The inaugural post of our "Local STEM" series features the NYU Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP). CUSP brings engineers and scientists together with city governments to tackle urban issues. We interviewed CUSP Executive Director Michael Holland to learn more about their work.

​Tim Oolman is an engineer with a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering who lives in Charleston, South Carolina. He told us about attending a City Council meeting and a State of the City address to learn more about his home.

ESAL Founder Arti Garg writes about how her work with a municipal task force showed her the connection between local litter abatement and San Francisco Bay health. She encourages readers to learn the role their local government plays in the science policy issues that matter to them.

Holly Williams believes outreach experiences are the perfect way to cut your teeth on community engagement. She has volunteered at the California Academy of Sciences as a science educator for nearly two years now. In this month's Story, she describes how she leveraged her STEM background in small ways and still made a big impact.

In the second part of this month's "Postcard", Arti Garg describes a follow-up discussion she had with her city's economic development manager after offering public comments at a city council committee meeting. She wrote a one-page summary proposing that the city prioritize cleantech hardware in its development plan.

In this month's "Postcard", Rachna Handa describes how she attended a public workshop for her county's community choice energy aggregator. She walked away from this all-day public forum and panel discussion motivated and energized to take part in local decision-making.

In this month's "Postcard", Griff O’Neill, a physicist by training currently working as an engineer in the semiconductor industry in California, describes how he sat down for coffee with two city council members from his community.

Jennifer Boehme is a marine scientist and advisor at the International Joint Commission in Windsor, Ontario, which is a commission of the U.S. and Canada that has oversight of border waters. She attended a city council meeting to understand local priorities for sustainable development, green infrastructure, and mass transit.

As an innovator and "maker" at the nexus of the built environment, energy, and transportation sectors; John Sarter frequently needs to integrate first-of-their-kind electrical systems with other building technologies. To accomplish this, he uses new materials and construction techniques that exceed, and help to advance, existing codes and local regulations. Even in a forward-looking city like San Francisco, though, the development of a building like Sol Lux Alpha – the first multi-unit residential nanogrid project in the United States – wasn't easy.