Program Highlights

Program Dates

May 28 – July 9, 2025

Faculty Director

Dr. Greg Gangi, Associate Director for Clean Technology and Innovation; Teaching Professor, UNC Institute for the Environment

In his teaching, Greg Gangi conveys a complex understanding of environmental challenges and explores innovative solutions. His teaching extends beyond the classroom as he leads students to many countries to learn firsthand about global change and innovation. He has organized and led several Burch Field Research Seminars to Germany, the Netherlands, the Nordic countries, South Korea, and China.

Gangi received various awards at UNC and a national award for his advising and mentoring of students. In 2014, he was awarded the NACADA Award for Outstanding Faculty Advisor. He received the Tanner Award for Teaching Excellence in 2010 and the University recognized him with the Massey Award for Outstanding Service in 2018.

In addition to his teaching, Gangi works to create networks in North Carolina between industry, academia, and government to help strengthen innovation. He also seeks to foster international networks that connect companies in the Clean Tech Sector with North Carolina. He defines clean technology broadly to include companies in clean energy, smart cities, water technologies, innovation to make transportation more sustainable, building technologies, and solutions that improve food security and agricultural sustainability. He is the lead organizer of the annual UNC Clean Tech Summit, which represents the largest event of its kind in the southeastern region of the United States.

Adam Lovelady, Professor of Public Law and Government 

As a faculty member at the UNC School of Government, Adam Lovelady teaches, researches, and advises on city planning, land use law, and sustainable development. Lovelady was named Albert and Gladys Hall Coates Term Professor for Teaching Excellence for 2019–2021, and he was named Coates Distinguished Term Assistant Professor for 2015–2017. Lovelady co-led a Burch Field Research Seminar in Summer 2023. 

Program Highlights

Today, Europe and its many nations leads the world in providing innovations that can build a more sustainable world order. Over the course of six weeks, this program will visit and study a few of those nations to explore how Europe contributed to the foundation of unsustainable practices and what it is doing now to counteract environmental dilemmas through city planning, green finance, renewable energy, sustainable food systems, and other areas of clean technology and policy. This program will provide a unique opportunity to learn firsthand where the future of sustainability lies.

We will travel through a variety of cities in the UK in both Scotland and England and finish our program in Paris, France. The Burch Seminar on Stustainability will convey a complex understanding of environmental challenges and will shine a light on a sustainable future as well as career paths for today’s students to become agents of change.