US. Energy Secretary Jennifer M. Granholm visited UConn’s Center for Clean Energy Engineering in May.   During remarks in Storrs, Granholm spoke about efforts to fund decarbonization programs, electric vehicle battery storage projects and the emergence of a “clean energy economy.”

In addition, Connecticut’s Industrial Assessment Center, which helps identify unnecessary waste in factory systems, was discussed. Prof. Liang Zhang, of Electrical and Computer Engineering, leads the center. During such assessments, “we look at all the main energy systems and consuming parts in the typical factory,” Zhang said. “Depending on the industry it could vary, but we look at processes [like] heating and cooling, motors, compressed air. Those are the main energy consumers usually on the floor.” Six regional manufacturers had already requested assessments and the program is expected to grow. In addition to federal money, Zhang said the project benefited from about $600,000 in support from utility companies like Eversource and United Illuminating. 

 

March 11, 2022 | Eli Freund – School of Engineering

When Tom Katsouleas joined Duke University as dean of the Pratt School of Engineering in 2008, he saw an opportunity to not only change the world of engineering and its direction but put it into the hands of the next generation.

Katsouleas, currently a University of Connecticut faculty member in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Physics, picked up the phone during his first week as dean in 2008 and brought together engineering deans Yannis Yortsos at University of Southern California and Richard Miller at Olin College, and asked them a simple question: “Is our older educational pedagogy preparing our students to tackle the grand challenges of this next century?”

The grand challenges that Katsouleas was referring to were the list of “Grand Challenges” from the National Academy of Engineering in 2008 that outlined 14 areas of focus that engineers needed to tackle and advance. Some of the challenges included making solar energy economical, enhancing virtual reality, restoring and improving urban infrastructure, and to secure cyberspace.

“From that conversation, we conceptualized the first Grand Challenges Summit and the Grand Challenges Scholars Program, which was endorsed by the president of the NAE at the time,” Katsouleas said.

The Grand Challenges Summit, which has been organized regionally, nationally, and globally, has significantly shifted the conversation on how to tackle the Grand Challenges. At the first summit, Katsouleas said people were very excited about the Grand Challenges Scholars Program.

“We announced the program at that first summit, and immediately we had 12 schools interested off the bat,” Katsouleas said. “Over time, more and more people started showing interest, including the White House.”

In that call from the White House, they challenged Katsouleas and his collaborators to put together 50 interested schools, which they ultimately did and more, presenting on it to the Obama Administration—putting a major spotlight on the program. In March 2015, President Obama was sent a letter of commitment signed by 122 member schools pledging to educate and enroll 20,000 students in the program by 2025.

The Grand Challenges Scholars Program, well on its way towards that goal, is a curricular and extra-curricular program designed to immerse the student scholars in five core competencies: research/creative project experience, multidisciplinary solutions to the Grand Challenges, knowledge of business/entrepreneurship models that will help advance the Grand Challenges, multicultural issues and how they relate to the Grand Challenges, and social consciousness through service-learning experiences.

When Katsouleas became president at UConn in 2019, he shaped some of his vision for the future of the University from many of those core competencies.

“I saw the effect those competencies had when we applied them to the learning experience of the engineering students at Duke. Multiple studies have been done that show that life transformative experiences, service learning, and an entrepreneurial vision lead to successful students. When I came to UConn, I took a lot of those experiences and learnings with me and applied it more broadly to the entire campus,” Katsouleas said.

In January of this year, the NAE recognized Katsouleas and his collaborators for the impact that the Grand Challenge Scholars Program has made on society through the Bernard M. Gordon Prize, which recognizes trailblazers in engineering education.

When reflecting on the past decade of growth, Katsouleas can’t help but glow thinking about all the students that have benefited.

“When I was an undergraduate, I was interested in physics, but the courses didn’t satisfy me when it came to my desire to make a difference in the world. At the time I didn’t know I was missing something,” Katsouleas said. “So many of the students that have gone through this program got to have that experience and are making a sizable difference in this world.”

For more information on the NAE Grand Challenges Scholars Program, please click here.

The gas sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) has been keeping our electrical grid safe from dangerous arcing and explosions since its introduction to the public in the 1930s. Developed in a General Electric lab, sulfur hexafluoride is one of the most widely used insulation gases by electrical utility companies because of its reliability and safety, but remains relatively unknown by the general public.

Starting in the 1960s, as greenhouse gases and their effect on the environment became more widely known, sulfur hexafluoride has been identified as one of the largest causes of global warming. While most educational and legislative efforts have been focused on CO2, or carbon dioxide, emissions as a big offender, sulfur hexafluoride has flown under the radar despite its staggering global warming potential: 25,200 times that of carbon dioxide.

Because of that, University of Connecticut Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor Yang Cao has been selected to receive $2.7 million in funding over three years from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) to develop a lifecycle management framework, with innovations in physics based aging modeling, aging byproducts fixation, and a low-cost, high-fidelity multi-gas leak sensor with GE Research, to help utilities make a smooth transition to a new, SF6– free electrical grid.

Read More @ UConn Today

UConn is participating in a massive national research effort to help local manufacturers reduce their carbon footprint.

Associate professor in the School of Engineering, Liang Zhang, will lead the team, in collaboration with the University of New Haven. This work is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

“We are excited to bring a DOE IAC to Connecticut for the first time in the history of the IAC program,” Zhang says. “This is long overdue for Connecticut, and we believe that it will bring significant benefits to the state’s environment and economic development efforts through its service to the large number of small and medium manufacturers in the area.”

The project’s $3.4 million budget is part of the $60 million effort dispersed across 32 universities in 28 states. This is the largest-ever cohort of university-based Industrial Assessment Centers (IACs). These centers are tasked with helping small and medium-sized manufacturers reduce their carbon emissions, lower energy costs, and train the next generation of energy-efficient workers.

Read More @ UConn Today

UConn Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of engineering Bahram Javidi has been named a finalist for the Berthold Leibinger Innovation Award for his rapid disease identification technology using compact, low-cost optical holographic instruments, including COVID-19 detection.

The Berthold Leibinger Innovationspreis honors scientists and developers making advancements in the field of laser technology. Javidi is being recognized for applying knowledge of optics and digital holography, and pattern recognition to biomedical issues with real-life applications for under-resourced healthcare systems.

“It’s always an honor to see that your peers value your work and value your contributions,” Javidi says.

Javidi’s technology is a portable, low-cost COVID-19 testing instrument that uses a pinprick’s worth of blood to detect the virus within minutes.

Javidi developed similar testing devices for malaria and sickle cell disease, which are common in under-resourced tropical and subtropical areas. The device picks up on abnormalities in the blood caused by infection.

Read More @ UConn Today

Congratulations to our 2021 ECE Senior Design teams.  

Prof. Liang Zhang, ECE Department Director of Undergraduate Studies and Senior Design Coordinator, announced the top 3 winners of the senior design competition for 2021.

• 1st place: Team 2108: Wearable Fall Prevention Device
• 2nd place: Team 2127: Passive Acoustic Array Design for Environmental Monitoring
• 3rd place: Team 2113 (joint with ME): Smart Box for transportation of critical articles

Many thanks to the judges Profs. Helena Silva, Ali Gokirmak, Peter Willet, and Faquir Jain.

It is really a pity that the students didn’t get to present their projects in live action. If you are interested in knowing more about our senior design projects this year, please visit: 

2021 Electrical and Computer Engineering Projects

Lab tests for COVID-19 require pricey equipment, and field tests aren’t globally available nor work in real-time, making it hard for health care workers in remote areas of the globe to diagnose the disease. To help, UConn researchers have invented a portable, inexpensive device that has the potential to diagnose COVID anywhere.

Getting tested for COVID-19 is easy in Connecticut, where clinics, hospitals, and pharmacies have free testing stations, and even at the height of the pandemic most people could get tested fairly quickly. But in many other parts of the world, it’s not so easy. There aren’t always labs with the right equipment nearby, and field portable tests’ results aren’t available immediately.

UConn engineering professor Bahram Javidi and biomedical engineering graduate student Timothy O’Connor had an idea for a better, easier way to test for COVID. They knew red blood cells are affected during a bout of COVID-19. Red blood cells carry oxygen from your lungs through your bloodstream to all parts of your body, and many of the symptoms of COVID-19, including low oxygen levels and blood clots, involve red blood cells.

Read More @ UConn Today