usc wrigley institute for environmental ......the wrigley institute conducts research and builds...

USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies 1

USC WRIGLEY INSTITUTE FOR ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES: THE PATH FORWARD

2 USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies 1

TESTING GROUND

The Wrigley Marine Science Center is transforming into a testing ground for innovative approaches to sustainability that can solve an

array of environmental challenges — not only on Catalina Island but in communities around the world.

Droughts, deluges, rising seas and warming from pole to pole. These and other mounting threats to our environment can sometimes feel overwhelming.

But we see things differently at the USC Dornsife Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies. We see a chance to make a difference.

Our faculty, researchers and students — at both the USC campus and our research facility on Santa Catalina Island — are setting the standard for environmental research. Their work is defining new ways of preserving our planet and our livelihoods through the discovery and testing of groundbreaking new sustainability practices and technologies.

The choices we make today determine our future. That’s why the Wrigley Institute’s mission of environmental research and training is more urgent than ever.

We invite you to help create that future with us.

RESEARCH. EDUCATION. IMPACT.


THE WRIGLEY INSTITUTE ADVANTAGE

THE USC PHILIP K. WRIGLEY MARINE SCIENCE CENTER ON CATALINA ISLANDSet on a small cove on Catalina Island, this state-of-the-art research center is a unique and pristine location for conducting experimental field work on the environment and applied questions related to sustainability.

DEEP OCEAN COASTAL ACCESSThe Wrigley Marine Science Center has the advantage of being situated within close proximity to a major metropolis bordering a deep-water ocean. This valuable location offers distinctive environments for tracking human-coastal dynamics and developing mitigation strategies based on direct measurements of environmental conditions.

LOCATION WITHIN A GLOBAL METROPOLISIn the Los Angeles region, complex environmental problems are not hypothetical — they are a reality. We explore firsthand how the activity of mass populations affects interconnected issues such as human health, air and water quality, food security, natural resource limitations and economic inequality. We also have limitless opportunities to collaborate with scientists, private industry and environmental entrepreneurs to find solutions.

MULTIDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH PORTFOLIOThe Wrigley Institute conducts research and builds industry collaborations to address issues such as renewable energy, aquaculture, resource recycling and critical aspects of climate change. We enhance this work by collaborating with leading chemists, biologists, political scientists and other experts across USC.

Our goal is to pave the way to innovations that can be adopted across the globe to address some of our greatest challenges, from climate change and waste treatment to water and food security. As part of a world-class research university, we bring an unmatched combination of interdisciplinary expertise, technological resources and collaborative thinking to solving environmental problems.


The Wrigley Institute’s diverse research programs are contributing countless insights into the environment and human interactions with the natural world. They also provide innovative and formative training opportunities for student researchers working with our faculty mentors.

• Scientists are measuring how increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide affect the global oceans and circulate locally around our region.

• Genetic diversity in wild crops is being explored for how it can provide food security as we face changing climates.

• Researchers are making sustainable shellfish aquaculture more resilient and productive under changing ocean conditions.

• Scientists are learning how to predict and reduce harmful algal blooms by tracking their patterns of occurrence.

• Studies of coastal sediments reveal how these areas contribute to global nitrogen cycles and potent greenhouse gases.

• The Wrigley Institute maintains the San Pedro Ocean Time Series (SPOT), a long-term ocean monitoring program with more than two decades of data that represents a treasure trove of information about our changing coast.

BUILDING A BETTER TOMORROW

Anyone who’s been to a California coastline is familiar with kelp. It turns out it may be good for more than providing a habitat for fish. The Wrigley Institute is pioneering research into using kelp to produce biofuel. Kelp is an ideal source of biofuel because it requires no fresh water, land or

fertilizers to grow. We’re working with industry on methods to grow kelp in the open ocean, starting with an “elevator” that can lower kelp beds to nutrient-rich waters and raise them to absorb sunshine. If it works, biofuel producers may be able to grow kelp at commercial scale to help power the world.

OCEAN ENERGY

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We’ve been creating one-of-a-kind immersive educational experiences for undergraduate and graduate students on Catalina Island since 1965. Today, our Catalina facility hosts more than 1,200 university students each year, offering opportunities from weekend field trips and month-long, for-credit classes to entire semester programs on environmental themes. Additional mainland programs work across USC Dornsife and with students in almost every discipline on campus.

Building on historic strengths, the Wrigley Institute will continue to enrich USC Dornsife with experiential learning opportunities that teach students practical skills for a lifetime. Through independent research opportunities, summer fellowships, course engagement and internships in the business world, we enhance the USC curriculum and champion a wealth of outside-the-classroom experiences that elevate traditional scholarship.

PREPARING PROBLEM SOLVERS

ANDREA MAURO ’20ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIESPlace matters. That was one of the takeaways for sophomore Andrea Mauro when she visited the Wrigley Institute’s Catalina research facility. “No one can be on Catalina at Wrigley and say ‘no’ to supporting what they are trying to accomplish,” the environmental studies major said. People matter too. Mauro, who spent her 2018 spring break at the Wrigley Marine Science Center, recalls how her

career path crystallized when she heard Director Kenneth Nealson explain his vision for making the island facility a testbed for sustainable technology and practices that could be exported to the mainland. Encouraging environmental protection “needs to be a domino effect,” she said, “and Wrigley is that (first) domino.” Mauro is one of the dominoes too: She plans to use her education to accelerate corporate sustainability and lobbying on behalf of the environment.

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT


The annual USC Wrigley Sustainability Prize promotes environmental entrepreneurship in the USC community, and rewards innovative ideas that can result in a meaningful benefit. Winning teams receive prize money to help translate their ideas into action.

A team of USC Dornsife scientists and students led by Travis Williams, associate professor of chemistry at the USC Dornsife Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute, won top honors by inventing a better biofuel — one that makes engines and the air cleaner and provides more zip than conventional biofuels. Williams and his team also developed a process that turns the manufacturing byproducts into biodegradable plastic.

Their breakthrough was so powerful that Zhiyao Lu, who worked on the project as a Ph.D. student, spun out the technology to create a company called Catapower. Winning the Wrigley Sustainability Prize provided the company with an early boost as it took its discovery to mainstream markets.

THE USC WRIGLEY SUSTAINABILITY PRIZE

Starting as a team of USC scientists, Catapower is tackling the relentless rise of greenhouse gases and mounting plastic waste. Their solution uses

the latest chemical and material technologies to efficiently generate renewable fuels and sustainable materials.

CATAPOWER


“Once we’re a sustainable institute, we can move the methods we’ve developed to cities around the world.”

— Kenneth NealsonDirector, USC Dornsife Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies

CATALINA SUSTAINABILITY PROJECT

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We approach our work with the understanding that our environment is composed of interconnected parts. Instead of tackling problems in isolation, the Wrigley Institute approaches them in their entirety.

We’re using this approach to realize one of our most exciting and ambitious goals: to make the Wrigley Marine Science Center on Catalina Island a model for sustainability that can inform environmental practices around the world.

As emerging leaders in sustainability research and education, we know it’s the right thing to do. But there’s a lot more to it than that. The Wrigley Marine Science Center is being transformed into a testing ground for processes and technologies that, when combined, can solve an array of environmental challenges.

Our vision addresses four related resource challenges: energy, water, waste and food production. Managed properly, addressing these four issues in an integrated way will have a tremendous multiplier effect to reduce our footprint on the planet.

CATALINA SUSTAINABILITY PROJECT

“Encouraging environmental protection “needs to be a domino effect, and Wrigley is that (first) domino.”

— Andrea Mauro USC Dornsife Environmental Studies Major

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Clean, renewable energy is the key to solving so many of our environmental challenges. We are working toward installation of a solar array that will enable the Wrigley Marine Science Center to generate power and become energy independent. Once fully operational, it will use fresh California sunshine to power our entire Catalina Island facility — and eventually our neighbors in Two Harbors and Avalon.

ENERGY WATER

Solar power will have one more big advantage: It will allow us to acquire, move and use fresh water. Once we can do that, things get really interesting.

With abundant renewable energy, we can recycle and reclaim water from our wastewater and food waste. We’ll even be able to harvest water from the clouds that blanket the Catalina Island hilltops. And it will enable us to test original technologies by USC faculty and student innovators, such as the students who won our Wrigley Sustainability Prize. Combined, these approaches will help us save — and effectively use — every last drop.

With power and water, the Wrigley Marine Science Center will be poised to explore other integrated opportunities, including ways to improve our waste stream.

FOOD — Decomposing food is one of our greatest challenges because it produces enormous amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. The Wrigley Marine Science Center is already testing a simple but effective way to eliminate food waste and simultaneously produce profitable products that could dramatically reduce our burden on the planet.

It all starts with a fly. The larvae of black soldier flies, to be exact.

After dehydrating our food waste from our Catalina kitchen — we reuse the water — we feed it to the fly larvae. Then they turn it into a nutrient-rich compost, nontoxic fertilizer and chemicals. Meanwhile, the larvae themselves grow into material for animal feed or even biodiesel production. This process not only eliminates methane emissions but converts would-be waste into valuable commodities.

WASTEWATER — Promising research is providing pathways for converting wastewater to useable fertilizer, without the production of methane. Additionally, extensive work has been done at USC Dornsife on an unusual form of bacteria that generates electricity while digesting organic waste. This research continues at the Wrigley Institute, with the goal of using the bacteria to break down wastewater into clean end-products, like water and electricity. In this way, rather than using electricity to process waste, energy may actually be generated from it.

WASTE FOOD PRODUCTION

The Wrigley Institute is already a world-renowned leader in aquaculture research. Our Future of Food from the Sea program uses cutting-edge molecular and genetic techniques to understand how shellfish respond to environmental challenges such as temperature fluctuations, increasing ocean acidification and disease.

The goal is to help commercial growers identify potential environmental threats and generate workable solutions. With half of all seafood produced by commercial aquaculture, it is critical that the practice can survive the inevitable changes that will take place to the ocean environment as climate change advances.

With water, energy and fertilizer produced on-site, the Wrigley Institute will also take food production onto dry land. We are expanding our research programs in aquaponics — combining the growth of plants and fish — to produce varied food sources. We will also launch initiatives in hydroponic food production. USC researchers and students are already studying the complex microbial communities that sustain these systems. We couple this work with the Wrigley Institute’s “Food for Thought” K-12 school program, which puts aquaponics systems in L.A. classrooms to teach children about the important relationships between food, water, sustainability and human well-being.

USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies

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INFORMED BY HISTORY

Our roots date back to 1901 with the hiring of USC’s first marine biologist.

But the seeds of the modern-day Wrigley Institute were planted in 1965, when a marine laboratory was established in Big Fisherman’s Cove on Catalina Island thanks to support from Philip K. Wrigley, his sister Dorothy Wrigley Offield, and their families.

Their commitment to protecting the island and its environment began with their father, William Wrigley Jr., when he purchased the Santa Catalina Island Company in 1919. His legacy continued with the establishment of the Catalina Island Conservancy by the Wrigley and Offield families in 1972. The not-for-profit foundation took ownership of 88% of the island in 1975, and is one of Southern California’s oldest land trusts, dedicated to balancing conservation, education and recreation on Catalina.

In 1995, the Wrigley family stepped forward once again with funding for the USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies. The organization includes facilities on the USC campus and Catalina, the latter of which was renamed the Philip K. Wrigley Marine Science Center.

Our roots date back to 1901 with the hiring of USC’s first marine biologist.

But the seeds of the modern-day Wrigley Institute were planted in 1965, when a marine laboratory was established in Big Fisherman Cove on Catalina Island thanks to support from the Wrigley family and their relatives, the Offields.

Their commitment to protecting the island and its environment began with William Wrigley Jr. when he purchased the island in 1919. His legacy lived on when the Wrigley and Offield families transferred all of their holdings to the Catalina Island Conservancy. The not-for-profit organization is one of Southern California’s oldest land trusts and exists for the purpose of protecting and restoring Catalina Island.

In 1995, the Wrigley family stepped forward once again with funding for the USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies. The organization includes facilities on the USC campus and Catalina Island.

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19 USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies

University of Southern California 3454 Trousdale Pkwy, CAS 200Los Angeles, California 90089-0153(213) [email protected]

dornsife.usc.edu/wrigley

4 USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies

University of Southern California 3454 Trousdale Pkwy, CAS 200Los Angeles, California 90089-0153(213) [email protected]

dornsife.usc.edu/wrigley

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