and General Motors Co. recently announced the official launch of the EcoCAR 3 competition, introducing the 16 participating universities, including Arizona State University, and revealing the Chevrolet Camaro as the vehicle selected as the platform for the competition.

“EcoCAR is an opportunity for the next generation of automotive engineers to help design and build innovative, advanced vehicles that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, protect the environment and save American families and businesses money at the pump,” said Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. “Through this competition, North American students gain valuable real-life experience that they can use to bring the auto industry into the cleaner energy future.” ASU's EcoCAR 3 team representatives Download Full Image

Participating university teams will be challenged to design, develop and integrate powertrains into the vehicle that, when compared to the production gasoline vehicle, will:

• reduce energy consumption
• reduce well-to-wheel greenhouse gas emissions
• reduce criteria tailpipe emissions
• maintain consumer demand in the areas of performance, utility and safety
• meet energy and environmental goals, while considering cost and innovation

The competition introduces students to industry-leading software tools and sophisticated powertrain components, and challenges them to face similar engineering design constraints and technical challenges that automakers face, resulting in a real-world training ground for automotive engineering students that is unparalleled in the academic environment. New for EcoCAR 3, the organizers are ramping up the challenge by adding cost constraints as well as automotive innovation as additional judging criteria.

"The EcoCAR programs have been and will continue to be an instrumental part of developing the next generation of automotive engineers. We have gained significant talent and intellectual property as a result of these programs," said James Kolhoff, global chief engineer and program manager, transmission controllers and powertrain electronics at General Motors. "We’re also eager to see how the students will redesign and add more efficiency to an iconic ‘muscle car’ like the Chevrolet Camaro."

To be successful, universities will need to recruit a team spanning many engineering disciplines, such as mechanical, electrical, computer and software engineering, as well as communications, marketing and project management. The multi-disciplinary emphasis imitates a real-world automotive industry environment and gives graduates the skills to enter the field fully prepared for their careers.

Established by the Energy Department and GM, and managed by Argonne National Laboratory, EcoCAR 3 is the latest Advanced Vehicle Technology Competition (AVTC) aimed at developing the next generation of automotive engineers. The four-year program will conclude in the summer of 2018.

EcoCAR 3 includes both new teams and veterans to the AVTC. After a rigorous application and selection process, the schools chosen are:

• Arizona State University (Tempe, Ariz.)
• California State University – Los Angeles (Los Angeles, Calif.)
• Colorado State University (Fort Collins, Colo.)
• Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (Daytona Beach, Fla.)
• Georgia Tech (Atlanta, Ga.)
• McMaster University (Hamilton, Ontario, Canada)
• Mississippi State University (Starkville, Miss.)
• The Ohio State University (Columbus, Ohio)
• Pennsylvania State University (University Park, Pa.)
• University of Alabama (Tuscaloosa, Ala.)
• University of Tennessee – Knoxville (Knoxville, Tenn.)
• University of Washington (Seattle, Wash.)
• University of Waterloo (Waterloo, Ontario, Canada)
• Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, Va.)
• Wayne State University (Detroit, Mich.)
• West Virginia University (Morgantown, W.Va.)

For more information about the student engineering program, the participating schools or the competition sponsors, please visit EcoCAR3.org or EcoCAR Photos.

Additional sponsors joining the U.S. Department of Energy and General Motors include: MathWorks; California Air Resources Board; Freescale; Clean Cities; AVL Powertrain Engineering; Bosch; ETAS; dSPACE; Snap-On; Siemens; GKN Driveline; Transportation Research Center; Enerdel; Proterra; Ricardo; and A123 Systems.

Media contacts:

Kimberly DeClark, EcoCAR 3
202-441-0096

Ashley Yost, ashley.yost@asu.edu
EcoCar3 Communications Team Student Leader