Letter from Our Director

Building a Thriving Planet Together

The challenges facing our planet are arriving faster and are more intertwined than ever. Climate change, public health, infrastructure, food systems, and water resources are no longer separate concerns. They overlap, reinforcing one another in ways that shape both daily life and the long-term resilience of our communities.

Meeting this moment requires exceptional research and bold methods of working together to deliver results that matter to people.

As a collective of scientists, scholars, and citizens of this planet, we understand that the quality of our air, water, and land is inseparable from human health and well-being. Yet the systems that shape how we design materials, grow food, and build corporations and communities are still too often studied and managed in isolation. When that happens, promising ideas lose momentum, insights fail to cross disciplinary boundaries, and solutions fall short of the world's complexity.

The Thriving Planet Institute was created to change that.

Our Geographic Advantage

Northwestern offers a rare platform for this kind of work. We are situated alongside one of the world's largest freshwater systems, embedded in longstanding relationships across the Chicago region, and strengthened by expertise spanning engineering, medicine, social science, policy, and beyond. Together, these assets enable us to approach improving and sustaining environmental quality not as a collection of separate problems but as an integrated system that reflects how people actually live and how environments actually function.

We are already seeing what becomes possible when boundaries come down. Faculty who had never worked together before are forming new teams around shared challenges. Students are seeking interdisciplinary research experiences that connect directly to societal needs. Partners beyond the University are turning to Northwestern to help test, validate, and implement new approaches in real-world settings.

The Institute builds on this momentum by connecting people and ideas, supporting early-stage collaborations, and helping promising concepts move toward broader impact. We bring together faculty, students, and external partners to develop solutions that are scientifically rigorous, grounded in real-world conditions, and make a difference. Our work is designed to move—from discovery to piloting, testing, and scaling—so that research can inform decisions, policies, and practices that improve lives.

Our Priorities

We have a bold set of priorities that will guide our initial work:

• Redesign chemical and material systems to reduce their harm to people and the environment
• Strengthen water and food security in communities facing growing risk
• Restore and enhance the ecosystem services that sustain human life
• Develop open data, modeling, and decision-support tools that help communities act on better information

No single discipline or institution can address these challenges alone. But by working across boundaries, staying grounded in evidence, and focusing on solutions that can be put into practice, we can make meaningful progress.

The Thriving Planet Institute is an invitation: to collaborate, to test new ideas, and to help build solutions that work in the world as it is.

– Jennifer Dunn

Director, Thriving Planet Institute;
Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering and (by courtesy) Mechanical Engineering;
Director, Center for Engineering Sustainability and Resilience