About Us

The Rooftop Rangers are in the process of adapting the existing green roofing plot on our Boston campus into a fully instrumented living laboratory. This project serves as a critical, real-world experiment intended to generate validated, actionable data on the performance of green infrastructure.

 

We are meticulously constructing a roof system that precisely mirrors the specifications of high-performance green roofs in dense urban environments, incorporating specialized drainage layers, growing media, and selected native, resilient sedum species. The installation acts simultaneously as a teaching tool and a monitored research station. We are deploying sensor arrays to capture real-time data on three essential urban resilience metrics: quantifying the system's efficacy in mitigating the Urban Heat Island effect, measuring the volume and rate of stormwater retention, and assessing the enhancement of biodiversity.

 

This hands-on process integrates engineering principles with environmental science, establishing a site for sustainability innovation. Upon successful installation of the sedum and sensors, our team will transition to developing practical, scalable implementation strategies and policy recommendations for the university's planning department. Our objective is to translate this successful campus experiment into concrete proposals for deploying similar green infrastructure across Northeastern's global campus network.

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We are incredibly grateful to have received a Roots & Shoots project grant on behalf of the Jane Goodall Institute to support this work.