Digital Commons Network^™

Environmental Ethics And Impact Of Artificial Intelligence Data Centers, Jacky Yang

Discovery Day - Daytona Beach

Data centers, including artificial intelligence (AI) facilities, serve as the backbone for many modern digital services and products. With the rapid digitization of society, the expansion of these centers in the United States has accelerated significantly. From an anthropocentric and utilitarian perspective, they provide economic benefits, supporting employment and generating public revenue. However, they can also create a significant amount of environmental and societal challenges. From an ecocentric and environmental justice perspective, AI data centers has contributed to increased competition for the limited resources, such as water, electricity, and land and has been linked to rising utility costs, noise pollution, …

Abstract Book (Pdf), Lsu Health School Of Medicine

Summer Research Internship Program

Abstract Book for the 20XX Summer Research Internship Program.

Participants are listed alphabetically by last name.

Accessibility statement: The attached document has been formatted to meet PDF/UA v1 standards.

Uncovering The Health Impacts Of Extreme Temperatures In Western United States Prisons Through Interdisciplinary Architectural And Epidemiological Methods, Serena Langdon-Dimidjian, Allison Macht, Shawhin Roudbari, Katherine Lemasters, David Ciplet, Elizabeth Corrado, Michael Clifton, Bob Eisman

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Mass incarceration is a public health and architectural crisis in the United States. Extreme temperatures present mental and physical health challenges for incarcerated populations, exacerbated by the architectural strategies of carceral spaces. At the intersection of architecture and epidemiology we investigated how participants could leverage architectural drawings to analyze the inhumane temperatures they experienced in state prisons. Through interviews and focus groups with formerly incarcerated people, we found that the method of participatory architectural drawing allowed participants and researchers to spatialize the impact of extreme temperatures on mental and physical health as mediated by architectural space. Through a collaboration between …

Cianalas: How Scottish Dementia Friendly Communities Shaped Design For Wellbeing Research, Lucy Robertson, Christopher Sze Chong Lim

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper reflects on how two dementia-friendly communities (DFCs) in Scotland shaped participatory research exploring interactive textiles for wellbeing. Drawing on two practice-based studies in Scotland, study 1 which was based in the Outer Hebrides and the study 2 based in both the Outer Hebrides and East Lothian; it explores how place, geography, culture, and community influence participation and sense-making. Using Research through Design (RtD) and person-centred methods, both projects engaged participants using or making interactive textiles. Comparing the two locations shows that the remoteness of the Hebrides, the Gaelic language, the historical textile industry and the surrounding environments fostered …

Surfacing Wetlands Through Design Ethnography And Critical Visualisation, Alexandra Crosby, Sarah-Jane Jones, Holly O'Neil

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper explores the visualisation of wetlands and waterways as a more-than-human design practice that can generate situated and relational understandings of colonised urban wetlands and waterways in Australia. We analyse three design research projects that create online visualisations of wetlands in Australia: The Sound of Water, Environmental Flows in Nap Nap Swamp (2021); The Rippon Lea Water Story (2023); and Dyarubbin the real Secret River (2020). These projects are brought together in this paper to open discussion about the role of design research place-based ethnography and critical visualisation in communicating with and about water places. We make the argument …

Nature-Centred Biodesign For Regeneration. Design Understandings In Europe., Nina Costa, Pierre Oskam, Helen Charoupia, Fátima Pombo

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This study explores how design researchers in Europe understand and enact nature-centred biodesign for regeneration: an emerging approach that bridges design, biology, and ecology to foster regenerative futures. It proposes an evolutionary framework of design agency, mapping the transition from imitation to co-evolution and from instrumental ethics to ecological justice. The framework highlights four paradigmatic quadrants: Anthropocentric Planning, Emerging Bioeconomy, Socio-Ecology, and Regenerative Biodesign that capture how ethical, ecological, and material orientations shape practice. In parallel, it employs a qualitative analysis of a questionnaire with 32 researchers from COST Action DESIGNAE (2025), which investigates how design operates between scientific, material, …

Design For Mending The Rift: Rethinking Sustainable Design From An Eco-Marxist Perspective, Yan Yang, Zhaoyu Wang, Jia Ren, Tie Ji, Han Meng

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Despite the advancement of sustainable design, a critical paradox persists: many practices remain embedded in industrial paradigms, failing to address deep-seated socio-natural contradictions. Grounded in the Eco-Marxist "metabolic rift" framework and informed by recent Agricultural Innovation Design (AID) research, this study proposes a key path for mending these rifts. The research offers a systemic framework for intervening in complex social-ecological systems. The primary conclusions are: (1) metabolic rifts are fundamentally rooted in relational alienation, characterized by the disruption of healthy and reciprocal metabolic relationships between society and nature; (2) structural sustainability requires reshaping metabolic relationships across social, ecological, and intergenerational …

Play And Pilina: Reimagining Play Design Through Material Kinship And Cultural Practice, Corinne Takara

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Playful encounters at the intersection of familiar consumer materials and place-based natural matter are fertile terrain for speculative play world-building. This paper introduces bio-collaborative play, a design paradigm where materials and organisms are recognized as active collaborators and kin. This shifts play design away from the manipulation of objects toward a sustained dialogue with living systems. Grounded in Kānaka ‘Ōiwi (Native Hawaiian) principles of pilina (reciprocal care) and kuleana (privileged responsibility), this framework reimagines speculative play as an act of communal care spanning biological scales and generational time. By treating plants, microbes, and everyday materials as co-authors, this approach analyzes …

Keeping It Real With Responsible Futuring: Reflecting On The Epistemic And Political Ambition Of A Transdisciplinary Approach For Societal Transitions, Cristina Zaga, Julieta Matos Castaño, Mascha Van Der Voort

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Amidst the upheaval of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the threat of the Sixth Extinction, designers focus on approaches that help communities connect and imagine alternative, desirable futures. Transdisciplinary approaches promise more sustainable and just transitions by valuing and integrating diverse forms of knowledge to co-shape more equitable design interventions. However, these ambitions often fall short. Transdisciplinary practices may be reduced to justice-washing or corporate co-optation, frequently failing to achieve epistemic and social justice. This paper introduces Responsible Futuring, a transdisciplinary design-led approach that enables communities to actively shape their future trajectories, embracing collaboration and diverse perspectives as catalysts for …

Towards More-Than-Human Inclusion: Designing Artefacts That Cultivate Attentiveness For Engaging With More-Than-Human Worlds, Jorge Luis Siesquén Deza

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This research explores how Inclusive design can be expanded to recognise nonhuman stakeholders by engaging perspectives from the More-than-Human turn. Using Research-through-Design, the study combines literature, semi-structured interviews, and case studies to identify barriers to designers’ responsible engagement with nonhuman entities. The findings reveal that while designers are open to widening inclusion, current practices remain centred on human empathy, usability, and evidence, leaving nonhuman concerns unaccounted for. Instead of expanding the repertoire of prescriptive tools, what is needed is the cultivation of attentiveness and care that enables designers to engage meaningfully with nonhuman agencies. This research offers two contributions: (1) …

Hybrid Craft Practices For Sustainable Materialities And Narratives Through Digital Fabrication, Alessia Romani, Philip Gurrey, Imogen Clendinning, Junyu Ke, Joshua Pearce

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Hybrid craft can help envision more sustainable futures, recognizing the human-nature-technology interdependence in ecological making practices. Beyond industrial and research applications, digital fabrication offers new aesthetic and formal possibilities to designers, artists, and practitioners, exploring new materialities and narratives to foster sustainable discourses through hybrid craft and reflective making. This paper explores how hybrid craft and digital fabrication can foster sustainable materialities and narratives to reflect on human-nature-technology relationships and advance sustainability discourses through Janus, a collaborative case study combining local natural elements with 3D printing and crafts. By showcasing a corn stalk alongside its 3D scanned and 3D printed …

Small Ai: A Degrowth Imaginary For Designing With/For Artificial Intelligence, Roy Bendor, Dave Murray-Rust, Rainer Rehak

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper presents Small AI as a conceptual lever for designers to resist the ‘bigger is better’ trend in the discourse and development of Generative AI. We explore different types of Small AI: initially in relation to the size of models, as smaller models require less computational resources for both training and inference, thus implying a smaller ecological footprint. However, we extend the meaning of smallness to apply to political, epistemic and cultural domains as well. In this vein, the paper posits Small AI as an imaginary-in-the-making, and a rallying concept for an alternative innovation agenda that holds, in the …

Public Sector’S Climate Commoning And Infrastructural Care, Alicia Smedberg, Per Linde, Anders Melin, Joakim Nordqvist

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Local urban governments struggle to approach environmental goals in the global climate crisis. An understanding on the necessitiy to increase fair citizen engagement in governmental sustainability initiatives has become fundamental, the challenge emerge on how processes can become resilient beyond specific project initiatives. The concept of infrastructruring, here understood as a situated effort to hold together socio-material constellations that enable certain ways of acting, provides a foundation for long-term interaction between the public sector and citizens. But as the participatory design community is strong on providing ”points of entry” for citizen participation it remains less clear how one cares for …

Mediating More-Than-Human Care: Art, Design And Climate Governance, Liesbeth Huybrechts, Jaz Hee-Jeong Choi, Rachel Elisabeth Clarke, Louise Mazet, Kana Ohashi

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Art is increasingly mobilised in climate governance and policy, yet often instrumentalised for predefined human agendas of data visualisation, awareness raising, and science communication. This paper explores design research’s role as a mediator of more radical art-driven participation that cultivates more-than-human care ecologies: relational configurations that redistribute sensing, accountability, and decision-making across human and other-than-human actors. Drawing on theories of care and affective politics, we examine how design research can support art-driven participation through a critical literature review. Three illustrative case studies addressing sustainable transitions on an interregional level, urban air pollution, and disaster recovery demonstrate a move from anthropocentric …

Practice-As-Paradigm: Towards Ethical And Affective Methodologies In Participatory Architectural Research, Tom Harvey

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This practice-based and interdisciplinary doctoral research develops methods for participatory and ethically engaged architectural research. Drawing on over a decade of architectural practice, it proposes practice-as-paradigm: a mode of knowledge production grounded in making, relation, and reflection. Centred on the Southampton Way estate in south-east London, the research develops a reflexive and diffractive methodology attentive to affective-knowing—tacit, embodied, and emotional knowledge—alongside technical expertise. Drawing on radical democratic theory, it treats participation as performative and political, where care and conflict co-produce insight. Models, prototypes, and installations operate as heuristic and epistemic artefacts through which collaboration, negotiation, and play generate situated understanding. …

More-Than-Human Design In The Real World: Resistance, Regeneration, And Radical Solidarity, Cristina Zaga, Iohanna Nicenboim, Elisa Giaccardi, Joseph Lindley, Arne Berger, Claudia Garduño García, Laura Forlano

DRS Biennial Conference Series

In Capitalocene, humanity faces the intertwined crises of technological advancement and ecological collapse. These urgent challenges require us to question the power structures embedded in design, technology, and society. As a response, More-than-human design (MthD) recognizes the agency, sentience, and mutual influence of nonhuman species, materials, and environments, foregrounding principles of care, reciprocity, and collaborative co-shaping to foster multispecies cohabitation, ecological justice, and planetary well-being. Yet, it remains unclear how MthD can move beyond academia to influence policy, industry, and communities for ecological and social regeneration. Practicing MthD in the real world means proposing different ways of knowing and ways …

Landscapes Of Exclusion: Mapping Racial Boundaries And Environmental Burdens, Monique A. Baxter

2026 Symposium

Inspired by the author’s work with the mapping team for the Eastern Washington University Racial Covenants Project, this project uses additional GIS layers to reveal the enduring imprint of historic racial exclusion on today’s urban landscape. Spokane, Washington’s landscape, like many urban areas across the country, bears the imprint of racial exclusion through mechanisms such as restrictive covenants and redlining. This project examines how racial covenants and red lining layers relate to current brownfield and superfund sites to shape Spokane’s long-term environmental injustice. Using digitized property records, historic zoning maps, and GIS spatial analysis, this project demonstrates that historically red …

Health Outcomes In Heat-Intense Areas In Response To Socioeconomic Status, Victoria Zheng, Chandni Patel, Emily Fried, Jayanth Ambat, Lincoln Opara, Rohan Gupta

Rowan-Virtua Research Day

Background: As ambient temperature rises, regions experiencing extreme heat face serious health concerns. This disproportionately affects lower socioeconomic status (SES) individuals in urban areas. This review examines how these “heat islands” affect the health outcomes for those in different socioeconomic statuses.

Methods: The databases used were PubMed, Embase, and Medline, and were searched with keywords such as “heat islands”, “social inequality”, “SES”, and “health outcomes”. After compiling, articles were screened using the inclusion criteria of ages, gender, peer-reviewed and English-written publications, from any location, social determinants as a primary outcome, and directly compared heat with social determinants of health. Articles …

Air Quality, Atmospheric Pressure, And Migraine Presentations In The Emergency Department, James Espinosa, Alan Lucerna

Rowan-Virtua Research Day

Background: Migraine is a leading cause of Emergency Department (ED) visits and global disability. Weather has long been reported by patients as a trigger, yet the literature remains inconsistent. Prior ED-based data demonstrated an association between higher mean barometric pressure and increased migraine presentations, without a relationship to short-term pressure change. Because high-pressure systems are frequently associated with atmospheric stagnation and pollutant accumulation, air quality may represent a biologically plausible mediator.

Objective: To examine the relationship between air quality and ED migraine presentations within the existing body of literature and to explore whether air quality may help explain previously observed …

Rainfall, Air Quality, And Vaso-Occlusive Crisis In Adults With Sickle Cell Disease, James Espinosa

Rowan-Virtua Research Day

.Patients with sickle cell disease (SCD) frequently report that weather changes precipitate vaso-occlusive crises (VOC). While prior investigations have focused primarily on temperature, humidity, and seasonal variation, emerging data suggest that rainfall patterns may represent a more meaningful environmental signal. In a multi-hospital Emergency Department analysis, below-average rainfall days were associated with significantly increased adult VOC presentations (Ahmed et al., 2023). Rainfall may function as an atmospheric clearing mechanism; reduced precipitation may permit accumulation of airborne particulate matter and environmental pollutants, increasing oxidative stress and endothelial activation—mechanisms central to vaso-occlusion. Multiple epidemiologic studies demonstrate associations between particulate exposure and increased …

History Showcase 2026: A Celebration Of Undergraduate Research, Winona State University-History & Legal Studies Department

Research & Creative Achievement Day

History Showcase 2026

WSU Research and Creative Achievement Day

Department of History & Legal Studies

A celebration of undergraduate research

2:00pm Welcome Professor Erik Heinrichs

2:05pm Senior Thesis Presentations, Panel I

• Travis Franzen, “On the Development of Early Modern Plague Theology in the Church of England”
• Riley Nelson, Title TBD
• Sophia Riedel, “This Land Is Your Land Until It's Not: The Arkansas Government and Japanese Americans in Internment Camps, 1940s”

2:45pm Senior Thesis Presentations, Panel II

• Brennen Hodnefield, “The Emergence of Gay Activism Amidst Government Suppression”
• Madyson Fischer, “Listening to Voices: Indigenous Roles in the Environmental Justice Movements of the …

Social Justice Internship 2025-26: One Northside, Johanna Rodriguez Osegueda

Undergraduate Research and Engagement Symposium

This presentation showcases my experiences and lessons-learned as an Environmental Justice Intern at ONE Northside. This opportunity was made possible through the Social Justice Internship Program at CELTS. This presentation includes reflections about my growth, participation in environmental campaigns, and organization-wide events.

2026 Abstract Book (Pdf), School Of Public Health

School of Public Health Delta Omega Honors Day Poster Sessions

The collection of abstracts for the 2026 Delta Omega Honors Day Poster Session.

National Sociodemographic Estimates For United States Community Water Systems Service Area Boundaries, Jahred M. Liddie, Xindi C. Hu

GW Research Showcase 2021-2026

No abstract provided.

Proceedings Of The 24th Annual Urban Ecology & Conservation Symposium March 16, 2026, Urban Ecosystem Research Consortium Of Portland/Vancouver

Urban Ecosystem Research Consortium of Portland/Vancouver

These proceedings document the agenda and abstracts for presentations and posters from the 24th annual conference organized by the Urban Ecosystem Research Consortium of Portland/Vancouver (UERC) which occurred on March 16, 2026. The UERC is a consortium of people from various universities and colleges, state and federal agencies, local governments, non-profit organizations and independent professionals interested in supporting urban ecosystem research and creating an information-sharing network of people that collect and use ecological data in the Portland/Vancouver area. The annual conference has an open call for abstracts. The UERC organizing committee selects the final oral and poster presentations, along with …

Emotional Transition And Digital Continuity: Exploring Toy Hibernation In Family Households, Yoon Jung Choi, Hayoun Moon, Jaehoon Pyon, Myounghoon Jeon, Sang Won Lee, Chase Stabolepszy, Terry Grant

IASDR Conference Series

Product hibernation—when end-of-life products are kept but no longer used—poses a significant barrier to extending product lifespans within a circular economy. In households with young children, this challenge is particularly evident: toys are frequently outgrown but retained or ultimately discarded once deemed obsolete, even when fully functional. This paper presents findings from a mixed-method study involving interviews with ten families, a survey of 101 families, and an inventory analysis of thirty- three hibernating children’s toys. The study explores the reasons behind toy hibernation, revealing key motivational factors, as well as barriers to sharing when it has the highest value. Initial …

Examining The Boundary Infrastructures Around 'Fair Food': The Sustainable Transition Approach Of Postane, Cagri G. Varli, Betül Şahin

IASDR Conference Series

In response to the growing sense of distrust in mainstream food systems, Alternative Food Networks have gained traction by prioritizing ecological, ethical, and participatory principles. One such alternative initiative is the ‘fair food’ ecosystem developed by the urban hub Postane Istanbul, which this study explores as a case. Postane brings together food-related practices, infrastructures, and actors around the idea of fair food. The study focuses on how fair food can act as a boundary object that mediates between diverse actors, values, and practices. Data were collected through site visits, document analysis, and long-term participant observation, offering insights into Postane’s fair …

Speculative Filmmaking With Children: Envisioning The Future Of Humans, Machines, And Nature, Sumit Sharma, Behnaz Norouzi, Leena Ventä-Olkkonen, Marianne Kinnula, Tommi Nevala, Charu Monga, Tuure Haarjärvi

IASDR Conference Series

With children’s increasingly entangled relationships with technology, it is imperative for them to critically explore, reflect on, and envision how technology impacts them and society at large, now and in the future. We conducted a speculative filmmaking workshop with 9-10-year-old school children where participants worked in groups to envision the future of human-machine relationships, creating stop-motion animations showcasing their imagined futures. Analysis of the films highlights unexpected explorations of conflicts involving nature, alongside anticipated human-machine dynamics. These reveal children’s expectations for humans and machines and their roles and responsibilities. Our work showcases how speculative filmmaking with children scaffolds critical explorations …

Extractive Frontiers And Indigenous Resistance: A Quantitative Analysis Of Environmental Conflicts In The Arctic, Isaac Eshun

Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) at UNI

The Arctic, like most Indigenous regions of the world, has been a target for extractive activities -mineral exploitation, coal mining and oil drilling which over the time has undermined local environment and subsistence livelihoods resulting in severe confrontations from the Indigenous people. Drawing on extractive activities from the global Environmental Justice atlas, this study employs logistic regression to examine how factors such as conflict sources, impact intensity, government involvement and number of socio-environmental harms influence resistance outcomes. Findings suggest that projects that involve multiple interconnected sources of conflicts are most likely to face intense opposition resulting in their cancellation in …

Upcycling Incineration Ash In Reactive Magnesium Oxide Cement: Effects Of Carbonation, Padmaja Krishnan, Kemal Celik

C3 Symposium 2025

Over the past decade, increased economic activity and population growth have led to a rise in global waste generation. Current waste management strategies focus on enhancing waste collection, recycling, and converting waste into energy through incineration. While waste incineration effectively reduces both mass and volume, it generates substantial residuals, including fly ash and bottom ash, which pose significant management challenges. Despite the potential of incineration ash, large-scale utilization remains limited, typically confined to applications such as road sub-base materials, landfill stabilizers, and cement additives. The construction industry’s reliance on concrete has spurred research into using incineration ash, but challenges such …