Healey-Driscoll Administration Launches Climate Science Advisory Panel

The Healey-Driscoll Administration today launched a Climate Science Advisory Panel through the new Massachusetts Office of Climate Science (OCS) to provide expertise on statewide climate science and future projections used to inform state and local climate adaptation planning and projects. The Panel is comprised of experts within Massachusetts and across the region who will advise OCS on the latest advances and applications in climate science related to hazards such as extreme heat, flooding, sea level rise, and health impacts to inform the state’s climate adaptation and resilience strategy.

Lucy Huytra | 2023 MacArthur Fellow

Lucy Hutyra is an environmental ecologist investigating the impacts of urbanization on environmental carbon cycle dynamics. She draws on a range of tools—including field observations, remote sensing, spatial analysis, and mathematical modeling—to measure where, when, and how much carbon moves between different reservoirs, like plants, soil, water, and air, in forests and urban areas.

Four Mass. residents awarded MacArthur ‘genius’ grants

Four people from Massachusetts — a cellular and molecular biologist, an environmental ecologist, a computer scientist, and an interdisciplinary scholar — on Wednesday received “genius” grants from the MacArthur Foundation, which awards fellowships to individuals pursuing a range of intellectual and creative interests. Hutyra is a professor in Boston University’s Department of Earth and Environment and has been a member of BU’s faculty since 2009. She is investigating impacts of urbanization on environmental carbon cycle dynamics.

BU Ecologist Lucy Hutyra Wins a 2023 MacArthur “Genius Grant”

A BU College of Arts & Sciences professor of Earth and environment, Hutyra focuses on understanding the impacts of urbanization on climate and ecosystems, studying how urban environments influence trees and the carbon cycle, and advancing knowledge on how to meet climate action and emission reduction goals. She is one of 20 fellows whose names were announced Wednesday by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Each fellow receives an $800,000 no-strings-attached “genius grant,” spread over five years.

BU’s 5 NSF Grant Winners Are Changing Conversations in Robotics, Computing, Mass Incarceration, Neurology, and More

Behind their research on topics ranging from mass incarceration to the brain and lungs to delivery robots, five experts and scientists at Boston University have received Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) awards from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to advance scientific research in their fields. The researchers receiving the awards are also laying the foundation for the next generation of scientists by using the funding to support students and youth educational programs and to diversify STEM.

Katharine Lusk Named Executive Director of the Planning Advisory Council

Mayor Michelle Wu today announced Katharine Lusk as the inaugural Executive Director of the Planning Advisory Council, which was created by an Executive Order signed by Mayor Wu in January and will establish a coordinated Citywide vision for Boston’s future and create accountability for delivering on that vision. The council will be composed of Cabinet officials, including those overseeing housing, parks, equity and inclusion, arts, and transportation, to ensure that long-range City planning includes those perspectives. Lusk began working in her role on May 1, 2023.

Building a Better Boston: Behind the scenes at Boston City Hall, BU PhD candidates are solving problems small and big

If you walk through Boston City Hall, chances are you’ll bump into someone from BU working on the front lines, building a city that works for all. In recent years, several PhD candidates from BU have accepted fellowships or internships with the City of Boston, forming a brain trust and working on many of the city’s most ambitious initiatives. Some come from disciplines not traditionally thought of as feeders for public service—like history and sociology—but end up contributing in significant ways, many times picking up a love for municipal government that sticks. And many of those students arrive at City Hall via BU’s Initiative on Cities (IOC).

People on the Move in Boston: Loretta Lees | New Hire

Loretta Lees is an urban geographer and urbanist who is internationally known for her research on gentrification, urban regeneration, global urbanism, urban policy, urban public space, architecture, and urban social theory. Before moving to Boston University to serve as Faculty Director of the Initiative on Cities, she was professor of Human Geography at Leicester University and before that King’s College London in the UK.

For New Initiative on Cities Leader, Urban Geography Is People

“Urban geography” may sound like it’s all about streets and parks and tall buildings. But for Loretta Lees, the new faculty director of Boston University’s Initiative on Cities (IoC), it means gentrification and homelessness, climate change and commuting, the way the built environment and the politics that shape it affect the lives of residents.