NRT - Stakeholder Engaged Equitable Decarbonized Energy Futures

Carbon-based energy sources like coal, gasoline, and diesel contribute to greenhouse gas emissions which are a leading cause of climate change. Efforts to reduce the harm caused by fossil fuel energy generation include renewable technology solutions and policy changes. However, many solutions are expensive, and access to them is unequal.

Low-income groups have historically spent a disproportionate amount of their income on energy and may face additional economic burden in the future due to uneven deployment of energy technologies and programs. Developing new clean energy solutions and finding low-cost and equitable ways to deliver them will require a workforce trained to innovate non-carbon energy solutions and integrate them with infrastructures and policies so that environmental, economic, and health benefits can be equitably shared.

This future workforce will need to engage with communities to tailor energy solutions to address needs; communicate effectively with stakeholders from industry, policy organizations, and government agencies; and ensure awareness of the environmental, economic, and health implications of clean energy solutions among impacted communities. This National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) award to Lehigh University will establish a program to train a new class of energy workers with the skills needed for developing and delivering clean, equitable energy solutions via interdisciplinary training in engineering, policy, economics, environmental science, data science, and population health.

The project anticipates training 64 trainees, including 24 funded Ph.D. trainees and an additional 40 graduate students who will enroll in certificate programs and participate in research projects.

This NRT Program will innovate the training of Ph.D. and Master’s students through stakeholder engagement, equity considerations, and interdisciplinarity to pioneer impactful solutions while developing key skills for energy sector leadership in academia, industry, government agencies, and policy organizations. This will be accomplished through seven novel program pillars: (1) coursework on stakeholder engagement that culminates in an annual student-led stakeholder workshop; (2) a required course on ethics and equity in technology; (3) a multidisciplinary engineering, policy, environmental science, economics, and population health graduate coursework and certificate program; (4) participation in interdisciplinary research teams that target locally based but universally-relevant topics in equitable energy decarbonization and require thesis contributions connecting technology, policy, and stakeholders; (5) required stakeholder-based internships; (6) community building to amplify the project’s vision among a broader student population; and (7) professional development and leadership seminar series to introduce students to a wide range of roles in the energy sector.

Program outcomes will be measured by the efficacy in meeting identified learning objectives, workforce preparedness of trainees, and ability to recruit and retain students and address workforce diversity in the energy sector.

The NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) program is designed to encourage the development and implementation of bold, new potentially transformative models for STEM graduate education training. The program is dedicated to effective training of STEM graduate students in high priority interdisciplinary or convergent research areas through comprehensive traineeship models that are innovative, evidence-based, and aligned with changing workforce and research needs.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.