Ongoing Projects
Heat Exposure and Worker Vulnerability in New York City
Extreme heat threatens workers, but City decision-makers lack evidence on who is most exposed and what it costs. This project quantifies the size and demographic profile of NYC’s workforce in occupations both inside and outside climate-controlled environments, and links workers’ compensation records to weather data to estimate how temperature drives workplace injuries. We will produce a fiscal estimate of heat-related injuries among NYC workers, helping City policymakers prioritize interventions and plan for rising heat.
Leader: Jisung Park
Partner: NYC Mayor’s Office and NYC Government
KlimaKover: Reimagining Comfort in a Warming World
KlimaKover is a modular timber pavilion designed for diverse urban settings, creating comfortable microclimates in extreme heat and humidity. Unlike conventional air-conditioning—often energy-intensive and impractical outdoors—it uses low-energy, condensation-free radiant panels to cool people directly. A prototype on Governors Island invites public interaction and learning. Environmental data gathered on-site supports research on climate resilience, thermal comfort, and community-centered design, demonstrating scalable solutions for adapting cities to rising temperatures.
Leader: Dorit Aviv, with Henning Larsen Architects and AIL Research
Extreme weather events have a significant impact on the mental health of youth. Our team measured the extent of climate related anxiety among youth residing on the island of San Cristobal in the Galapagos as well as youth residing in the community of Eastwick, PA. In both settings, children expressed deep concern about their future due to profound weather related changes in their environment. Educational modules to mitigate against such anxiety are under development.
Leader: Jennifer Pinto-Martin
Partner: Local communities
Datacenters require significant resources and decision-makers need reliable metrics to identify efficient facilities. However, the dominant metric, power usage effectiveness (PUE), overlooks IT equipment efficiency, carbon emissions, and water use. This project evaluates the strengths and limitations of PUE, surveys industry reporting indicators, and proposes a more comprehensive framework that captures computation output per unit energy, power-water tradeoffs, and carbon intensity of electricity sources in ways that are relevant to investors and policymakers.
Leader: Benjamin Lee
Partner: Environmental Defense Fund (EDF)
Carbon Action Plan for the City of Philadelphia
The Center for Environmental Building + Design (CEBD) at the Weitzman School was commissioned in 2025 by the City of Philadelphia’s Division of Energy and Climate Solutions to develop pathways to carbon neutrality for the City’s 600+ facilities. Considering diverse building types, energy use, and capital constraints, the project evaluates tradeoffs among energy efficiency investments, low-carbon energy supplies, and carbon offsets, presenting three realistic pathways for achieving carbon neutrality by 2050.
Leader: William W. Braham
Partner: City of Philadelphia, Division of Energy and Climate Solutions
Renewable energy must move through transmission lines from where it is generated to where it is needed. But transmission bottlenecks often lead to clean energy being curtailed, creating economic and environmental losses. This project explores an alternative approach: moving computation to the clean energy. Using data from the California Independent System Operator (CAISO), we found that strategically siting datacenters near renewable generation could significantly reduce transmission upgrade costs for California ratepayers while advancing carbon neutrality.
Leader: Benjamin Lee
Partner: Next 10
Cool Pavement: Testing Reflective Coating for Urban Surfaces
Cool Pavement is a collaborative field study examining how reflective pavement impact urban heat outdoor heat stress. Conducted in Hunting Park, Philadelphia, the research compares conventional asphalt with CoolSeal, a solar-reflective coating, using environmental sensors to measure surface and air conditions. Early results show CoolSeal remains an average of 9.2°F cooler than conventional asphalt. However, the impact on thermal comfort of pedestrians is more complex, with increased solar reflections negatively impacting heat stress under certain conditions.
Leader: Russell Composto and Dorit Aviv
Electrifying the US Housing Stock: Heat Pump Modelling and Analysis in Future Climate Scenarios
Commissioned by the Daikin Open Innovation Lab, Silicon Valley, this five-year collaboration brings together researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, University of Florida, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute. The project evaluates the potential of heat pumps to decarbonize U.S. homes. By modeling residential electrification scenarios, the research informs strategies to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions while advancing climate goals through more efficient heating and cooling systems.
Leader: William W. Braham