About
MIT Environmental Research + Action (ERA) aims to advance knowledge and create solutions that promote the sustainability of cities, enhance the protection and stewardship of ecosystems by local communities, and develop and deploy digital technologies for a humane, prosperous and climate safe future. Projects of ERA create new methods and systems deployed on-the-ground in partnership with stakeholders facing critical environmental, social and economic challenges of an unsustainable and destabilizing world.
The polycrisis of climate change and massive biodiversity loss are primary concerns of the ERA. Emerging from the work of ERA are new ways in which to build the resilience of cities through urban biodiversity and AI enabled analysis; novel bioeconomic opportunities that leverage community participation with leading edge technology; enhanced human-nature interactions with robotic systems and digital technologies; and high-resolution, place-based climate vulnerability assessments of extreme heat, flooding, and more.
ERA is composed of three labs, UMERA (Urban Metabolism Research and Action), NACERA (Nature- and Community-based Environmental Research and Action), and SIERA (Spatial Intelligence for Environmental Reasoning and AI). The three labs regularly collaborate with one another, integrating their methods and expertise to advance a holistic understanding of the interdependence between humans, nature and technology. Each is led by one of the founders and focused on a core domain — cities, nature, and technology. While all three labs engage with the complex interactions between people, all other species, digital technologies and the categorically distinct and newly created agent of artificial intelligence, each of the three focuses on this dynamic in different ways. Together, they advance ERA’s mission from distinct but interconnected perspectives.
NACERA primarily works with communities on questions of ecosystems and biodiversity, UMERA is fully immersed in the reality of an urban century, while SIERA mostly concerns itself with nascent and emerging applications of AI. ERA’s model is unique in treating artificial intelligence not merely as a tool, but as a newly emergent planetary agent — alongside humans and the natural world — shaping the trajectory of life on Earth.
Leadership
John E. Fernández
Co-founder, Professor of Architecture
Marcela Angel
Co-founder, Research Program
Norhan Bayomi
Co-founder, Research Scientist
ERA Team
Angelica Mayolo
Visiting Scholar
Fiorella Belli
Research Associate
Manuela Manzano
Project Manager
Affiliates and Collaborators
Omar Khattab
Faculty Collaborator
Martin Perez Lara
Research Affiliate
Juan Camilo Osorio
Co-Investigator
Note: MIT ERA is a successor to the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative (ESI). Listed sponsors include those of ESI projects now housed under MIT ERA