High Meadows Environmental Institute (HMEI, formerly the Princeton Environmental Institute, PEI) at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

Princeton, New Jersey The Municipality of Princeton is a Borough (New Jersey), borough in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton, New Jersey, Borough of Princeton and Pri ...

is an interdisciplinary center for environmental research that studies effects of and solutions to

climate change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...

and other environmental threats. The International Center for Climate Governance named the Princeton Environmental Institute the second-highest climate change think tank in the global category for 2012, following the

Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs The Robert and Renée Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, also known as the Belfer Center, is a research center located at the Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the United States. From 2 ...

. The High Meadows Environmental Institute is an interdisciplinary center for environmental research that includes over 120 researchers from 29 departments. Researchers study the causes and impacts of climate change and other key environmental issues involving energy, food, water, and biodiversity. Long-term projects include the Carbon Mitigation Initiative, the Center for Biocomplexity, and the Integrated Ground Water Modeling Center. Grand Challenges and other initiatives focus on climate change and infectious disease, food and the environment, ecohydrology, urban resilience, and sustainable development.

History

The Princeton Environmental Institute was founded in 1994 as part of a broader initiative led by university president Harold T. Shapiro, to make Princeton a center for addressing global environmental challenges. Shapiro met with Tom Barron,

Robert H. Socolow Robert Harry Socolow (born December 27, 1937; surname pronunciation sŏc‘-ŏ-lō) is an American environmental scientist, theoretical physicist and professor emeritus of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University. He was a fou ...

and Henry S. Horn in 1992 to discuss the university's possible direction. Shapiro then formed a faculty committee which recommended the creation of the Princeton Environmental Institute. In December 1995, the Institute moved into the newly-renovated Guyot Hall. The founding director of the institute in 1994 was Simon Levin.

François M. M. Morel François M. M. Morel (born 11 October 1944) is a French-American biogeochemist. He is known for his research on ocean acidification, mercury pollution, the only known cadmium metalloenzyme, and the interactions between trace metals and microorga ...

held the position of Director twice, first between 1998 and 2004.

Ignacio Rodríguez-Iturbe Ignacio is a male Spanish name originating in the Latin name "Ignatius" from ''ignis'' "fire". This was the name of several saints, including the third bishop of Antioch (who was thrown to wild beasts by emperor Trajan) and Saint Ignatius of Loy ...

, who served as acting director of the institute in 2002, founded the field of

ecohydrology Ecohydrology (from Ancient Greek, Greek , ''oikos'', "house(hold)"; , ''hydōr'', "water"; and , ''-logy, -logia'') is an interdisciplinary scientific field studying the interactions between water and ecological systems. It is considered a sub disc ...

. Stephen W. Pacala was Acting Director of the Princeton Environmental Institute from 2005 to 2006, and Director from 2006 to 2014.

returned for a second time as Director from 2014-2017. The Director of the institute from 2017-2021 was Michael Celia, the Theodora Shelton Pitney Professor of Environmental Studies and professor of civil and environmental engineering at Princeton. As of July 2021, the Director became Gabriel Vecchi. In 2000, the institute established the Carbon Mitigation Initiative (CMI) in partnership with BP. The Carbon Mitigation Initiative has identified eight major carbon mitigation strategies or "wedges" for reducing human-based carbon emissions. In 2014, with funding from the

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

(NSF), the institute established the Southern Ocean Carbon and Climate Observations and Modeling project (SOCCOM), to study the Southern Ocean's role in climate regulation. In 2019, the institute received $2.5 million in federal funding to study resilience and sustainability in urban food systems. In 2020, the Institute received a gift to create the Thomas A. and Currie C. Barron Family Biodiversity Research Challenge Fund to support research on the preservation of species and ecosystems. The Princeton Environmental Institute was renamed as the High Meadows Environmental Institute, following a gift from Judy and Carl Ferenbach III's High Meadows Foundation in 2020. The High Meadows Environmental Institute (HMEI) is projected to move to a new building at Princeton in early 2025.

References

{{authority control Environmental research institutes Research institutes in New Jersey Environmental organizations based in New Jersey Environmental organizations established in 1994 Research institutes established in 1994 1994 establishments in New Jersey Science and technology in New Jersey Think tanks based in the United States Princeton University