RIT Professors Invited to Speak on Climate Change Policy and the Automotive Industry at Sloan Industry Studies Workshop, April 3-4

Sandra Rothenberg and James Winebrake to lead discussion on sustainable transportation

Two Rochester Institute of Technology professors will talk about climate change policy and the automotive industry at a national forum evaluating the impact of global climate change on industries critical to United States’ economic success.

Sandra Rothenberg and James Winebrake will lead a discussion on sustainable transportation at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s Industry Studies Workshop “U.S. Industry and Climate Change: Impacts, Policies, and Responses,” hosted by University of California at Berkeley April 3-4. The invitation-only event will be attended by leading academic and industry thinkers.

Rothenberg and Winebrake will focus on how new efforts to curb emissions of greenhouse gases are changing the automotive industry by moving companies towards more sustainable technologies and practices. Their talk is based on research they are conducting through the Sloan Foundation’s International Motor Vehicle Program and a related National Science Foundation-project housed at RIT’s Laboratory for Environmental Computing and Decision Making.

“We will be discussing the sea-change that the auto industry will be facing in the coming years, driven primarily by climate change issues and a desire for energy independence,” says Winebrake, professor and chair of the Department of Science, Technology, & Society/Public Policy in the College of Liberal Arts and co-director of the RIT Laboratory for Environmental Computing and Decision Making. “Everything from biofuels to electric vehicles will be talked about in a forum that allows for intense debate and deliberation.”

RIT’s involvement in the Sloan Industries Studies Workshop positions the university among some of the leading institutions studying climate-change impacts on industry. Other participating universities include University of California-Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon University, and Georgia Institute of Technology.

“This is a great opportunity to present to some of the leading academic and industry thinkers on climate change and its impact on U.S. industry,” says Rothenberg, an associate professor of management in the E. Philip Saunders College of Business. “We also hope to bring back some of the ideas cultivated at the workshop in order to expand our research capacity in this area here at RIT.”

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s Industry Studies program encourages research cooperation between academics and industry members. The philanthropic nonprofit foundation was established in 1934 by Alfred Pritchard Sloan, Jr., then president and chief executive officer of General Motors Corp.

To talk to Rothenberg and Winebrake, please contact Susan Gawlowicz at (585) 475-5061 or smguns@rit.edu.

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