Institute for a Sustainable Earth (ISE)

The National Science Foundation's Navigating the New Arctic researchers traveled to a remote location to attend the Permafrost and Infrastructure Symposium in Utqiaġvik, Alaska, some 320 miles north of the Arctic Circle.

Mason is deeply committed to pioneering processes that can answer the grand challenges of water, its responsible management, and sustainability. In fact, the university’s interdisciplinary approach and cutting-edge research as part of its strategic direction, has turned Mason’s campuses into a Living Lab.

Green isn’t just a school color at George Mason University. At Mason, “green” is way of life, and sustainability is central to the university’s mission.

A Mason professor is the sole academic working with the U.S. government in an unprecedented effort to measure environmental-economic activity.

The project, “A study on the ultrahigh salt adsorption capacity of an energy-efficiency water desalination technology,” was supported by a 4-VA@Mason Collaborative Research Grant with the goal of designing next-generation electrode materials to advance the energy-efficient CDI technology.

Mason graduate student’s cherry blossom monitoring research uses Mason as a living lab to assess how climate change affects the bloom date of cherry blossom trees on the Fairfax Campus.

Since 2019, George Mason University’s Business for a Better World Center (B4BW) has led the university’s contribution to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) North America chapter.

Mason graduate students helped the environment, nonprofit organizations and the local community with summer projects through the Sustainability Summer Graduate Research Fellowships. This summer marked the first time Mason’s Institute for a Sustainable Earth (ISE) has offered the fellowship program.

It’s common to think of Indigenous peoples as living in the past. We may think of them around Thanksgiving or in old films and books. But Native Americans are very much here and now, said Jeremy Campbell, and after decades of struggle, that’s starting to be recognized.

In 2018, U.S. legislation granted federal recognition to six tribes in Virginia. A George Mason University team has been partnering with two of them, the Upper Mattaponi and Chickahominy nations, as they embark on being sovereign nations.

John Kotcher, research assistant professor at Mason’s Center for Climate Change Communication, says that emphasizing the health implications of climate change is one of best ways to engage the public to fight for better policies.