Redefining Environmental Engineering and Science in the 21st Century

环境工程与科学学科有着深厚的根基，卫生工程专业在20世纪上半叶的S时期激增，并在20世纪60年代的S和70年代的S逐步过渡到当今的水、废水、固体废物和空气专业。这一进步在很大程度上源于美国第一套全面的环境监管举措，特别是1970年的《清洁空气法》、1972年的《清洁水法》、1974年的《安全饮用水法》和1980年的《环境响应、补偿和责任综合法案》(《超级基金》)及其随后的修正案。这些法案为研究和基础设施投资提供了资金，这些投资改变了水和废水的处理和供应，同时也促进了国家空气和水质量的显著改善。人们对可持续性的兴趣迅速扩大(其中包括)，越来越多的教师调整了他们的研究和教学兴趣，以涵盖这些主题，但到目前为止，这些努力主要是在个人层面上进行的。到目前为止，很少有环境工程和科学界的整体倡议来考虑这种不断变化的格局对该学科的研究议程、课程(本科生和研究生)和学术身份的影响。伴随这些变化的是学生对国际(主要是发展中国家)环境挑战的兴趣和活动的爆炸性增长，但这一领域的研究支持仍然很少。因此，迫切需要社区讨论，以便在不断变化的环境中主动确定我们学科的范围和方向。这一讨论应涉及未来的研究和教学议程，加强研究与现有资助机制之间的一致性，并扩展到新的资助领域。这些主题中的每一个对于保持我们学科未来的生命力都很重要，因为我们寻求建立一个坚实的基础，使我们能够培训学生，影响公共政策，并为世界上最令人烦恼的环境挑战提供创新的解决方案。私人投资机构提议组织和主办两个讲习班，以促进旨在更好地确定21世纪环境工程和科学学科的全国对话。目前，我们设想将于2016年1月和5月在洛杉矶和华盛顿特区举办研讨会。这些讲习班将包括一组受邀的发言者，他们将作简短的演讲，旨在引发关于以下问题的讨论：研究前沿领域、资金趋势、课程调整、未来的劳动力需求以及当前/未来的监管举措。其目标是从更广泛的社区征求意见，然后综合讨论，为个人、学术单位(部门、学校)和我们的专业组织--环境工程与科学教授协会(AEESP)--如何最好地实施变革提出建议。

1602500CharacklisThe discipline of Environmental Engineering and Science has deep roots, with sanitary engineering programs proliferating throughout the first half of the 1900's and progressively transitioning to present-day water, wastewater, solid waste and air programs in the 1960's and 70's. Much of this progression resulted from the nation's first set of comprehensive environmental regulatory initiatives, especially the Clean Air Act (1970), Clean Water Act (1972), Safe Drinking Water Act (1974) and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability ("Superfund") Act (1980), as well as their subsequent amendments. These Acts funded both research and infrastructure investments that transformed the treatment and provision of water and wastewater, while also contributing to dramatic improvements in the quality of the nation's air and water. There has been rapid expansion in interest sustainability (among others) and a growing number of faculty have modified their research and teaching interests to encompass these topics, but thus far these efforts have largely been at the individual level.To date, there have been few environmental engineering and science community-wide initiatives to consider the implications of this changing landscape on the discipline's research agenda, curricula (undergraduate and graduate), and academic identity. Accompanying these changes has been an explosion of student interest and activity in international (mostly developing world) environmental challenges, but research support in this area remains modest. As a result, community discussion is urgently needed to proactively define the scope and direction of our discipline in this changing landscape. This discussion should address future research and teaching agendas, an increased alignment between research and current funding mechanisms, and expansion into new funding areas. Each of these topics is important for maintaining the future vitality of our discipline as we seek to build a strong foundation that will allow us to train students, impact public policy and provide innovative solutions to the world's most vexing environmental challenges. The PIs propose to organize and host two workshops that will facilitate a national conversation intended to better define the Environmental Engineering and Science discipline for the 21st century. Currently we envision workshops in the Los Angeles and Washington, DC areas, to be held in January and May 2016. These workshops will include a group of invited speakers who will give brief presentations designed to provoke discussion on issues related to frontier areas of research, funding trends, adaptation of curricula, future workforce needs, and current/future regulatory initiatives. The goal is to solicit input from the broader community and then synthesize the discussions to develop suggestions for how individuals, academic units (Departments, Schools) and our professional organization, the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP), can best implement change.