John C. Little
Charles E. Via, Jr. Professor
Areas of Interest
My research previously focused on process dynamics in environmental systems (indoor environmental quality and lake and reservoir management) but has now broadened to process dynamics in Anthropocene systems. Because Anthropocene systems are highly interdependent and dynamically evolving, often with accelerating rates of cultural and technological evolution, the ensuing family of societal challenges (e.g., adaptive infrastructure, disasters, renewable energy and food insecurity) are also highly interdependent and need to be framed and addressed in a holistic fashion. To catalyze the required societal transformations at local, urban, regional and global scales, an evolutionary, system-of-systems convergence paradigm is needed.
- Ph.D. (Environmental Engineering), University of California, Berkeley, 1990
- M.S. (Environmental Engineering), University of California, Berkeley, 1988
- M.Sc. (Physical Chemistry), University of Cape Town, South Africa, 1984
- B.Sc. (Chemical Engineering), University of Cape Town, South Africa, 1985
- Charles E. Via, Jr. Professor, Full Professor, Associate Professor, and Assistant Professor, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA, Aug 1993 to present
- Visiting Professor, School of Civil Engineering, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
- Visiting Professor, Department of Building Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
- Visiting Professor, Instituto del Agua, Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain
- Visiting Professor, Department of Surface Waters, Swiss Federal Institute for Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag), Kastanienbaum, Switzerland
- Visiting Professor, Department of Environmental Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan
- Postdoctoral Fellow, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California, USA, Jan 1991 to Jun 1993
- Project Engineer, Binnie & Partners, Environmental Engineering Consultants, Johannesburg, South Africa, Jan 1985 to Jun 1987
- North American Lake Management Society (NALMS) Technical Merit Research Award (2014)
- Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP) Distinguished Service Award (2013)
- Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP)/CH2M Hill Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award (2011)
- International Society of Indoor Air Quality and Climate (ISIAQ) Academy of Fellows (2008)
- National Science Foundation CAREER Award (1996)
- CEE 3104: Introduction to Environmental Engineering
- CEE 4134: Environmental Sustainability - A Systems Approach
- CEE 5114: Advanced Sustainable Systems
- CEE 5794: Environmental Engineering Principles
- Little, J. C., Farid, A. M., Tang, T., Arpan, L., Bitterman, P., Welty, C. and Webster, D. G. Collaborative Research: GCR: Convergent Anthropocene Systems (Anthems) - A System-of-Systems Paradigm, National Science Foundation, 10/01/23 - 9/30/28, $1,196,979.
- Little, J. C., Salado, A., Sandu, A., Shortridge, J. and Watford, B. Planning Grant: Engineering research center for managing complex socio-environmental problems using a generic, tiered system-of-systems (GTSoS) modeling and data-science framework, National Science Foundation, 9/01/19 - 8/31/22, $99,691.
- Little, J. C. and Wang, H. H. Simultaneously managing scale and uncertainty using innovative software design in a tiered, system-of-systems modeling framework, National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC), 1/01/19 - 12/31/21, ~$96,000.
- Little, J. C. Closing Gaps in SVOC Emission Models for Rapid Exposure Estimates, The National Toxicology Program, 5/01/20 - 4/30/21, $156,327.
- Little, J. C. Experimental Validation of the SVOC Exposure Assessment Tool, The European Chemical Industry Council (CEFIC), 4/01/19 - 11/30/21, $251,207.
- Little, J. C., Kaaronen, R. O., Muthukrishna, M., Elsawah, S., Bennett, M. S., Khayal, I. S., Hukkinen, J. I., Barton, C. M., Jakeman, A. J. and Farid, A. M. “One Earth + One Health: An Agile, Evolutionary, System-of-Systems Convergence Paradigm,” Environmental Science & Technology, 2026, Vol. 60, pp. 9725-9743, DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.5c11895.
- Little, J. C., Kaaronen, R. O., Hukkinen, J. I., Xiao, S., Sharpee, T., Farid, A. M., Nilchiani, R. and Barton, C. M. “Earth Systems to Anthropocene Systems: An Evolutionary, System-of-Systems Approach to Societal Challenges,” Environmental Science & Technology, 2023, Vol. 57, pp. 5504-5520, DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.2c06203.
- Bi, C. and Little, J. C. “Integrated assessment across building and urban scales: a review and proposal for a more holistic, multi-scale, system-of-systems approach,” Sustainable Cities and Society, 2022, Vol. 82, pp. 103915.
- Iwanaga, T., Wang, H. H., Hamilton, S. H., Grimm, V., Koralewski, T. E., Salado, A., Elsawah, S., Razavi, S., Yang, J., Glynn, P., Badham, J., Voinov, A., Chen, M., Grant, W. E., Peterson, T. R., Frank, K., Shenk, G., Barton, C. M., Jakeman, A. J. and Little, J. C. “Socio-technical scales in socio-environmental modeling: managing a system-of-systems modeling approach,” Environmental Modelling & Software, 2021, Vol. 135, pp. 104885.