Building Opening Celebration and Symposium

Eight years after its founding, the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment celebrated its new home with a dedication and ribbon-cutting on May 18 that kicked off a three-day symposium with leading experts from science, technology, academia, industry, and government.
 

A three-day symposium May 18 to 20 celebrated the opening of the new building for the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment at Princeton University. The symposium featured talks by Andlinger Center faculty, who highlighted recent research advances, as well as government and industry leaders outlining their visions for the future of energy and the environment. The center's founding director, Emily Carter (above), gave opening remarks and an overview of the center's activities since it was founded in 2008. (Photo by David Kelly Crow for the Office of Engineering Communications)

Andlinger Center jointly-appointed faculty presented their latest research on energy storage, energy-efficient building systems, nuclear fusion, biofuels, LEDs and solar cells, and sustainable concrete. In a poster session at the event, students and postdocs also presented their research. Graduate students  participated in a panel discussion led by Robert Socolow, professor emeritus of mechanical and aerospace engineering and senior research scholar, on our Energy Technology Distillates. Details on the Distillates can be found further below in this newsletter.
 
Speakers included Norman Augustine, retired chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin Corporation; Ralph Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences; Richard Kauffman, chairman of energy and finance for the state of New York; Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, deputy secretary of energy at the U.S. Department of Energy; and Ellen Williams, director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy, also at the Department of Energy.

For more information on the event, read this article on the building dedication and this article on the symposium.

Lynn Loo appointed director of Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment

Yueh-Lin (Lynn) Loo, the Theodora D. '78 and William H. Walton III '74 Professor in Engineering and professor of chemical and biological engineering, has been appointed director of the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, effective July 1. Loo ends her semester as acting vice dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science and she succeeds founding director Emily Carter, who has been appointed dean of engineering.

 Lynn Loo participated in a symposium held May 18 to 20 to mark the opening of the new building for the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment at Princeton University. Loo will become the center's director effective July 1. (Photo by David Kelly Crow for the Office of Engineering Communications)

Loo earned dual bachelor's degrees in chemical engineering and materials science and engineering at the University of Pennsylvania and went on to earn her Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Princeton in 2001. She worked as a postdoctoral researcher and staff member at Bell Laboratories/Lucent Technologies before joining the faculty of the University of Texas at Austin. She joined the Princeton faculty with the rank of associate professor in 2007.

For more on her appointment, read here.

Energy Technology Distillates: Fusion Energy via Magnetic Confinement

Fusion energy holds the enormous promise of being an important global energy source with fuel that is almost limitless, is not subject to the intermittency of solar and wind, and the associated waste products have less environmental impact than waste from nuclear fission and fossil fuels.


 
To educate the public on the current state of fusion energy, the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment has just published the report, “Fusion Energy via Magnetic Confinement.” The report covers a short history on fusion experiments, the availability of fuel, cost sharing among nations building reactors, fusion’s impact on the global energy market, and how it stacks up against fission, resulting in a detailed factual primer on the topic.
 
Robert Socolow, professor emeritus of mechanical and aerospace engineering and senior research scholar, along with 10 graduate students researched and wrote the briefing. The students are members of Princeton Energy and Climate Scholars (PECS), a graduate honor society, administered by the Princeton Environmental Institute (PEI).
 
The report is the center’s latest Energy Technology Distillate, one of a series of informative reports that highlight emerging energy technologies that have the promise of meeting the world’s growing need for power while mitigating the effects of climate change. These reports provide relatively concise yet thorough information on these various solutions – with technological, political, and economic considerations – for researchers, lawmakers, business leaders, educators, students, and the larger public.
 
To read the latest Distillate, click this link.

E-ffiliates Retreat: Researchers, industry partners, and students discuss energy’s future

From speculating on the evolution of electric vehicles to technical talks on the outlook for oil and gas and how to realize a carbon-neutral future, faculty, research scholars, postdoctoral fellows, students, and industry partners engaged in wide-ranging discussions on energy and its future during Princeton E-ffiliates Partnership’s two-day retreat earlier this year.


Princeton E-ffiliates Partnership held a two-day retreat where faculty, research scholars, postdoctoral fellows, students, and industry partners engaged in wide-ranging discussions on energy and its future. This group photograph shows many of the participants who attended the event. Princeton University’s Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment  administers E-ffiliates, a program that sparks transformational innovations in energy and environmental technologies via close collaborations between academic experts and industry leaders. (Photo by Frank Wojciechowski)

Held at the Princeton Marriott at Forrestal in late January, this year’s retreat included members of the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment and numerous academic departments who, alongside corporate members, took part in panel sessions, a scientific challenge, a poster session, and informal discussions.
 
Vijay Swarup, vice president of research and development for ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company, gave the event’s keynote by presenting ExxonMobil’s “Energy Outlook: A View to 2040,” a broad and thoughtful analysis of anticipated long-term global energy demand and supply, the rise of developing countries and their increasing consumption of energy, the impact of emerging renewable technologies, and how the world will consume energy in the next 25 years. Swarup also highlighted the importance of technology in expanding global fuel production and of energy conservation and efficiency.
 
For more on the retreat, read more here.

Two postdocs join prestigious energy incubator

Andrew Hsieh and Barry Van Tassell - postdoctoral researchers working in the Princeton Lab for Electrochemical Engineering Systems Research headed by Daniel Steingart, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment - have been tapped to join Cyclotron Road, a highly-regarded next-generation energy technology incubator.

Hsieh and Van Tassell will be working on an acoustical investigation method to assess the health and charge of a battery. The test was developed with assistance from Clarence Rowley, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, and Jason Fleischer, associate professor of electrical engineering.

Cyclotron Road is a joint venture by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the U.S. Department of Energy.

For more information, read this article.

Faculty honors

Barry Rand, assistant professor of electrical engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, received a Young Investigator Award from the Office of Naval Research. The award’s goal is to help further develop early-career academic researchers. For more information, go to this link.

José Avalos, assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, was named a 2016 Sloan Research Fellow along with four other Princeton faculty members. Sloan Fellows are nominated by their colleagues for being promising early-career scientists. Read more here.
 
Along with 48 scientists in the U.S., Egemen Kolemen, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment and the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, will receive a U.S. Department of Energy Early Career Research Award. For more, read this article.
 
Claire White, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, won a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Award. For more on her project, click on this link.
 
Emily Carter - the founding director of the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment and the Gerhard R. Andlinger Professor in Energy and the Environment, and Michael Celia - the Theodora Shelton Pitney Professor of Environmental Studies and Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering - have been elected to the National Academy of Engineering, one of the highest professional honors for U.S. engineers.
 
The academy recognized Carter for her work on "the development of quantum chemistry computational methods for the design of molecules and materials for sustainable energy."
 
The academy honored Celia for his "contributions to the development of subsurface flow and transport models in groundwater remediation and CO₂ sequestration."
 
For more information, click here.

Student honors

Clark Chen and Ryan Edwards have been named recipients of the Maeder Graduate Fellowship in Energy and the Environment for the academic year 2016-2017. Chen and Edwards are graduate students in the departments of chemical and biological engineering and civil and environmental engineering, respectively. Chen’s and Edwards’ research projects are respectively entitled, “Rational Design of Transition Metal Oxyhydroxide Catalysts for the Oxygen Evolution Reaction” and “Investigating the Fate of Hydraulic Fracturing Fluid in Shale Gas Formations.”
 
Selection for the Maeder Fellowship is based on the potential of the research and researcher to help develop technical solutions to ensure our sustainable energy and environmental future.
 
For more information on the fellowship and Chen’s and Edwards’ research projects, read more here.
 
Eight undergraduates have been awarded research funds from the Peter B. Lewis Fund for Student Innovation in Energy and the Environment and the Dede T. Bartlett P03 Fund for Student Research in Energy and the Environment. This competitive funding supports undergraduate research on energy- and environment-related projects, particularly field work and laboratory research. The recipients will spend eight weeks this summer working under the guidance of a faculty advisor. The students’ projects are aimed at providing solutions to energy- and environment-related challenges. The students are Sherry Bai ’19, Eric Chen ’19, Isabella Grabski ’18, Theo Keeley-LeClaire ’18, Andy Liu ’19, Andrew Ma ’19, Jason Mulderrig ’18, and Sam Smiddy ’17.
 
For more information, read more here.

Andlinger Center faculty star in video features

Claire White, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, and Daniel Steingart, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, were featured in videos that showcased their research. Their projects were filmed on the occasion of the latest Celebrate Princeton Invention, an annual journal and reception that presents University researchers and their projects that may impact the world in positive ways.
 
White presented her research on cement that is durable and has a lower carbon footprint during production than typical cement. The video can be found here.
 
Steingart showed his work on a sound test that can detect a battery’s health and charge level. The video can be found here.

Faculty spotlight: Martin O. L. Hansen

Martin O. L. Hansen is a visiting research scholar at Princeton University’s Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment and the department of mechanical and aerospace engineering. He is also the Anderson Family Visiting Professor in Energy and the Environment.

Hansen is visiting from the Technical University of Denmark (located in Kongens Lyngby, north of Copenhagen), one of Europe’s top engineering schools.
 
Hansen is an associate professor at the institution, where he teaches in the wind energy department, DTU Wind Energy. He is the head of studies in the master of science program in the wind energy department, and has written a widely used textbook on wind turbine aerodynamics.
 
For the spring semester at Princeton, he taught the course ENE 453 / MAE 453: Wind Turbine Aerodynamics and Technology, which covers basic wind turbine technology concepts such as aerodynamics, control, and structural aspects. The course also addressed dynamic aerodynamic loads on wind turbine blades from, e.g., atmospheric turbulence, and the associated dynamic structural response.
 
In an interview, Hansen talks about his research and the wind turbine industry in Denmark. To read the Q and A, click on this link.