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Commission co-chairs: Climate change solutions need…
An update on the work done by U-M’s Commission on Carbon Neutrality, co-chaired by Prof. Stephen Forrest.Building community through clean energy with GRID Alternatives
From Long Beach, CA, to a Nepalese national park and world heritage site, undergrads Ashley Gee and Camille Burke came away with unforgettable experiences and a greater appreciation for how engineering can change the world for the better.
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Prof. Elaheh Ahmadi receives AFOSR Young Investigator Program award
Prof. Ahmadi will investigate promising new materials needed for an increasingly electrified world
Commission on Carbon Neutrality talks progress, environmental justice at town hall
Prof. Stephen Forrest, who serves as co-chair of the commission, attended the forum to address concerns and give updates on the plan of action.
Commission co-chairs: Climate change solutions need broad commitment
An update on the work done by U-M’s Commission on Carbon Neutrality, co-chaired by Prof. Stephen Forrest.Can organic solar cells last – even into the next millennium? These might.
Finally, proof that organic photovoltaics can be as reliable as inorganic, with real-life desert testing
Prof. Kamal Sarabandi welcomes Emperor and Empress of Japan at IGARSS 2019
Predicting future disasters is an important goal of those participating in the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium
Xianhe Liu receives Best Poster Award at ICNS 2019
The research impacts development of high-efficiency, micro LEDs, used in a variety of applications.
The National Academy of Engineering invites Prof. Johanna Mathieu to symposium to advance the engineering frontier
The symposium brings together 82 young engineers from different technical areas from around the country.
Counting snowflakes for better water resource management
Mostafa Zaky has built an award-winning model that helps estimate the amount of water stored in snowpacks, which could improve climate change and flood forecasting, as well as overall water resource management.
Prof. Louise Willingale creates extreme plasma conditions using high-intensity laser pulses
Willingale’s research in plasma physics advances many research areas from spectacular astrophysical phenomena to cancer treatment to fusion power.
Building community through clean energy with GRID Alternatives
From Long Beach, CA, to a Nepalese national park and world heritage site, undergrads Ashley Gee and Camille Burke came away with unforgettable experiences and a greater appreciation for how engineering can change the world for the better.
New DOE project aims to convert a traditional engine into a hybrid OP engine with the help of control algorithms
A new project funded by ARPA-E partners Achates Power and the University of Michigan in the development of a novel hybrid electric engine.
The Future is Carbon Neutral
Prof. Stephen Forrest is co-chair of U-M’s Commission on Carbon Neutrality as part of U-M’s commitment to combat climate change and craft a sustainable future for all.
New research for the future of sustainable power and energy
Take a look at some of the exciting new projects that will help define the next evolution of sustainable power and energy.Johanna Mathieu receives NSF CAREER Award to help build a smarter, more sustainable grid
Mathieu will develop optimization and control methods to leverage the flexibility available from distributed energy resources.
$1.6M for solar cell windows and high-temperature solar power
New sustainability research garners support from Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technologies Office.
A window into the future of solar power
Windows in the buildings of the future could double as efficient solar cells.
A new company, Omniscent, is sniffing out dangerous levels of toxic chemicals in the air
Subscription service offers real-time monitoring
Blue Sky and Research Accelerator Initiatives fund solar fuel and high-power research
Blue Sky: Up to $10M toward research so bold, some of it just might fail
Inspired by startup funding models, Michigan Engineering reinvents its internal R&D grant structure.
Mengqi Yao receives High Quality Paper Award at PowerTech Conference
In recognition of demand response research.
Stephanie Crocker Ross receives Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship
Dissertation recognized as unusually creative, ambitious and impactful.
Harvesting clean hydrogen fuel through artificial photosynthesis
New device doubles previous efficiency, opens path to commercial viability.
Huanting Huang and the mathematical shape of trees
An award-winning modeling method will help us better understand our natural environment
Organic solar cells reach record efficiency, benchmark for commercialization
The multi-layered organic solar cells will be able to curve in clothing or be transparently built into windows.
SMAP Update: A mission to manage water globally
The satellite mission to collect global data of surface soil moisture can help weather forecasting around the world.
Louise Willingale advancing scientific knowledge of plasmas
Using some of the best lasers in the world, Willingale is shedding light on the impact of solar events on Earth.
Prof. Amir Mortazawi introduces robust wireless power transfer
Compared to conventional methods of wireless power, which require a specific distance and alignment, Prof. Mortazawi’s version operates over a range of distances and orientations without a drop in power.
Semiconductor breakthrough may be game-changer for organic solar cells
Buildings, clothing could generate power.
Stephen Forrest: ECE Bicentennial + Beyond lecture
This series of talks features world-renowned faculty with a long history at Michigan.
New biodegradable hydrogel offers eco-friendly alternative to synthetics
A water-absorbing hydrogel made from bacteria provides a safer soil solution.
Deep UV LEDs lead to two best poster awards at ISSLED 2017
New techniques to construct deep UV LEDs prove prize-worthy.
Using University of Michigan buildings as batteries
How a building’s thermal energy can help the power grid accommodate more renewable energy sources.
IGARSS Interactive Symposium Paper Award for modeling the world’s forests
The paper outlines a better way to quantify forest structure, which has been successful in two tree species.
Two students earn scholarships to pursue work in sustainable energy
Two electrical engineering students, Paul Giessner and Noah Mitchell-Ward, were awarded scholarships from the Utility Variable-Generation Integration Group (UVIG) to support their education in wind and solar power.
Anna Stuhlmacher: Power to change the world
Anna Stuhlmacher, PhD in electrical engineering, is looking for ways to change the world through power and energy.
MICDE grant funds renewable power research
Prof. Mathieu is partnering with IOE faculty to improve the nation’s grid system
Parag Deotare receives AFOSR Award for research in Nanoscale Exciton-Mechanical Systems (NEXMS)
Prof. Deotare’s work will deepen our understanding of the underlying physics of exciton-mechanics interactions and help engineer novel devices for energy harvesting and up-conversion.
A new, low-cost way to monitor snow and ice thickness to evaluate environmental change
Mohammad has developed a new way to remotely measure the thickness of ice and snow with a technology he calls wideband autocorrelation radiometry (WiBAR).
Lights Out
The power goes out. The aurorae stretch to the tropics. Could a major solar storm mean a year without electricity?
Charles F. Brush
Lighting Up the World.Using energy storage in an environmentally friendly way – Yashen Lin earns a Dow Sustainability Fellowship
The results of Lin’s research can help us better understand how introducing DES affects the environmental impact of a power system.
Inspired by art, lightweight solar cells track the sun
By borrowing from kirigami, the ancient Japanese art of paper cutting, researchers at the University have developed solar cells that can move with the sun.
The economics of energy – Hamidreza Tavafoghi earns a Dow Sustainability Fellowship
Hamid is studying ways to increase the use of renewable energy sources on the grid.
Researching the future of remote sensing
Directed by Kamal Sarabandi the new program aims to create theoretical models for remote sensing of ice and snow.
Stephanie Crocker earns NSF Graduate Research Fellowship to bring sustainable energy to the grid
Stephanie seeks to provide continuous energy balancing on the grid by automatically controlling loads.
Alyssa Kody earns NSF Fellowship for research in energy harvesting and wireless sensing
The small-scale embedded wireless systems Alyssa works with are used in a variety of applications spanning many fields; from structural to ocean engineering.
Stephen Forrest receives 2015 Distinguished University Innovator Award
Prof. Forrest is widely acknowledged as one of the most successful academic inventors and entrepreneurs today.
New approaches to solar cell technology featured in Sustainability Hour
The professors addressed two very different problems the industry faces with current technology.
Prof. Robert Dick to apply cyber information to air quality management
The grant is part of a new $12.5M initiative by the National Science Foundation to encourage computing innovations for a sustainable society.
Prof. Johanna Mathieu working to bring power from sustainable sources to your home
Mathieu is working how best to integrate wind and solar power into the nation’s established electrical grid system.
Live long and phosphor: Blue LED breakthrough for efficient electronics
Researchers at the University have extended the lifetime of blue organic light emitting diodes by a factor of ten.
Peter Tchoryk: An entrepreneurial CEO
At MAC, Peter’s been able to combine his passions for scientific research and entrepreneurial creation.
Jiangfeng Wu receives Best Paper Award for research in safe fracking
The Mikio Takagi Student Prize is given to the top three Student Prize Paper Awards granted at the IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium.
Dipak Sengupta (1931-2014): In memoriam
Faculty and staff alike will miss his cheerful and gentle presence.
New research program to investigate optical energy conversion
The fundamental objective of the research initiative is to uncover, explain, and exploit dynamic magneto-optical processes and materials for new technological capabilities.
Keravnos Energy wants to make fast electric vehicle charging economical
The idea behind Keravnos Energy is for there to be an energy transfer between three entities: the building, a large stationary battery, and the car.
Transparent color solar cells fuse energy, beauty
The cells, believed to be the first semi-transparent, colored photovoltaics, have the potential to vastly broaden the use of the energy source.
‘Photon glue’ enables a new quantum mechanical state
Researchers at the University of Michigan and Queens College used light to create links between organic and inorganic semiconductors in an optical cavity.
Byeongseop Song receives Rackham International Student Fellowship
The Fellowship will help Song to continue his studies in the area of optoelectronics.
Students take a field trip to a wind farm
“The trip made me more aware of some of the practical things … like the sound of the turbines, and how they alter the look of the land.”
Research Spotlight: Better miniaturized vacuum pumps for electronics and sensors
The three microdevices created at Michigan are each particularly suited to specific applications.
David Chen awarded NASA Fellowship to improve extreme weather prediction
The goal of the study seeks to enhance the accuracy of determining ocean surface windspeed.
Rebecca Wolkoff awarded scholarship to continue her work in sustainable energy
The UVIG works with the U.S. Department of Energy to provide a forum for the critical analysis of wind and solar technology.
Prof. Mingyan Liu receives Best Paper Award at the 11th ACM/IEEE Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks
The goal is to be able to monitor the soil moisture with as few measurements as possible and with a high degree of accuracy.
Jinyoung Hwang receives Best Poster Award for research leading to improved solar cells
The researchers succeeded in drastically suppressing the thermal emission rate in GaSb/GaAs quantum dots — resulting in more efficient solar cells.
New method for building a low-cost, high-performance electric machine and drive could result in huge energy savings
Prof. Hofmann intends to design, build and test a 30kW brushless, self-excited synchronous field winding prototype machine that overcomes the weaknesses of the current technology.
New research program aims to make better “sense” of the world
Applications of this research range from soil sensors which allow for increased understanding of global climate change to futuristic sensory skins which can monitor the integrity of an object.
Modernizing the nation’s electric grid for alternative energy
“We are proposing an integrated solution that will combine the construction of well-positioned storage facilities that will route excess energy to where it needs to be.”
Colored solar cells could make display screens more efficient
Professor Jay Guo has developed the reflective photovoltaic color filter device that can convert absorbed light to electricity.
Solar power without solar cells: A hidden magnetic effect of light could make it possible
This new technique could make solar power cheaper and, with improved materials, more efficient.
Connor Field — Growing energy on a solar farm
“Energy will be the major concern in the United States for my generation,” Connor says. “Now is the time to research and invest in the technologies that will power our future.”
New equation could advance research in solar cells
A groundbreaking new equation could do for organic semiconductors what the Shockley ideal diode equation did for inorganic semiconductors.Soil moisture study aims for climate change insights
Moghaddam will oversee the design and fabrication of the AirMOSS instrument, a high-powered, low-frequency radar that NASA/JPL collaborators will build for the project.
Organic laser breakthrough
The team is working toward building organic lasers that, like many inorganic lasers today, can be excited with electricity rather than light.
Ford, U of M explore new ways to speed development of future hybrid vehicles
“The main goal of this project,” explained Opila, “is to bring advanced methods to HEV and plug-in HEV design.”
Prof. Hiskens receives stim money for wind energy
The grant is to be used to develop new techniques for assessing the impact of wind generation on power system voltage control and transient stability.