THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO UCHICAGO
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Advancing our understanding of the potential benefits and risks of climate systems engineering.

About

The University of Chicago is building a substantial research cluster working on the science, technology, and public policy of Climate Systems Engineering. Our goal is to advance understanding of the potential benefits and risks of these technologies and to educate students who will face the challenges of managing industrial civilization on a fragile planet.

Climate Systems Engineering will apply insights from systems engineering and climate systems science to study technologies that might reduce the risks of accumulated greenhouse gases. The mix of specific research topics will evolve as the initiative matures driven by the interests of collaborating researchers and by policy-relevant questions posed by governments and civil society. The scope includes solar geoengineering from modification to surface albedo to space-based systems; open-systems carbon removal such as enhanced rock weathering and related methods of ocean carbon removal; and local interventions to reduce glacial melting. Disciplinary research will be complemented by systems analysis including techno-economic assessment, decision and risk analysis, and integrated assessment.

Initial Objectives

  • Recruiting ladder faculty: CSEi will facilitate hiring an interdisciplinary cluster of collaborative faculty. Applicants are welcome from all academic disciplines, see the advertisement.  Academic faculty will be hired into existing academic units. The CSEi executive committee will screen applicants and work with academic units to manage recruitment and hiring.
  • Recruiting academic visitors and researchers: CSEi will support recruitment of visiting faculty and senior research appointments when these appointments can strengthen the research cluster and compliment current faculty.
  • Supporting the research cluster: CSEi will support current researchers at UChicago and Argonne with seed funding and related research support.
  • Supporting engagement: Climate engineering technologies raise difficult questions of equity and governance. CSEi will support vigorous discussion and debate within UChicago and beyond.
  • Supporting global research: Climate engineering technologies have global implications, so research needs to be global. CSEi will work through UChicago global centers to support exchange of scholars and ideas.

CSEi is in its infancy. The initiative and this website will evolve with the research community it supports.

Executive Committee

The executive committee reports to the provost and guides the development of CSEi overseeing faculty recruitment, budget, engagement, and long-term planning.

Faculty Jobs

Equal Employment Opportunity Statement:

All University departments and institutes are charged with building a faculty from a diversity of backgrounds and with diverse viewpoints; with cultivating an inclusive community that values freedom of expression; and with welcoming and supporting all their members.

We seek a diverse pool of applicants who wish to join an academic community that places the highest value on rigorous inquiry and encourages diverse perspectives, experiences, groups of individuals, and ideas to inform and stimulate intellectual challenge, engagement, and exchange. The University’s Statements on Diversity are at https://provost.uchicago.edu/statements-diversity.

The University of Chicago is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity/Disabled/Veterans Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national or ethnic origin, age, status as an individual with a disability, protected veteran status, genetic information, or other protected classes under the law. For additional information please see the University’s Notice of Nondiscrimination.

Job seekers in need of a reasonable accommodation to complete the application process should call 773-834-3988 or email equalopportunity@uchicago.edu with their request.