The Climate Systems Engineering initiative (CSEi) is thrilled to announce eight new research projects selected through its autumn 2025 award cycle.
The eight multidisciplinary projects, selected through a University-wide application process, span a wide range of topics, from studying the biological impacts and tradeoffs of different climate intervention strategies to examining how public narratives about climate intervention shape society’s understanding of the risks.
These eight projects join an eclectic and maturing portfolio of CSEi-supported research, bringing the total number of active CSEi-funded projects to 29. Together, they expand CSEi’s collaborations with faculty and researchers across geophysics, biological sciences, public policy, economics, astronomy and astrophysics, ecology and evolution, English language and literature, and cinema and media studies.
“One of CSEi’s core goals is to build serious collaboration across disciplines that don’t often work together. These awards bring together scientists and humanists to examine climate interventions from multiple angles,” said CSEi Faculty Director David Keith. “This kind of research integration is essential if we’re going to fully understand both the risks and the potential benefits of climate systems engineering strategies.”
The following projects are set to begin throughout 2026:
Assessing Biogeochemical and Ecological Tradeoffs of Alkaline Waste-Based Carbon Removal
PI: Linta Reji, Assistant Professor, Department of the Geophysical Sciences
Co-investigator: Manon Duret, Research Assistant Professor, Department of the Geophysical Sciences
This project will use historical slag-affected wetland soil systems in the Calumet region of south Chicago as a natural, large-scale experiment to explore whether the carbon dioxide removal (CDR) benefits of slag (a byproduct of steelmaking) can be accessed without compromising ecological health.
Biological Consequences of Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement
PI: Dakota McCoy, Assistant Professor of Ecology and Evolution, Biological Sciences Division
Team: Ann Marie Hulver, CSEi Research Fellow
This project will test the little-understood biological effects of OAE in two coastal ecosystems: tropical (Palau, western Pacific) and temperate (Woods Hole, eastern USA). The research team will collect data on how alkalinization affects a community of organisms across life stages, shedding light on the potential biological consequences of OAE.
Designing Optimal Forcings for SRM Using Differentiable AI Climate Models
PI: Dorian Abbot, Professor, Department of the Geophysical Sciences
Team: Ashesh Chattopadhyay, University of California Santa Cruz
Traditional climate models cannot easily calculate how subtle changes in an SRM strategy would affect climate outcomes, hindering systematic exploration of effective SRM design. In this project, researchers will use novel AI-based climate models to overcome this limitation, minimizing the harmful impacts of an SRM deployment on rainfall patterns.
The Effects of Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement on Larval Fish
PI: Amy Herbert, Assistant Professor of Organismal Biology and Anatomy, Biological Sciences Division
Team: Christopher Murray, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
This project will provide critical data on how ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE) could affect an important early life stage of marine fish. The results will help identify safe pH ranges and inform guidelines for responsible OAE deployment.
The Impact of Stratospheric Aerosol Injection on Cirrus Clouds: The Overlooked Role of Ammonia in Sulfuric Acid Aerosol Neutralization
PI: Xiaohan Sally Li, Research Staff Scientist, Department of the Geophysical Sciences
Co-investigators: Vaishali Naik (NOAA), Mingyi Wang (Assistant Professor, Department of the Geophysical Sciences)
This project will examine whether particles released during SAI could unexpectedly change cirrus clouds. By studying how these particles chemically transform and form ice, the team will estimate how SAI might alter cloud formation, rainfall, and regional climate patterns around the world.
A Kinetic Modeling Framework for Sulfuric Acid-Water Nucleation under Stratospheric Aerosol Injection Conditions
PI: Jinghao Zhai, Staff Scientist, Department of the Geophysical Sciences
Co-investigator: Mingyi Wang, Assistant Professor, Department of the Geophysical Sciences
Team: Bingqing Zhang (Postdoctoral Scholar, Geophysical Sciences), Duzitian Li, (PhD Student, Geophysical Sciences)
This project will use a physically-based kinetic framework model to create a more reliable way to predict how quickly new particles would form under different SAI conditions, reducing key uncertainties about how effectively they would reflect sunlight.
Planetary Interventions in the Cultural Imagination
PI: Benjamin Morgan, Associate Professor, Department of English Language and Literature
Co-investigator: Katherine Buse, Assistant Professor, Department of Cinema and Media Studies
This project explores how fictional stories about the Earth shape the way people think about large scale human interventions in planetary systems. The project seeks to better understand how ideas about managing the planet have developed and how they continue to shape discussions about climate risk, adaptation, and intervention.
Tropical Climate Change Under Solar Geoengineering
PI: Malte Jansen, Associate Professor, Department of the Geophysical Sciences
Team: Allison Hogikyan, Postdoctoral Scholar, Geophysical Sciences
This project will study how the tropical climate responds to increased carbon dioxide when warming is offset by stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI). The study will provide new insight into how the tropical atmosphere-ocean system responds to radiative forcing and what the climate of a solar-geoengineered world might look like.
Visit the CSEi Research page to view a full list of ongoing CSEi-funded research projects.