FEWs Lab

Engineering

Critical Infrastructure
Critical Infrastructure (CI) is inextricably linked to every aspect of our daily lives. Commodity trade networks, power grids, transportation networks, and river networks represent interdependent spatially embedded and evolving networks that support complex market and non-market flows of goods and services. We are investigating innovative ways to study network connectedness and the propagation of risk through interdependent CI.
FEWs Nexus
We are investigating the complexity within environmental management and competing interests across the food-energy-water nexus. We want to better understand and characterize the intertwined dynamics of humans, water, climate, and ecosystems. This work searches for patterns in data and models synthesize knowledge across scales. This information can help inform related policy and solve water resource and engineering problems.

Ethics

Environmental Ethics
In collaboration with the Rock Ethics Institute, we study the ethical implications of international environmental management in communities where we work and are also building capabilities in coupled ethical-epistemic analyses to investigate the value choices in climate and water resources modeling and research approaches.
Transboundary Water Resources
We are interested in advancing analyses on transboundary water and natural resource management. Bridging science, engineering and ethics, we study how knowledge can facilitate decision-making in transboundary management. Dr. Grady is trained in facilitation, mediation, negotiation and conflict management techniques.

International Endeavors

Monitoring and Evaluation in International Development
In order to achieve global goals in sustainable development, implementing successful water and food development projects will remain a priority for engineers and policymakers alike. It is important to learn from previous failures in water, sanitation, and agricultural projects in international communities and address these challenges going forward. This work investigates new alternatives for water engineering projects based on the integration of transdisciplinary data throughout the monitoring and evaluation process.
International Security & Foreign Policy
Natural resources know no boundaries. Rivers, rainfall, drought, and natural disasters all impact human and ecological health. Bringing technical and mixed-method research designs to international security and foreign policy research has the potential to unlock insights into natural resource management within and across borders. This work investigates environmental influences on human conflict and management strategies based on the integration of quantitative statistical analyses with various social theories.

Interdisciplinary Collaboration

We are always looking for innovative collaboration opportunities spanning multiple global environmental challenges including:

Climate change vulnerability modeling

Costs and benefits of international environmental treaties

Food, water, energy nexus challenges

Scientific integrity in policy decision-making

Environmental justice issues

News and Events

New Grant! Dr. Grady is thrilled to be a part of the Penn State team working on a new graduate training program focused on Food-Energy-Water Nexus read more Here.

RESEARCH POSITIONS AVAILABLE
The Grady lab is looking for motivated prospective/current undergraduate and graduate students as well as post-docs to work in the lab. If you are interested in this research please contact Dr. Grady. Prospective graduate students should take a look at the application process for the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Students and post docs are also encouraged to apply for extramural funding sources from Fulbright, NSF, NDSEG, NOAA, foundations such as Ford or Hertz, or other such programs. To work with Dr. Grady for your graduate degree, please submit your application to Penn State the Civil Engineering - Water Resources program.