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Florida International University (FIU) has been designated as Florida’s University of Distinction for Environmental Resilience, a recognition of its leadership and commitment to addressing the pressing challenges posed by climate change and environmental degradation. As the state’s only public research university located in a coastal metropolitan area, FIU is uniquely positioned to tackle these issues head-on.<\/p>\n
With its diverse array of research programs and initiatives, FIU is at the forefront of developing innovative solutions to safeguard communities, livelihoods, and the future of our planet. Through interdisciplinary collaboration between ecologists, engineers, architects, and scientists from various fields, the university is pioneering scalable and resilience-promoting technologies that monitor and clean up imperiled ecosystems, strengthen critical infrastructure, boost the viability of sustainable power sources, and ensure a more resilient world for generations to come.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>This feature story appeared on the special tech and innovation cover of the 2024-25 FIU Research Magazine<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n Five decades of nuclear energy research and weapons development \u2014 spanning from World War II to the end of the Cold War \u2014 left behind a toxic environmental legacy. Clean up became its own “priority mission,” explains In\u00e9s Triay<\/a>, interim dean of the College of Engineering & Computing<\/a> and executive director of the Applied Research Center (ARC).<\/p>\n The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE)<\/a> Office of Environmental Management (EM)<\/a> has taken on the daunting task of deactivating, decommissioning, decontaminating, and deconstructing over 90 sites that were once part of the nation’s nuclear weapons complex. To date, EM has successfully remediated many of these sites, leaving only 15 remaining.<\/p>\n However, the challenge is far from over. According to estimates, it could take another 90 years to dispose of the millions of gallons of radioactive bomb-making waste, demolish contaminated buildings, and finish remediating soil and groundwater. The scale of this undertaking is massive, but EM remains committed to cleaning up the environmental legacy left by decades of nuclear activities.<\/p>\n FIU scientists at the Applied Research Center (ARC) are sending in their robotic systems to help the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) with the massive undertaking of cleaning up the environmental legacy left behind by decades of nuclear energy research and weapons development. Each robotic system is meticulously designed and programmed to navigate and operate in radioactive environments, allowing humans to stay out of harm’s way.<\/p>\n![\"Leonel](\"https:\/\/eicdev.fiu.edu\/phparc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/robotics-doe.jpg\")
Leonel Lagos with students Maria Sotolongo and Carlos Rios in FIU\u2019s Applied Robotics and Remote Systems Lab.<\/p>\n