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Computers have helped revolutionize the commercial world and transformed the lives of the general public through the development of the Internet and mobile technologies like the iPhone. But, practically speaking, they have done little for the good of our planet. This troubled Carla Gomes, a computer science professor at Cornell University, and led her to embark on an effort to develop computational methods that can help cultivate a more sustainable world.
Gomes and an interdisciplinary team of programmers, theorists, applied mathematicians, economists, biologists and environmental scientists have helped create a new field, computational sustainability, addressing challenges that computer scientists have not traditionally handled. Together, they tackle a range of issues from wildlife management to poverty reduction.Image credit: Nathaniel Jensen, Cornell University
