Our Mission: We advance transformative water reuse and water quality research, education and policies to protect public health and accelerate climate resilience. 

Our Vision: We strive to be a national resource bringing together research, outreach, and education to effectively reduce the nation’s water challenges that are exacerbated by climate change.

The CONSERVE Center of Excellence was launched in 2016 through a $10 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Health to the University of Maryland School of Public Health. 

We employ a systems-based approach, bringing together diverse disciplines to research and facilitate water reuse and water quality solutions here in Maryland and beyond. We then share this new knowledge through extensive outreach, use it to improve public policy, and employ experiential education to teach, train, and inspire future leaders.

To expand our educational efforts, we won a prestigious $3 million graduate student training award in 2018 from the National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NSF NRT) Program to launch UMD Global STEWARDS. The program trains students to effectively work and communicate across disciplines to address issues at the nexus of food, energy, water (FEW), climate, and health from molecular to societal levels and from local to global scales. UMD Global STEWARDS Fellows emerge from the program as well-balanced life-long learners, stellar science communicators and distinctive professionals armed with the team science, communication and professional skills needed to translate research discoveries into actionable solutions.

To scale our approach globally, we have partnered with the Arava Institute, CultiVaid, Mbeya University of Science & Technology, Kathmandu University and Sanskriti Farms and Research Center, and launched the Global FEWture Alliance with funding from the University of Maryland Grand Challenges Institutional Grants Program. This University of Maryland-based international Alliance advances systems-based interdisciplinary research-to-action, community-driven capacity building, and experiential education to effect positive change in underserved communities at the nexus of food, energy, water, (FEW) climate, and health. 

By bringing together a diverse transdisciplinary team across multiple continents to develop and implement sustainable global solutions, CONSERVE, UMD Global STEWARDS, and the Global FEWture Alliance have turned the prospect of reversing global food, energy and water challenges from wishful thinking to a plausible reality.