The goal of the new Strategic Research Initiatives (SRI) Program at Cal Poly is to connect faculty and students across disciplines and use the unique Learn by Doing ethos at Cal Poly to solve large and complex real-world problems. It's also the topic of the next Insights and Impact: An Alumni Speaker Series, focusing on Strategic Research Initiatives. 

“Faculty are conducting research all of the time and all across campus, but not always connected to each other,” explained Interim Dean of Graduate Education, Elizabeth A. Lowham, Ph.D. “The purpose of the Strategic Research Initiatives Program is to identify the larger problems that faculty from different departments are are already working to and/or want to solve and to connect them to one another and all of the resources that Cal Poly has to offer.”

Through this interdisciplinary and cooperative approach to research, Lowham explained, Cal Poly can create knowledge and help to solve real-world problems through research while providing Learn by Doing opportunities for undergrad and graduate students.

“How are we going to solve the big challenges that face the world today? That’s what our faculty have set out to do, through the unique lens of Learn by Doing,” she said.

To consolidate and encourage collaboration, research projects have been organized into five separate themes: Central Coast Place-Based Research, Community Health, Data Science & Analytics, Environment of California and Beyond and Technology Workforce.

Through this spring quarter’s Insight and Impact: An Alumni Speaker series, alumni will have the opportunity to interact with the faculty and students behind three of those themes, beginning with California and Beyond on April 15, Community Health on May 13 and Central Coast Place-Based Research, June 17.

How are we going to solve the bigchallenges that face the world today? That’s what our faculty have set out to do, through the unique lens of Learn by Doing.

Elizabeth Lowham

Interim Dean of Graduate Education

On April 15, alumni will have the opportunity to learn more about climate resiliency from Erin Pearse, assistant professor in the Mathematics Department, and the "blue economy" from Ben Ruttenberg, associate professor and director of the Cal Poly Center for Coastal Marine Sciences.

“The oceans are often cast as one of the many victims of climate change, but they can help improve both our energy and food security and reduce our carbon footprint,” Ruttenberg said. “Both offshore wind energy and marine aquaculture are nascent industries in California, but now we can study their viability and suggest ways to help them develop in sustainable, responsible ways.”

Also in this session, mechanical engineering professor and graduate coordinator of the Fire Protection Engineering Program Christopher Pascual, natural resources and environmental sciences professor Chris Dicus and interim Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) FIRE Institute director Dan Turner will be ready to answer your questions on the wildland-urban interface and work being done at Cal Poly to research wildfires and risk reduction strategies. This program is one of very few in the United States focusing on the wildland-urban interface where the natural environment meets the built environment.

 

“We’ve had faculty across the university doing work in wildland-urban interface fires and wildland fires for decades,” said Dicus. “Thanks to these cross-disciplinary relationships at Cal Poly and with local and statewide partners, we have an incredible infrastructure on which to build the WUI FIRE Institute.”

During the second session on May 13, alumni will have the chance to interact with the students working with the People's Movement for Health, a social movement to empower people and reduce health disparities that includes Learn by Doing projects such as the Women and Infants Mobile Health Unit, and to learn more about "Eating in the Anthropocene" and how people’s thoughts about food and policy may change our fundamental understanding of the relationships surrounding food and nutrition.

The spring series finishes on June 17 with the team behind the Central Coast Place-Based research theme,  focusing on creating local communities that are diverse and flourishing, while respecting Northern Chumash sovereignty and the voices of diverse groups whose experiences are often missing from conceptions of the Central Coast.

“In all three of these areas, what’s unique is they are oriented to solving problems that are both very specific to California, but that also have global implications,” Lowham said. “The Strategic Research Initiative Program is all about launching Cal Poly forward into the next decade by continuing to capitalize on our unique strengths and solving problems through Learn by Doing."

Register now for the next session of Insights and Impact, April 15 at noon. 

If you’re interested in learning more about the Strategic Research Initiatives Program or connecting with a specific research project, please reach out via email to Elizabeth Lowham at elowham@calpoly.edu.