Fernando Tormos-Aponte earned an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grant

Fernando Tormos-Aponte, assistant professor in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Sociology, earned a $500,000 grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to study energy resilience in Puerto Rico. The foundation awards roughly $80 million in grants annually in support of scientific research and education.

The grant will fund participatory research with the La Haya community in Puerto Rico to examine how neighborhoods build solar energy resilience, with a focus on communities historically underserved by the island’s power grid.

The project will also produce publicly available datasets on power outages and solar panel density across Puerto Rico, in collaboration with researchers at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez and the University of Maryland.

Tormos-Aponte’s research focuses on how vulnerable communities are affected during disaster recovery. He expanded his work after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico in 2017. Learn more about his previous research.

Photography by Aimee Obidzinski