Computational sustainability is an emerging field, developing and applying computational methods, notably of articial intelligence, to difficult problems of long-term environmental and societal sustainability. This award supports the travel and subsistence of graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and other junior researchers for participation at the 2nd International Conference on Computational Sustainability (June 28-30, 2010, Cambridge, MA).
held at MIT, Stata Center June 28-30 2010 Introduction The conference was organized by Brian C. Williams (MIT), Carla Gomes (Cornell) and Thomas Diettrich (Oregon State) based upon the following premise: In order to foster and perform research in the new area of Computational Sustainability, a vibrant research community must be created that crosses both international and disciplinary boundaries. The NSF Expedition called Computational Sustainability: Computational Methods for a Sustainable Environment, Economy, and Society establishes a catalyst for this, while the highly successful CompSust09 conference, held last June at Cornell University offered a crucial step towards expanding this community well beyond the participating members of the Expedition. The 2nd International Conference on Computational Sustainability was held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge MA, on June 28-30, 2010. The selection of MIT was due to its demonstrated commitment to sustainability, for example through its cross campus efforts in Energy, Transportation and the Environment. Our objectives for this conference included the establishment of a sustained community and expanded participation to major international institutions and disciplines that pertain to computation applied to problems of sustainability. Participants included representatives from national and international research institutions, non-profit organizations, and government agencies. The conference organizers sought and received funds through this grant that supported organization and encouragement of greater participation in the conference by graduate students, postdoctoral researchers and junior researchers, including junior faculty, who otherwise lacked the financial resources to travel to Cambridge for the conference. This was administered through participation in the Doctorial Consortium. Conference Organization The CompSust conference focused on computational methods for balancing environmental, economic, and societal needs for a sustainable future. The program included talks, discussions, and poster sessions, as well as several workshops. The organization committee for Compsust09 last year included James Allen (University of Rochester), Thomas Dietterich (Oregon State University), Mary Lou Zeeman (Bowdoin College), and from Cornell University, Antonio Bento, Jon Conrad, Evan Cooch, Carla Gomes, John Guckenheimer, Ashish Sabharwal, Bart Selman, and David Shmoys. Formal presentations outlined the challenges of using global resources in a sustainable manner while improving overall quality of life, addressed the theory and computational techniques used to study and provide solutions to computational problems for balancing environmental, economic, and societal needs for a sustainable future, and presented innovative applications of these theories and techniques to decisions and technologies affecting the balance of environmental, economic, and societal needs for a sustainable existence. More specifically, the conference investigated the major problem domains that impact global resource usage, those technologies and processes that offer the greatest opportunity to increase sustainability in these domains, and the fundamental computational methods that support these technologies and processes. Problem domains that have a significant impact on resource usage, and hence sustainability include energy management, housing and infrastructure, transportation (both personal and freight), and management of natural resources (agriculture, forests, fisheries, water, and sewage). Problems related to improving the quality of our natural environment will also be covered, including environmental monitoring, species migration and distribution, and management of reserves. Finally, the central focus of the conference was the identification, research and application of core computational methods that have the potential for substantially improving these processes and technologies, in support of sustainability. Speakers addressing computational methods will cover such areas as model estimation and machine learning, model-based reasoning, hidden state and mode estimation, hybrid systems, simulation, planning and scheduling, model-predictive control, constraint programming, decision analysis and optimization under risk, scientific computing, hybrid and cyber physical systems, cyber-security and computational methods for sensor networks and multi-agent systems. Experts from the United States, Scotland, Ireland, Iceland, Australia, France, the Netherlands, and beyond gathered to participate this year in CompSust10. As a new research area, Computational Sustainability and its related research has thus benefited not only through the interaction of experts that are already addressing problems of sustainability, but through the participation of graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and junior researchers, as well as more senior researchers in related fields, who have the potential to bring fresh insights and energy to these endeavors. By encouraging the engagement of both established researchers and individuals in the early stages of their research careers, there is likelihood that the conference has helped to foster research relationships that will advance the area of computational sustainability, while developing the next generation of its research community. Conference Details We were also able to produce videos of most of the conference presentations which are now available online (see below). This greatly enhances the reach of the conference to those who were unable to attend because of distance or financial constraints. The conference website is www.computational-sustainability.org/compsust10/ The full Compsust final program can be found there along with videos of the conference sessions.
