Projects

To foster a climate and energy ecosystem at UChicago, the Institute invests in collaborative research projects through Venture and Seed Fund programs. Explore the collection of the funded projects to date.

2025 Projects

Venture Fund Project

The Center for Organic Battery Innovation

Awardees: Shrayesh Patel, Rajeev Assary, Anna Wuttig, Y. Shirley Meng, Pedro Lopes, Laura Gagliardi, Doug Weinberg
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Seed Fund Project

The Chicago Center for Environmental and Behavioral Change to Address Psychological Impacts of Heat Exposure

Awardees: Marc Berman, Kim Meidenbauer, Ashish Sharma, Kate Burrows, Amir Jina
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Seed Fund Project

Empowering Environmental Governance with Satellite Data: A Global Randomized Control Trial

Awardees: Shaoda Wang, Michael Greenstone, Rajat Kochhar, Yixin Sun
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Seed Fund Project

Mapping Energy History

Awardees: Liz Moyer, Robert Suits, Nathan Matteson
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Seed Fund Project

Understanding controls on ice sheet flow through adhesion experiments and ice flow modeling

Awardees: Steven Sibener, Meghana Ranganathan
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Seed Fund Project

Improving estimates of ice sheet mass loss with a Neural Ice Flow Model

Awardees: Pedram Hassanzadeh, Meghana Ranganathan
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Seed Fund Project

Battery electrode materials discovery via operando optical characterization and multi-fidelity active learning

Awardees: Po-Chun Hsu, Yuxin Chen
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Seed Fund Project

AI-supercharged Climate Extreme Event Risk Assessment

Awardees: Dorian Abbott, Pedram Hassanzadeh, Justin Finkel
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Seed Fund Project

Improving incentives for adaptation: Experimental evidence from Odisha

Awardees: Fiona Burlig, Anant Sudarshan, Jack Glaser
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Seed Fund Project

Wildfire sizes: combining theory, observations, & statistics to improve projections

Awardees: B.B. Cael, Tyler Karp
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Seed Fund Project

Green Schoolyards for Community Health and Urban Climate Resilience

Awardees: Sabina Shaikh, Laura McGuinn
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Seed Fund Project

Climate Adaptation and Policy Interactions

Awardees: Erin Kelley, Gregory Lane, Fiona Burlig, Xavier Gine, Manzoor Dar
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Seed Fund Project

Reimagining Plastic Recycling: Data-Driven Dynamic Chemistry for Upcycling Mixed Waste

Awardees: Jie Xu, Stuart Rowan
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Seed Fund Project

Integrating Digital Twins into Material Synthesis and Processing for Sustainable Growth

Awardees: Minghao Zhang, Maria Chan
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PhD Project

Do Emission Markets Reallocate Production Efficiently?

Awardees: Koichiro Ito, Keisuke Ito
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PhD Project

Upcycling Waste Lipids into Monomers via Sustainable Catalysis

Awardees: Guangbin Dong, Kezhi Chen
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PhD Project

A Socioecological Investigation of Extreme Weather Experiences’ Impact on Perceptions of Climate Change and Climate Technologies

Awardees: Youngjae Cha, Nicholas DiMaggio, Joshua Jackson, Shigehiro Oishi
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PhD Project

Computationally modeling device repair for augmented repair guidance

Awardees: Pedro Lopes, Jasmine Lu
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2024 Projects

Venture Fund Project

Human-Centered Weather Forecasts

Awardees: Michael Kremer, Amir Jina, Pedram Hassanzadeh
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Venture Fund Project

The Center for Advanced Materials for Environmental Solutions

Awardees: Laura Gagliardi, John Anderson, Max Delferro, Ian Foster, Guilia Galli, Nancy Kawalek, Doug Weinberg
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Seed Fund Project

Forecasts at Scale: General Equilibrium Impacts of Climate Adaptation

Awardees: Fiona Burlig, Amir Jina, Erin Kelley, Gregory Lane
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Seed Fund Project

Using Technology, Artificial Intelligence, and Economics to Induce Smart Demand Response

Awardees: Koichiro Ito, David Brown, Erica Myers, Blake Shaffer
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Seed Fund Project

Developing a Feasibility Assessment Framework for Carbon Dioxide Removal Through Integration of Engineering and Social Science Knowledge

Awardees: Kim Wolske, Udayan Singh
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Seed Fund Project

Quantum Sensors to Probe Interfaces in Electrochemical Systems

Awardees: Chibueze Amanchukwu, Joseph Heremans
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Seed Fund Project

Designing Descriptors and Experimental Methods for High-throughput Electrolyte Discovery

Awardees: Ke-Hsin Wang, Chibueze Amanchukwu
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Seed Fund Project

Computational Tools to Support the Repair, Reuse, and Recycling of Devices

Awardees: Jasmine Lu, Pedro Lopes
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Seed Fund Project

Climate Change Impacts on Population Mobility in the United States

Awardees: Kate Burrows, Prachi Sanghavi
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Seed Fund Project

The Geography of Climate Change: Developing Frameworks to Assess the Economic Impact of Climate Change Across Time and Space

Awardees: Esteban Rossi Hansberg, Rodrigo Adao, Adrian Bilal, Jose-Luis Cruz, Klaus Desmet
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Seed Fund Project

Predicting Microbial CO2 Production from Soils on a Global Scale

Awardees: Seppe Kuehn, Pamela Weisenhorn, Vaibhhav Sinha
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Research Funding

Learn more about the Venture and Seed Fund programs, and how to apply. Questions? Contact: Emma Cronin, ecronin2@uchicago.edu
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