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McCullough Fellows

Working locally for global impact

By UNC Asheville

February 4^th, 2020

At the intersection of affordable housing, energy efficiency, electric cars, endangered lichens, and native shrubs, you’ll find UNC Asheville’s McCullough Fellows—a group of passionate students dedicated to conducting unique research that blends environmental studies with business and sustainable economic growth within urban and rural landscapes.

Written by Peyton Rodgers '20; Illustrated by Hanna Trussler '13

McCullough Fellows work closely with faculty and community partners to conduct real-world research in the areas of land use and conservation; urban planning; sustainable agriculture; and resilience and environmental sustainability. This year our five fellows took on some of the most exciting projects yet. Each receives funding from the McCullough Institute, which was created by renowned Asheville physician and a lifelong champion of environmental issues Charles T. McCullough Jr. and his family.

FUELING THE FUTURE

Dreaming of owning an electric car? Or does the idea make you shudder? Karl Mueller, a senior economics major, wants to know why. He partnered with Duke Energy to conduct a fleet analysis of electric vehicles in the Buncombe County area, with the goal of determining what variables are impacting electric vehicle adoption.

“It’s a binary choice between a gas vehicle and an electric vehicle, and the loss aversion is how much does each individual consider the transition a loss?That’s done through a series of measurements and a survey,” Mueller said.

With Mueller’s studies centered in economics, he viewed the research through an economics framework, asking questions such as: what are the impacts of electric vehicle ownership, and what are the incentives? Why are people purchasing or not purchasing? What are the obstacles or barriers buyers face when considering buying an electric vehicle? The challenge then, Mueller said, is “to put that into context to see if I could apply some economic theory to the market.”

LOOKING FOR LICHEN

Elsa Haun, a senior environmental sciences student, has dedicated her project to working with the Blue Ridge Parkway, focusing on the Rock Dome Lichen, a species of lichen designated federally endangered in 1995.

Her project focuses on a protocol created in 1997 which requires the species to be monitored by five- to 10-year checkups to ensure it maintains good health and range. Haun is participating in ongoing monitoring of this species to determine if it needs to remain federally endangered, if it should be downgraded to threatened, or delisted entirely.

“That works entails fieldwork, going to sites where it grows that have been previously discovered,” said Haun. The next step for Haun is analyze the data collected and compare it to past research done. The most recent thorough research found was conducted almost 10 years ago.

“Lichens are important indicator species,” Haun explained, meaning a lichen’s success or failure can tell you a lot about the condition of the environment they’re in. “They’re very vulnerable to air quality issues, and that’s one of the threats to this species.”

Due to Haun’s part in this research and working closely with the Blue Ridge Parkway’s plant ecologist, she has been offered other opportunities to help out with multiple rare and endangered plant monitoring projects.

“We were doing Gray’s Lily monitoring earlier, which is a beautiful endemic flower, so I got to participate in that,” said Haun.

She also participated in the habitat restoration at the grassy bald at Craggy Gardens, which was reported on by the Asheville Citizen-Times during the summer of 2019.

BUILDING A VILLAGE

Soni Pitts, a senior majoring in health and wellness promotion, dedicated her project to working closely with BeLoved Asheville on an affordable housing project called BeLoved Village.

For her McCullough Fellowship, Pitts conducted research that dives into a deeper understanding of how sustainable building and approaches affect affordability both short- and long-term. The research will be followed by a case study of BeLoved, the BeLoved Village, and how they related to similar themes, pulling lessons learned, best practices, and any policy changes.

Pitts worked in an existing bamboo forest, hand-clearing to reduce the environmental impact along with the cost for clearing. When all is done, the village will consist of 12 microhomes and communal resources, creating a safe and inclusive environment for every resident.

“BeLoved has an exhibit where they have kids and other people paint on rescued wood from pallets. We have all of this wood, and the idea is to paint what home means to you in some way shape or form. Sometimes it’s a literal house, sometimes it’s an emotion,” said Pitts.

For the second part of the project, Pitts created a sustainability action plan for the BeLoved Village, which is based around LEED and other sustainability standards relating to sustainable neighborhood and residential design and development.

“We’ve basically taken those standards, run through the check list, checking off which metrics we’ve hit, and which ones we might be able to add into the program to create some recommendations to make the program more sustainable, but also looking forward to maybe integrate LEED or other certification,” said Pitts.

The project is designed to place a dozen 440-square-foot microhomes on one acre of land, which was donated to BeLoved Asheville by Land of Sky Church, along with resources such as laundry rooms for the community.

RESEARCH IN THE BOTANS

Katie Caruso, a senior biology major with a minor in religious studies, started her project with the Asheville Botanical Gardens investigating a federally designated threatened shrub called Spiraea virginiana, which while historically was widespread, through climatic shifts has been isolated into small genetically distinct populations along river banks. This fragmentation has been exacerbated due to human activity, such as damming.

“If a flood happens, a little bit of the shrub can break off and float downstream and establish a new population,” Caruso explained. “That has been reduced overtime because damming prevents those flooding events from occurring.”

Since the plant is unable to fragment and move downstream, the flow of genetic information is also limited since the plants cannot reproduce by pollination, like other plants. In response, Caruso has been propagating the spirea, with the goal of planting it in a location where the Buncombe County population decreased after a mill was constructed.

She’s also taken her work beyond the plant world, and into the world of education.

“I’ve been working on some outreach events where students, mostly younger children, are coming to the Botanical Gardens, and it’s one-part plant education, but also nature writing and reflective exercises,” said Caruso.

POWERING THE HOME

Zane Carroll, an environmental studies major with a concentration in management and policy and minors in math and economics, partnered with the Blue Horizons Project to conduct work focused on energy efficiency. Her project included promoting energy efficiency in the community and educating people on rebates and different opportunities to reduce energy consumption in the home.

“I did a few case studies on various commercial facilities who’ve had major projects to reduce their energy consumption and then turned those into readable profiles to be distributed to different commercial facilities to encourage them to adopt some of those modifications,” said Carroll.

The second part of Carroll’s project is based on research around North Carolina’s energy code.

The Blue Horizons Project was created in collaboration with an energy innovation task force, which is a collaboration with Buncombe County, the City of Asheville, Duke Energy, and others such as Sierra Nevada and UNC Asheville.

“One of its goals is energy efficiency, but another goal was to avoid the construction of a ‘peaker’ power plant, so that’s to compensate for peak energy times. So, reducing the energy of the community took that out of Duke’s 10-year energy plan,” said Carroll.

Most of Carroll’s work was shared at energy innovation meetings and tabling with different solar companies.

With each student’s dedication and loyalty to their research and projects, UNC Asheville has been represented in the community by like-minded students with the goal of creating sustainability in the Asheville community.

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