November 16, 2021

UDP scholars among UW team receiving $2M from National Science Foundation to design an ‘adaptable society’

A team led by the University of Washington has received a nearly $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation to further research into how urban societal systems can be organized to be both efficient and resilient.

The Leading Engineering for America’s Prosperity, Health and Infrastructure (LEAP-HI) project, based in the UW College of Engineering, supports fundamental research to generate the knowledge, mechanisms and tools needed to design an adaptable society. That is one, researchers say, that can switch between different operating strategies depending on the situation. Ideally, people in these societies are informed about and can adapt to system changes without undue hardship. Cynthia Chen, a UW professor of civil and environmental engineering is the LEAP-HI PI.

Additional researchers on the LEAP-HI team includes Dan Abramson and Branden Born, both UW associate professors of urban design and planning; and Chaoyue Zhao, UW assistant professor of industrial and systems engineering. The grant provides funding over four years to researchers at the UW, as well as Arizona State University, the University of Notre Dame and The University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Read More