The collaboration centered on developing resilience strategies for critical infrastructure in the face of climate change. Professor Tarcisio Abreu Saurin from UFRGS’s Industrial Engineering Department led the Brazilian delegation alongside PhD student Guilherme Luiz Canzian Marion, who specializes in construction and infrastructure resilience.

This event, part of a broader campus visit facilitated by Professor Fernanda Leite, UT Austin’s Interim Vice President for Research and SETx CoPI, brought together expertise from two continents and demonstrated the institutional commitment to international scientific cooperation.

The timing proved particularly relevant, as Brazil continues recovery efforts from the devastating 2024 floods that affected 2.4 million people and caused 183 casualties, while Texas grapples with the impacts from last July flooding events, and persistent air quality challenges from industrial activities.

Water and Flood Resilience: Researchers shared advanced hydrological modeling techniques and community-based flood management strategies. The Brazilian team brought insights from their recent flood response experience, while Texas researchers presented innovations in compound flooding scenarios and storm transposition techniques.

Climate Adaptation: Teams focused on high-resolution climate projections and extreme weather impact analysis, exploring how different geographic contexts require tailored approaches to urban heat island mitigation and temperature-related health impacts.

Air Quality and Health: Given Southeast Texas’s industrial landscape and Brazil’s urban air pollution experience, researchers shared methodologies for monitoring industrial emissions and analyzing indoor-outdoor air pollution interactions. The Brazilian team showed particular interest in the PTR-ToF MS instruments for real-time analysis of up to 500 compounds.

Social Vulnerability: The collaboration explored approaches to measuring social vulnerability, from quantitative indices to qualitative community engagement strategies, recognizing that effective resilience planning must address both technical and social dimensions of risk.

Paola Passalacqua provided a comprehensive introduction to the SETx-UIFL project, detailing the $15 million Department of Energy initiative that brings together four Texas institutions and two national labs, emphasizing the collaborative nature of the research and the importance of community engagement.

Geeta Persad presented climate theme work, focusing on high-resolution climate data sets and projections for Southeast Texas. Her team has developed downscaling techniques that transform global climate models into locally relevant information, including innovative approaches to hurricane projections and storm transposition methods.

Kerry Kinney demonstrated air quality research in the Beaumont-Port Arthur region, featuring mobile monitoring platforms and management of 40 terabytes of “sniffer” sensor data. Her work with PTR-ToF MS instruments provided the Brazilian team insights into scalable environmental monitoring approaches.

Tarcisio Abreu Saurin presented resilience engineering principles and their application to the 2024 Brazilian floods. His framework for understanding resilience as a system’s ability to adapt to changes resonated with the Texas team’s community-engaged approach.

Disaster Response and Infrastructure Resilience: Sean Murphy’s research on coastal community resilience maturity, presenting frameworks for categorizing communities based on their resilience plans and long-term improvement strategies. Guilherme Luiz Canzian Marion from the Brazilian delegation contributed perspectives on construction and infrastructure resilience approaches.

Flood Management and Climate Modeling: Mark Wang’s flood inundation mapping in Southeast Texas using compound flood scenarios and terrain analysis techniques to provide neighborhood-scale flood information, while Linchao Luo and Emmanuel Pozzer presented complementary work on hydrological modeling and climate data applications. Chih-Shen Chen discussed digital twin applications for flood management decision-making. Ifeanyichukwu C. Nduka explained the process of downscaling climate data for Southeast Texas, using a statistical downscaling method called pre-dial to preserve trends and add local information.

Air Quality and Environmental Monitoring: Sam Lin on indoor-outdoor air pollution interactions, particularly the impact of acute outdoor emission events on indoor air quality and ventilation rates. Evelyn Deveraux presented her work on mobile measurements in the Beaumont-Port Arthur area, showcasing field-based approaches to environmental monitoring in industrial settings.

Both Brazilian and Texas teams emphasized participatory approaches that value local knowledge and ensure community voices shape research priorities. The collaboration highlighted methodological approaches that bridge technical expertise with community-centered research design.

The Texas team shared their experience with community task forces including grassroots organizations and technical stakeholders, while the Brazilian team brought perspectives on stakeholder engagement during crisis response from their 2024 flood response experience.

Knowledge Management Platform Development: Will Mobley showcased the project’s knowledge management platform (KMP) that facilitates data access and integration across interdisciplinary teams. The platform manages massive environmental datasets while making them accessible to researchers and community stakeholders through standardized workflows and AI-powered integration.

Social Vulnerability Research: Professor Michelle Annette Meyer presented her team’s work on developing locally calibrated social vulnerability indices. Her research combines quantitative analysis with community engagement, highlighting the importance of community feedback in adapting vulnerability measures to local contexts.

The event showcased cutting-edge technical innovations in climate resilience research. The Brazilian team expressed particular interest in the advanced PTR-ToF MS instruments used for real-time analysis of up to 500 compounds at sub-part-per-trillion levels.

Kerry Kinney’s presentation demonstrated the project’s technical sophistication, featuring mobile monitoring platforms and management of 40 terabytes of “sniffer” sensor data through innovative knowledge management platforms.

Climate data downscaling work presented by Ifeanyichukwu C. Nduka used a statistical downscaling method called pre-dial to preserve trends and add local information, selecting the best 10 models from 35 available models and focusing on temperature, precipitation, and solar radiation with emphasis on heat stress impacts.

The knowledge management platform uses AI and natural language processing to integrate structured scientific data with unstructured community input, representing a significant advancement in how environmental research can be made accessible and actionable for communities.

Tarcisio Abreu Saurin presented resilience engineering principles and their application to the 2024 Brazilian floods. His framework for understanding resilience as a system’s ability to adapt to changes before, during, and after disturbances resonated strongly with the Texas team’s community-engaged approach.

The Brazilian team brought valuable perspectives on stakeholder engagement during crisis response, drawing from their experience with the massive 2024 flood response that required coordination across multiple government levels and community organizations.

The timing proved particularly relevant, as Brazil continues recovery efforts from the devastating 2024 floods that affected 2.4 million people and caused 183 casualties. This real-world experience provided crucial insights into infrastructure interdependencies and community resilience strategies.

The discussion of Brazil’s critical infrastructure interdependencies during the floods provided valuable comparative insights for Southeast Texas’s petrochemical and energy infrastructure vulnerability assessments.

The research exchange established foundations for ongoing collaboration between Brazilian and Texas research teams. The event demonstrated opportunities for student and faculty exchanges, shared methodological development in resilience engineering frameworks, and comparative case studies that can illuminate universal principles while respecting local contexts.

Both teams recognized the value of cross-cultural learning in climate resilience research, particularly the integration of different approaches to community engagement and stakeholder participation during crisis response.

This international collaboration transcends traditional academic exchange, embodying a commitment to building global capacity for climate resilience through shared knowledge, methodological innovation, and community-centered approaches.

The event’s success reinforces UT Austin’s commitment to international climate resilience research and demonstrates the University’s dedication to addressing global challenges through collaborative scholarship. The knowledge generated and relationships built during this intensive day will undoubtedly contribute to more resilient communities in both Brazil and Texas, while advancing the broader field of climate adaptation research through cross-continental learning and innovation.