The NSF Engineering Research Center (ERC) for the Internet of Things for Precision Agriculture (ERC) unites faculty and students from the University of Pennsylvania, Purdue University, the University of California at Merced, and the University of Florida with government and industry partners, establishing a convergence of expertise in agronomy, agricultural engineering, socio-economics, environmental science, and the science and engineering of physical and cyber-physical systems needed to transform agriculture. The goal of this center is to ensure food, energy, and water security by advancing technology to increase crop production while minimizing the use of energy and water resources and the impact of agricultural practices on the environment.
The Environmentally Applied Refrigerant Technology Hub (EARTH) is a National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center focused on transforming the heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and refrigeration (HVACR) sector to mitigate its substantial environmental impact. HVACR systems currently account for nearly 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions, largely due to energy consumption and high-global-warming-potential (GWP) hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerants—some of which are thousands of times more potent than CO₂.
EARTH brings together a diverse, interdisciplinary network of engineers, scientists, economists, policy experts, social scientists, and industry leaders to co-create a sustainable refrigerant lifecycle. This Innovation Ecosystem addresses three critical challenges: reducing HFC emissions, developing safe and climate-friendly replacement refrigerants, and improving energy efficiency across HVACR systems. In parallel, EARTH advances workforce development through strategic partnerships with community and technical colleges, tribal and Native Hawaiian-serving institutions, and industry, with a focus on diversity and inclusion.
By integrating fundamental research, enabling technologies, and system-level testbeds, EARTH will accelerate adoption of next-generation refrigerant solutions, inform data-driven policy, and support broad industrial and societal transition—delivering measurable climate, economic, and workforce benefits across the U.S. and beyond.
ERC thanks the Center for Bio-mediated and Bio-inspired Geotechnics (CBBG) and Arizona State University for their assistance and source code information for the development of this site.