Ian Tran

Ian Tran is a senior pursuing his B.S. in Environmental Science at the University of Michigan-Dearborn (UM-D). Tran was an invitee and contributor to the Engineering Society of Detroit’s (ESD) 2009 Lean Green School Symposium education working group (published: http://bit.ly/GrnSchlESD); he later served on the DEPSA Steering Committee and championed concepts of place-based education and triple bottom line sustainability. He was awarded a UM-D Department of Natural Sciences Scholarship Seat in 2009 to contribute to the Paragon Leadership International/NextEnergy Epprentice Challenge alternative energy economic and education working group; its project outcomes shall be utilized by the Michigan Wind Institute. Tran contributed comprehensive solutions in waste reduction, energy sourcing, green infrastructure, education, community and ecological economic development for the City of Dearborn’s Sustainability Master Plan and for the 2009 102nd Air Waste Management Association conference's Environmental Challenge International as UM-D’s team lead. Tran was President of the Student Environmental Association fom 2009-2011(and creator of their blog: http://bit.ly/UM-DSEA) at UM-D and served throughout 2010 as a spokesperson, moderator, and environmental interpreter for the Dearborn Sierra Club Cool Cities group to foster comprehensive sustainability efforts among community leaders in the Dearborn area ( http://bit.ly/DbrnCoolCities ) . Tran also served as a facilitator and authored the narrative for workgroup #4 in the Engineering Society of Detroit Institute's 2011 Future Detroit symposium (published: http://bit.ly/ESDIFutrDetrREPORT) . He was awarded as a UM-D Difference Maker (http://www.umd.umich.edu/ian), was nominated to the Mayor’s Environmental Commission for the City of Dearborn in 2010, and was awarded the UM-Dearborn Leadership Legacy Student Leadership Award in 2011.

Tran has also worked in numerous educational capacities either directly with hundreds of 3rd grade-college students as an orientation leader, writing consultant, student naturalist, or tutor at UM-D or through contributions to nationally recognized educational programs for K-12: the 2011 Future City Competition learning blocks via the ESD and The Henry Ford Museum’s Rouge Truck Plant as a representative of the U.S. Green Building Council-Detroit Regional Chapter in his role as a member of the project’s advisory committee.

He elucidated on communicative processes of music at the 2008 Meeting of the Minds undergraduate research conference at Oakland University. In 2010, he presented his findings from field and library research on the Sheldon Cemetery in Canton, Michigan and its context of place and people to a public audience at UM-Dearborn, and presented an informal lecture-recital on citizen empowerment, cultural preservation, and environmental justice at the University of Michigan-Dearborn's 2011 Global Fest in collaboration with the Southeast Michigan Sierra Club office and Friends of the Rouge.

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In the first person:

I'm currently musing over sustainability and music--particularly utility and participatory music and their potential roles in education and community building.

I'm working on being a good undergraduate student in the interest of graduating at this time, but I've got my eyes on graduate schools for strategic sustainability, or behavior education, and communication. I'd like to get a better sense of how comprehensive sustainability is perceived and done through corporate sustainability consulting soon.

I embrace empirical, interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, and metadisciplinary approaches toward research, analysis, and learning, but my studies are currently focused on environmental science/studies, in addition to communication studies, identity, and ethics.

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