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The Presidential Sustainability Solutions Fellowship team poses for a photo in front of Shumway Fountain on USC campus.

Presidential Sustainability Solutions Fellowship

The Presidential Sustainability Solutions Fellowship program plays a central role in USC’s Assignment: Earth framework by preparing the next generation of sustainability scholars, incubating and guiding their ambitious interdisciplinary research efforts, and catalyzing a diverse and engaged community of scholars at USC. It serves specific ends for research and career development while supporting a budding social movement around interdisciplinary sustainability solutions scholarship at USC. This postdoctoral program reflects our institutional ambition, commitment and solutions-oriented approach to addressing the broad areas of sustainability, environmental justice and climate change.

Postdocs have two years of financial support to pursue their own interdisciplinary sustainability solutions research with active mentorship from two USC faculty in different departments, while dedicating roughly 20% of their time to interdisciplinary exchange, collaboration and skill development with their cohort and the broader USC sustainability community. This unique combination supports not only visionary work and integrated career development, but meaningful engagement for scholars across USC, thus enabling the fellows to scale their impact into a true multiplier effect. 

In welcoming these emerging scholars to USC, we not only celebrate innovative ideas, but create an unparalleled opportunity to foster interaction and collaboration across disciplines, foci and career stages. This novel approach helps to advance the entire Assignment: Earth framework while supporting broader understanding of and participation in it. 

The wetlands of the Upper Newport Bay Ecological Reserve support populations of shorebirds, waterfowl, native plants, and rare and endangered species. (Painting/Nina Raffio)

What is ‘blue carbon’? Inside USC’s research on carbon capture in Upper Newport Bay

Stock photo of a diabetes finger prick.

Exposure to air pollution early in pregnancy increases risk of gestational diabetes, study finds

The USC study also suggests that prenatal depression, with disrupted immune and hormonal functions, could make the case worse.

The Student Union building on USC campus with Assignment: Earth branded flags promoting the USC Sustainability Hub.

First Sustainability Solutions cohort begins research

Five postdoctoral fellows are researching an array of environmental issues from rising sea levels to how air pollution and heat waves affect pregnancy.