Sustainability

New George Mason University researcher goes beyond engineering to connect communities.

Growing up in Winchester, Virginia, Jordan Edlich would often visit Blandy Experimental Farm on field trips as a child. Now a graduate student in environmental science and policy at George Mason, Edlich just spent a summer interning at the farm cataloging native plants.

An intercollegiate study, in partnership with university Facilities, analyzes the effects of campus events and weather on local air and water quality.

In spring 2025, students in EVPP 480 Sustainability in Action gave a crucial boost to Chesapeake Bay oysters by constructing oyster reef balls where the bivalves can attach, grow, and develop into natural reef structures.

An undergraduate student-led Mason Impact project at Mason Korea results in a co-authored article published in the peer-reviewed international journal Environmental Monitoring and Assessment. “Accessible water quality monitoring through hybrid human–machine colorimetric methods” stems from the Mason Impact project focused on environmental conditions in the Seunggi-cheon stream in Incheon. 

While many of their peers were spending spring break catching sun at the beach, members of the Impact Fellows Program were busy engaging with organizations and professionals in New York City to see how they run their operations while being dedicated to social impact, sustainability, and community service. 

George Mason professor Celso Ferreira recently redesigned his Flood Hazard Engineering and Adaptation course to work with community partners to deliver real projects as part of the Institute for a Sustainable Earth’s (ISE’s) NSF Accelerating Research Translation (ART) Seed Translational Research Project (STRP) Program.

As part of its commitment to sustainability and community engagement, George Mason University Korea held its fifth annual beach clean-up at Masian Beach in Yeongjongdo, Incheon, on April 19. Students, faculty, and staff from both Mason Korea and the University of Utah Asia Campus participated.

Through a new solar array at George Mason University’s Fairfax Campus, the sun will play double-duty in the successful growth of plants. Solar energy will power the President’s Park Greenhouse with the electricity it needs to support the plants growing inside.

For the past few weeks, these George Mason students developed policy memos based on various socioeconomic and environmental issues facing Northern Virginia and together worked in groups to develop recommendations for addressing them. But now their audience is far more formidable: Virginia State Senator Stella Pekarsky.