Spring 2026 in Shepard Hall 107 and on Zoom

Please E-mail [email protected] for the Zoom link.

Schedule

Friday, May 15th, 2026 (30-45 minutes per project)

9:00AM Breakfast and Networking (for those in person)

Final Capstone Presentations begin at 9:30AM

9:30AM: West Harlem Retrofit Lab and Design Partnership (Phase IV)

Professor Bobker’s Team: Joe, Monica, Maya, Rajvi

10:15AM: Enlistment of Remote Sensing Tools for Deployment of Renewable Energy Infrastructure with Professor Kyle McDonald

Professor McDonald’s Team: Li, Sullivan, Pravir

11:00AM: Affordable Housing, Climate, and Environmental Justice

Professor Kucheva’s Team: Dante, Olivia, and Judy

11:45AM: Perceived Walkability in Greenpoint, Brooklyn

Professors Biles’ Team: Rachael and Ariana

12:30PM Lunch and Networking

1-2:30PM Independent Study Presentations: 1PM: Tamer Ahmed on Harlem Retrofit Lab, 1:30PM: Edgar Scottborgh on Citizen Science for Kissena Synergy, 2PM: Victoria Kourkoutis on Combined Sewer Overflow Filtration

2:30PM Mid Year Capstone Presentations

2:30PM: Mapping Riverine Wetland Ecology with Bronx River Alliance 

Professor McDonald’s Team: Edgar, Snow, Sara, and Aldo

3:15PM: Green Stormwater Infrastructure for a Resilient CCNY Campus

Professor Weinberger’s Team: Haley, Harimas, Nergiz, Khaled

4:00PM: Creating Living Biomaterials from Photosynthetic Microorganisms

Professor Gilchrist’s Team: Kat, Thanawat, Victor

4:45PM: Community Centered Managed Retreat with NYC EJA

Victoria Sanders (NYC EJA) and Katherine’s Team: Natsumi, Victoria, Ahmed

5:30PM: Informal No-Host Happy Hour at Winnie Said

Initial Project Proposals (in presentation order, coming)

Harlem Retrofit Lab and Design Partnership (Phase IV): Harlem Community Energy: Retrofitting Harlem for Low-energy and Grid-interactivity

Led by Michael Bobker, Founder of the CUNY Building Performance Lab 

Objective

The overall goal of this project is to develop a connected energy community through a technology/leadership organization – Harlem Community Energy – that will promote energy reliability, resiliency, efficiency, and carbon reduction, with community engagement and benefits, deploying retrofit technologies and follow-on management for a low-carbon and grid-interactive Harlem neighborhood. 

The project will provide a replicable template for district-scale energy services in dense urban neighborhoods. In addition to technical feasibility and benefits, the project will model organizational relationships incorporating major institutions, community organizations, utility companies, and city government.  

A key objective is to operationalize concepts such as Deep Energy Retrofit and Virtual Power Plant, making them accessible and useful for community planning and outreach.  Each successive capstone team’s objective is to learn from and build upon previous teams’ work, making definable incremental progress while also providing the basis for next steps by teams that will follow.  In this process students will be exposed to real-world challenges, cutting-edge concepts, and applications of great value in professional practice and community energy planning.  

Background

The project is a multi-year effort under the auspices of the CCNY Harlem Retrofit Lab, founded and led by Michael Bobker. To date, four rounds of capstone teams have articulated deep energy retrofit technologies and technology packages for typical apartment buildings and rowhouses, incorporating Passive House envelopes, heat recovery, EV charging, energy storage, and heat pump electrification. Retrofits would incorporate sensors and controls for coordinated interaction with the electric grid, applying the concepts of GEB (Grid-interactive Energy-efficient Buildings) and DERMS (Distributed Energy Resource Management Systems) as currently under development and piloting at US DOE National Labs. The intent is that this knowledge can be communicated to support property owners in their decision-making and planning. Financing sources have been investigated but investment performance remains a major challenge. Community engagements have been initiated and a funding proposal developed albeit to date unsuccessful. 

Suggested Approaches / Next Step Options

The Capstone Team will extend and deepen application concepts and relationships through one or more of the action-steps below, to be selected in discussion with the project mentor.  

• Conduct technology-specific research, connecting with specialized designers and vendors
• Investigate forms of incorporation and engage community leaders as potential members of a Board of Directors, including possible “university seminar”  
• Define a “Benefit Stack” including quantification of non-financial benefits.  
• Develop template project finance packages and training program for financial packagers
• Develop and use a District Energy Model, working with other university researchers 
• Develop community-oriented training programs specific to Deep Energy Retrofits and/or Virtual Power Plant operation and plan outreach to target audience(s)

Enlistment of Remote Sensing Tools for Deployment of Renewable Energy Infrastructure  

Led by  Prof. Kyle McDonald (Earth and Atmospheric Sciences), developed with Li Kuan Phang

Objective:  

This project will enlist remote sensing datasets and geospatial analysis to identify optimal locations for deployment of renewable energy infrastructure and assess associated benefits for local ecosystems and communities.

Background:

Assessment and characterization of resources related to renewable energy generation have become increasingly crucial. Considerations for placement of green energy infrastructure are very complex as they relate to a variety of natural resource and socioeconomic considerations.  This project will utilize a variety of satellite remote sensing datasets in combination with climate and economic datasets to inform on optimal placement of renewable energy infrastructure. Students will develop a methodology based on a GIS framework to consider locations for deployment of modern energy infrastructure. This project will employ openly available satellite remote sensing datasets to consider renewable energy sources such as wind energy, hydropower, biomass, solar energy, battery storage, and geothermal energy.

Suggested Approaches:

The team will develop a GIS-based framework that considers factors such as area demographics, terrain, meteorological conditions, and climate impacts to support trade analyses for optimization of location choices for renewable energy infrastructure. 

Building on past efforts drawn from literature review, students will make use of multiple remote sensing datasets, climate projections, and socioeconomic considerations. Sensitivity analyses will consider impacts of federal and local economies, regional capacity, and relative importance of technical and economic indicators.

Note: Students should be comfortable working with remote sensing data, computer analysis tools and a GIS analysis framework (e.g. Google Earth Engine, Jupyter Notebooks, QGIS). 

References:

Asrami Reza Fardi, Sohani Ali, Pedram Mona Zamani, Sayyaadi Hoseyn, 2023. An eco-friendly remote sensing assisted development procedure to install renewable energy infrastructure for highest techno-economic gain. Energy Conversion and Management: X 20 (2023) 100490.

Avtar Ram, Sahu Netrananda, Aggarwal Ashwani Kumar, Chakraborty Shamik, Kharrazi Ali, Yunus Ali P, Dou Jie, and Kurniawan Tonni Agustiono, 2019. Exploring Renewable Energy Resources Using

Remote Sensing and GIS—A Review. Resources 2019, 8, 149; doi:10.3390/resources8030149

Majidi Nezhad M, Nastasi B, Groppi D, Lamagna M, Piras G and Astiaso Garcia D (2021) Green Energy

Sources Assessment Using Sentinel-1 Satellite Remote Sensing. Front. Energy Res. 9:649305. doi: 10.3389/fenrg.2021.649305

Affordable Housing, Climate, and Environmental Justice

Led by Professor Yana Kucheva (Sociology) 

Objective
The objective of this project is to couple microscale measures of climate and environmental
risks, building-level and neighborhood-level analyses of vulnerability, and quantitative and
qualitative research of current responses to climate risk to develop a new framework for
affordable housing resilience in the face of climate change and environmental harm. Climate
modeling and data visualizations will be built into policy scenarios that place housing justice at
the forefront of repairing past urban planning harms and identifying actionable climate and
environmental solutions.

Background
Housing is a critical element of any infrastructural investment strategy as safe and affordable
housing provides the needed security and stability for residents – particularly families with
children – to thrive. Affordable housing in high-opportunity neighborhoods with good schools,
good jobs, and healthy environments supports vibrant communities, connects workers to jobs,
and helps families climb the economic ladder. Due to the projected increase in the duration and
intensity of extreme weather events, such as heat waves and flooding, the U.S. affordable
housing infrastructure might soon face catastrophic losses to its availability and habitability.
According to current estimates, as much as a third of the housing stock in the U.S. is at risk from
disasters related to climate change. Nationally, more than 2.1 million federally assisted
affordable housing units are in what the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
considers high-risk areas, or areas that are expected to have high economic losses due to
environmental hazards. By 2050, the number of affordable housing units vulnerable to regular
flooding will triple. As the costs to adapt the current infrastructure to climate change are already
high, cities continue to focus both their affordable housing policy and disaster responses on
short-term solutions at the expense of socially equitable long-term planning that addresses the
dual slow-moving crises of unaffordability and climate change.

Suggested approaches
The project aims to answer the following research questions:
1) What is the exposure of federally assisted affordable housing to heat, flooding, and air pollution?
How does this risk vary by program type? How does it compare to the respective climate and
pollution risks in low-income communities in general? What is the contribution of the federally
assisted affordable housing program to the concentration of low-income renters and renters of
color in communities with the greatest exposure to heat, flooding, and pollution?
2) How are local housing authorities, housing policy makers, and communities living in federally
assisted units preparing for climate change? What are their data needs in terms of preparing
actionable plans for climate change and rectifying past environmental injustices?
3) In what ways does federal housing policy aimed at low-income renters need to change to redress
the inequitable exposure of low-income communities and communities of color to environmental
injustices and to protect the affordable housing stock from the effects of climate change

To answer these research questions, we will first develop a database that combines housing data,
climate data, pollution data, and land use data from a variety of national-level public sources. We will
then establish a web-based platform with interactive visualizations and develop a Hazard Risk Score
(HRS) for every federally assisted building in the U.S. We will test and validate the national Hazard
Risk Scores (HSR) with local New York City data. As we integrate our data on heat and flooding
with administrative data on housing and data on environmental exposures to unhealthy environments,
we will examine organizational practices of local housing authorities and other public stakeholders as
models for adaptive responses to climate change with respect to affordable housing.

Notes
Parts of this project require some prior knowledge of statistical and GIS applications (e.g., R,
Stata, ArcGIS).

Assessment of perceived walkability in an NYC neighborhood Team

Advisor: Prof. James Biles (Dept. of Sociology & International Studies Program/Colin Powell School)

Objectives

(1) Understand relevance of walkability to urban sustainability; (2) Understand differences between objective walkability and perceived walkability; (3) Identify the dimensions of perceived walkability that are amenable to evaluation; (4) Select an appropriate NYC neighborhood for assessment of perceived walkability; (5) Design and implement survey of perceived walkability at the neighborhood scale; (6) Evaluate the dimensions of perceived walkability in the selected neighborhood; (7) Compare perceived walkability in the neighborhood with conventional measures of objective walkability.

Background

Walkability can be thought of a set of characteristics which support walking and other non-motorized means of mobility (such as cycling) as a primary mode of transportation. Walkability emphasizes the ability of residents to access various destinations, such as shops, public spaces, urban amenities, and public transport (Stein, 2022). Both researchers and policymakers have highlighted the limitations of the conventional “objective” approach to assessing walkability found in the National Walkability Index (Steuteville, 2019; Huerta and Weber, 2023), which is based on an inventory of housing and employment opportunities, diversity of land use, and quality of street/sidewalk infrastructure (US Environmental Protection Agency, 2021). This project responds to the recent call to incorporate subjective perceptions of factors such as safety, comfort, aesthetics, accessibility and social interactions into the assessment of walkability (Mantey, 2021; Fonseca et al., 2022; De Vos et al., 2023; Cardoso et al., 2024). As part of this capstone project, I would like to work with a team of Urban Sustainability students to carry out a study of perceived walkability at the neighborhood scale in NYC. The resulting map and index of perceived walkability will be compared with the corresponding results from the EPA National Walkability Index. The results of the project will be shared with neighborhood residents, communitybased organizations, and the NYC Department of City Planning. Participants in this project will have an opportunity to gain hands-on experience creating and carrying out a large online survey using an open-access platform and apply both their theoretical and practical knowledge and skills.

Suggested Approaches

(1) Review background literature and case studies on walkability, objective walkability and perceived walkability; (2) Evaluate potential neighborhoods for survey of perceived walkability; (3) Select study area and compile profile of neighborhood, including characteristics of objective walkability; (4) Design and deploy online survey; (5) Recruit potential survey participants via social media and with the assistance of neighborhood organizations; (6) Collect and analyze survey data; (7) Calculate measures of perceived walkability and create maps of perceived walkability at the neighborhood scale; (8) Assess differences between perceived walkability and objective walkability for the neighborhood; (9) Share results of online survey with neighborhood residents, community-based organizations and NYC Department of City Planning.

Mapping Riverine Wetland Ecology with Bronx River Alliance 

Faculty Mentor: Prof. Kyle McDonald, Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, co-developed by SUS student Snow Schwartz

Co-Advisor:       Christian Murphy, Bronx River Alliance

Objective:

This capstone team will partner with the Bronx River Alliance to build interactive digital maps of wetlands ecosystems along the Bronx River corridor, focusing on the interconnections between local vegetation communities, biodiversity, wetlands habitat health, and urban development. The goal is to support the Bronx River Alliance’s wetlands restoration initiatives by informing on the current state of these biomes while advancing data collection and community engagement related to restoration efforts and ecology.  

Background:

Urban wetlands provide many critical ecosystem services including filtering stormwater, reducing flood risk, replenishing groundwater, mitigating urban heat effect, and providing habitat to wildlife. Additionally, they serve as vital green spaces amidst the built environment, and present opportunities for urban communities to learn about and engage with their local ecologies. Wetlands along the Bronx River have been significantly altered by direct human interventions (e.g. industrialization), advancing invasive species, pollution, and altered regional hydrology along the river. In order to restore and protect the remaining wetlands, a consistently engaged community of informed local stewards is necessary. This project will use digital ecosystem mapping to enhance community knowledge of the complex inter-special relationships within wetland ecologies and participation in restoration efforts. 

Suggested Approaches:

1. Develop a set of measurable factors for assessing riverine wetland health. 
2. Create outlines for final map visualizations, and identify data and other information required for each map
3. Collect data on the selected criteria and the local biodiversity within the wetlands along the Bronx River.
4. Build interactive maps for exploring complex interspecies dynamics and relationships of ecological communities to overall wetland health.
5. Organize public engagement sessions to share maps with community surrounding the Bronx River.

Students should be comfortable working with computer analysis tools and a GIS analysis framework.

Green Stormwater Infrastructure for a Resilient CCNY Campus

Led by Jake Weinberger, CCNY Sustainability Coordinator 

Objective

• A student would assess stormwater runoff across the CCNY campus and propose a set of green infrastructure (GI) interventions – such as bioswales, permeable pavements, or green roofs – to reduce flooding and improve water quality before discharge into NYC’s combined sewer system. 

Background

• The City College of New York (CCNY) sits atop the historic Hamilton Heights ridge in Upper Manhattan – a dense, highly urbanized environment characterized by extensive impervious surfaces such as rooftops, concrete plazas, and paved roadways. Like most of New York City (NYC), the area is served by a combined sewer system (CSS), which collects both stormwater and sanitary sewage in the same pipes. During heavy rain events, this system exceeds capacity, causing combined sewer overflows (CSOs) that discharge untreated wastewater into the Harlem and Hudson Rivers. Every additional gallon of rainwater that runs off CCNY’s impermeable surfaces contributes to this regional issue. Currently, much of the campus landscape – especially the North Campus quadrangle and surrounding streets – lacks permeable areas or vegetated buffers to absorb rainfall. Stormwater instead flows rapidly into catch basins and drains, increasing both the volume and velocity of runoff entering the city’s storm sewer network. NYC’s climate projections anticipate a 25-50% increase in the frequency of intense rainfall events by mid-century. This poses a significant threat to older urban campuses like CCNY that were not designed for modern precipitation patterns. The sloped topography of the campus – particularly the steep grade from Amsterdam Ave down to Convent Avenue – further accelerates runoff, increasing the likelihood of ponding, flooding, and infrastructure stress at lower elevations. Expanding GSI – such as bioswales, rain gardens, green roofs, and permeable pavements – can slow, capture, and treat stormwater at its source, improving campus resilience to extreme precipitation while reducing maintenance costs and flood damage over time. Without more green infrastructure, CCNY’s built environment will remain highly vulnerable to the combined pressures of aging storm drains, more frequent cloudbursts, and the heat island effect from extensive hardscape surfaces. Stormwater runoff from urban surfaces collects pollutants – oil, litter, heavy metals, and sediments – before entering the city’s sewer system. During overflow events, this polluted mixture discharges directly into local waterways, degrading water quality and harming aquatic life. Additionally, vegetated landscapes reduce urban heat island effects, improve air quality, and enhance biodiversity on campus – providing habitat for pollinators and birds. 

Suggested Approaches

• Create a stormwater runoff and infiltration map of the campus using GIS and modeling tools.
• Develop a prioritized GI implementation plan identifying high-impact zones.
• Produce concepts designs for proposed interventions.
• Draft a technical and financial feasibility report with recommendations for next steps and potential external funding.

Creating Living Biomaterials from Photosynthetic Microorganisms

Led by Professor Lane Gilchrist (Chemical Engineering)

Objective

After researching living biomaterials, propose a sustainable biomaterial design that can solve a bioremediation problem.

Background

New biomaterials with an extraordinary combination of properties can be fashioned from living cells, including the ability to self-heal and adapt to changing environmental conditions. The metabolic functions of the living cells contained within the biomaterial structures can be used for heavy metal and toxic compound bioremediation with the cellular polymers forming load bearing structures that can be grown in place. In suitable designs they can self-assemble autonomously and grow into prepatterned structures, forming novel sustainable and economical biomaterials that harness cellular functions and structural elements.

Suggested Approach

(i) Initiation of the project by undertaking an extensive literature review of photosynthetic organisms and sustainable biomaterials.

(ii) Find a viable application for the engineered living material and compare with other abiotic systems currently applied.

(iii) Select different base microorganisms from different photosynthetic species based on biomaterial forming potential. Determine their growth characteristics and potential viability within renewable polymer matrices. Design an starting living biomaterial combination of organism and matrix and assess the performance characteristics in the desired application. Perform a comparative sustainability analysis of the living biomaterial, using life cycle assessment.

(iv) Time permitting, work with a bioengineering lab to collaborate on the implementation of the design.

Managed Retreat Project Plan

CCNY Sustainability in the Urban Environment Capstone 2026

1. Background

As climate-driven coastal threats and chronic flooding intensify in New York City, “managed retreat” ,the intentional and planned relocation of people away from high-risk areas, is becoming a necessary but highly controversial strategy. Included in the 2023 PlaNYC: Getting Sustainability Done, released by the NYC Mayor’s Office, this top-down approach is often viewed with skepticism by Environmental Justice (EJ) communities. These communities of color and low-income residents are often deeply tied to their neighborhoods and fear that buyout programs will prioritize wealthy property owners while disadvantaged renters, the unhoused, and those unable to relocate. There is a critical need to evaluate how these programs can be implemented equitably rather than deepening existing social disadvantages.

2. Project Goal

The primary goal of this research is to ensure NYC’s managed retreat and buyout programs are equitable and reflect the needs of environmental justice communities. We seek to convene climate and environmental justice (EJ) organizations across NYC to collaboratively develop equitable principles, policy recommendations, and best practices for addressing chronic flood and precipitation risks, particularly related to managed retreat and voluntary buyout programs and ensuring that the needs and priorities of frontline communities guide City and State adaptation efforts.

3. Project Objectives
   1. Convene Diverse EJ Stakeholders
      Bring together climate and environmental justice organizations across NYC, ensuring strong representation from communities of color in all five boroughs.
   2. Document Community Needs & Values
      Identify baseline conditions, climate risks, community priorities, and concerns related to chronic flooding, managed retreat, and post-buyout land use.
   3. Address Data & Knowledge Gaps
      Assess existing research on managed retreat and co-produce additional knowledge with community members to better understand impacts and equity considerations.
   4. Develop Policy & Best Practices Guidance
      Produce a policy brief/report outlining equitable principles and recommendations for managed retreat and voluntary buyout programs.
   5. Inform City & State Implementation
      Share findings with relevant agencies to improve the equity and effectiveness of current and emerging flood adaptation, land acquisition, and buyout programs.

4. Approaches & Methods
   1. Primary Approach

Extensive Literature Review

• Past and current U.S. buyout programs (Federal, State, and Local).
• Analysis of EJ or exclusion in existing projects
• Review of non-written resources, such as recordings from the Columbia Managed Retreat Conferences.

Expert Consultation: Gathering insights from subject matter experts in climate migration and strategic relocation.

2. Secondary Approach: 

                    Community Engagement

• Interviewing and consulting with local EJ communities to analyze their specific concerns and expertise.
• Reviewing similar communities outside NYC where managed retreat has already occurred including 1-2 case studies of prior managed retreat communities. 

3. Methods: Synthesis & Analysis

Pulling key themes regarding cost, scope, community engagement successes/failures, and the eventual use of the land after residents have moved away.

5. Deliverables
   1. Project report that has all background research
   2. Short guide (pdf or mini booklet) that summarize our research and highlights potential next steps

Potential: map that highlight high risk communities and NYC-EJA