NEWS RELEASE, 11/25/98 NSF, Lucent Technologies honor researchers who encourage businesses to "go green"

By Joel Blumenthal, NSF

BERKELEY -- The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Lucent Technologies Foundation have named 11 researchers, including UC Berkeley mechanical engineering professor Paul Sheng, as 1998 winners of Industrial Ecology Research Fellowships. The fellowships, totalling $1.1 million in all, award up to $50,000 per year for two years to support researchers who are focusing on research or teaching to help industry design processes that prevent pollution and create environmentally friendly products. The awards were announced Nov. 19. Industrial ecology incorporates both competitive and environmental concerns into industrial process and product design. Like a biological system, it rejects the concept of waste, and seeks ways to efficiently reuse all materials. "As 'industrial ecology' becomes a familiar term, researchers from many disciplines will collaborate on solutions to common environmental problems," said Janie Fouke, director of NSF's Division of Bioengineering and Environmental Systems. "It is incumbent on the NSF to encourage basic research that may help and encourage businesses to integrate conservation and pollution prevention practices into their strategies and their day-to-day operations," Fouke added. "Our intent with the Industrial Ecology Research Fellowships is to spur innovations that provide industry with both human and financial incentives to adopt more ecologically sound business approaches." "The field of industrial ecology is central to achieving an environmentally sustainable economy," said Deborah M. Stahl, executive director of the Lucent Technologies Foundation. "Since 1993, these fellowships have stimulated a wide variety of research projects that address the problems of pollution reduction and elimination in a highly-industrialized society. In addition, they have helped to foster an academic community focused on industrial ecology that has developed curricula at institutions around the country and enabled industry interactions with university faculty." Sheng, an associate professor of mechanical engineering, is interested primarily in environmentally conscious manufacturing processes and product design. He is developing a Green Machining Incremental Planner (GMIP), which is a distributed environmental advisor for mechanical components and machining systems.