Five Hariri Institute-affiliated graduate students have received 2026 Graduate Student Summer Fellowships from the BU Institute for Global Sustainability (IGS). The students are among 11 fellows selected across BU to advance interdisciplinary research addressing pressing sustainability challenges.
The IGS Graduate Student Summer Fellows program supports independent research by graduate students from across Boston University. Fellows receive opportunities for mentoring, capacity building, and interdisciplinary collaboration as they pursue research related to planetary health and human well-being, sustainability transitions, and future energy systems.
Among this year’s recipients are the following Hariri Institute-affiliated students:
Xinyi Hu, a PhD student in Computing & Data Sciences and a FY24 Hariri Institute Graduate Student Fellow, was awarded an IGS fellowship for her project, “Smart and Sustainable Buildings through Data-Efficient Reinforcement Learning.” Advised by Aldo Pacchiano, Assistant Professor of Computing & Data Sciences, Hu develops reinforcement learning methods that can make data-efficient decisions in real-world systems, including building energy optimization.
Grace Betts, a PhD student in Environmental Health at the School of Public Health, will investigate the energy, cost, and equity implications of different approaches to decarbonizing heating in Boston. Her project, “Comparing Heat Decarbonization Scenarios for the City of Boston: Analyzing Impacts on Energy Demand, Cost, and Energy Justice,” is advised by Patricia Fabian, Professor of Environmental Health and Associate Director of IGS.
Sheida Hooshmandi, a PhD student in Earth & Environment in the College of Arts & Sciences, was selected for her project, “Delivering Climate Justice to Global South: From Climate Adaptation Aid to Loss & Damage Compensation.” Advised by Benjamin Sovacool, Professor of Earth & Environment and Director of IGS, Hooshmandi’s research examines climate justice within adaptation aid and emerging loss-and-damage frameworks.
Jiguang Yu, a PhD student in the Division of Systems Engineering in the College of Engineering, will pursue the project “Spectrum Fairness: A New Game-Theoretic Framework for Active-Passive Dynamic Spectrum Sharing.” Advised by David Starobinski, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Yu applies game theory, optimization, and related methods to resource-allocation challenges, including the sustainable sharing of wireless spectrum.
Lizzy Yue, a PhD student in Computer Engineering in the College of Engineering, was selected for her project, “Power Optimization in Large Language Model Inference Serving.” Advised by Ayşe Coşkun, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Director of the Center for Information and Systems Engineering, Yue is developing systems approaches to address the scalability and energy-efficiency challenges associated with artificial intelligence.
The projects demonstrate the breadth of interdisciplinary research being conducted by Hariri Institute-affiliated graduate students, applying computational, data-driven, and systems approaches to challenges ranging from sustainable AI and buildings to climate justice and energy systems.
Learn more about the IGS Graduate Student Summer Fellows program and the 2026 fellows.