Projects in Peru

Arequipa Nexus Institute: Filley was the architect and director (2018-2021) of the Arequipa Nexus Institute for Sustainable Food, Energy, Water and the Environment, a bilateral technical and research alliance program between Purdue University and the Universidad Nacional de San Agustín (UNSA) in the Arequipa region of Peru funded through the Canon Minero – the first such university bilateral collaboration funded through this mechanism. The Nexus Institute aimed to understand the region’s food, energy and water production and delivery systems in the context of the complex socio-economic-environmental challenges Arequipa faces such as a changing climate, diminishing resources, a legacy of environmental degradation, and diverse communities striving for prosperity and security. The program was largest bilateral, international collaborative efforts in Purdue’s history and was one of the largest foreign investments in Purdue research. The Nexus Institute continues to support a collaborative research, education and innovation ecosystem where transformative solutions to challenges faced by Arequipa, Peru, and Latin America are explored. Under Filley’s direction, over 60 Purdue faculty, 100 UNSA faculty, and 30 postdoctoral researchers were supported with this effort.

PERU Hub: Filley was the OU PI in the multi-institutional USAID-funded ($15M) Peru Extension and Research Utilization Hub (PERU Hub) program (2021- 2025). PERU-Hub was a bilateral partnership between U.S. and Peruvian universities established to build a research and innovation center focused on sustainable agriculture in the San Martin Region of the Peruvian northern rain forest. Led by the Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina (UNALM), PERU-Hub served as a model for research utilization, education, and knowledge building in rural agricultural communities in the tropics. The PERU-Hub team, that included partners from OU, Utah State University, Purdue University, and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), worked to transform the region’s university-run agricultural demonstration stations into knowledge and innovation centers to improve the income of farmers, women and native communities with business development programs, technical training, access to real-time actionable environmental data, and high-profit cultivars. The OU team provided a baseline assessment of the health, vulnerability and crop suitability of soils and landscapes within the areas supporting San Martin’s evolving, and highly stressed, agricultural economy. Additionally, the OU team established a regional network of meteorological and soil moisture stations with open access portals and enhanced modeling products for communities. Filley’s team also trained soil health technicians who distributed custom-built soil evaluation kits (Pacha Kit) to farmer groups and provided them with technical support so that local farmers could assess the soil health of their own land.

UNSA-OU Global Change and Human Health Institute: In 2025, a new research partnership was launched with the Universidad Nacional de San Agustín, Arequipa called the Global Change and Human Health Institute (GCHH). The GCHH is a bilateral research and capacity-building ecosystem co-developed and co-managed by UNSA and OU to promote research excellence in designing adaptive social environmental systems. Particular research foci of the three-year program include: modeling climate change impacts; air, soil, and water quality monitoring and modeling; rapid human health and environmental DNA screening; and medical data science. Recognizing that certain experimental infrastructure were key to advancing UNSA as a national leader in sustainability research, Filley and UNSA leadership sought to fill a national need by developing a program of excellence for stable isotope geochemistry at UNSA. In 2024, after 3 years of development and construction, the only stable isotope geochemistry facility in all of the public university system of Peru, LABISOP, was inaugurated on the campus of UNSA. Filley is the co-architect and co-director of LABISOP, and he and his co-director, Dr. Juan Lopa (Chemistry Dept, UNSA) operate this facility as a research and service light stable isotope laboratory which is housed in the new $20M Centro de Investigación Aplicada y Laboratorios Especializados del Perú (CIALE) facility on the Engineering campus of UNSA. The OU SIM and UNSA LABISOP are sister labs that coordinate staff technical training, instrument calibration, and new research programs across Peru.

UNAP-OU Lake Titicaca Watershed Management Center: In 2025 an additional research capacity building program was launched, this with the Universidad Nacional del Altiplano de Puno (UNAP) to create the Lake Titicaca Watershed Management Center (LTWM). Lake Titicaca is a critical food and water resource to the growing coastal cities of Puno and Juliaca, however, the diverse terrain and ecology, regional population growth, and the rich mineral reserves and biodiversity of the Lake Titicaca Watershed present both challenges and opportunities to the development of the Region of Puno. This 3-year project will explore collaborative research projects with the goal of building research capacity at UNAP and co-creating a conceptual framework for research infrastructure to support sustainable environmental management of the region.

Advancing Stable Isotope Geochemistry in Peru: In 2024, after 3 years of development and construction, the only stable isotope geochemistry facility in all of the public university system of Peru, LABISOP, was inaugurated on the campus of UNSA. Filley is the co-architect and co-director of LABISOP, and he and his co-director, Dr. Juan Lopa (Chemistry Dept, UNSA) operate this facility as a research and service light stable isotope laboratory which is housed in the new $20M Centro de Investigación Aplicada y Laboratorios Especializados del Perú (CIALE) facility on the Engineering campus of UNSA. The OU SIM and UNSA LABISOP are sister labs that coordinate staff technical training, instrument calibration, and new research programs across Peru.