Two SEAS Proposals Receive AQF Support

Interim Dean Gerald A. Navratil has announced that two SEAS proposals will receive funding through the University’s Academic Quality Fund. The AQF will support the Education Center for Sustainable Engineering and the Columbia Mechanical Engineering Initiative in Micro- and Nanoscale Energy Conversion. Both grants are for approximately $200,000 over a two year period.

“SEAS has been in the forefront of creating courses that cross traditional disciplinary boundaries and we are fortunate that two such new initiatives will receive funding from the University,” said Dean Navratil. “The competition was especially keen this year, with many excellent proposals submitted by SEAS and other schools in the University.”

The Education Center for Sustainable Engineering, with eight investigators from six disciplines, will provide SEAS and other Columbia units with the capacity to coordinate and direct student projects involving sustainable engineering. The proposal for Micro- and Nanoscale Energy Conversion will develop materials for two laboratory-based courses to provide hands-on skills for Ph.D. level students in the application of microscale and nanoscale science to energy conversion.

The Education Center for Sustainable Engineering will bring together all SEAS departments to create an innovative practicum and classroom experience in sustainable engineering design and technology for SEAS student. Research participants include Professors Patricia Culligan and George Deodatis from the SEAS Department of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics; Professor Upmanu Lall of the SEAS Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering; Professor Vijay Modi of the SEAS Department of Mechanical Engineering, SEAS Associate Dean Jack McGourty; Professor Kevin Griffin of the Department of Environmental Sciences; Stephanie Pfirman, chair of the Earth Institute Education Subcommittee; and Professor Richard Plunz of the School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation.

The Micro- and Nanoscale Energy Conversion proposal was submitted by Assistant Professors James Hone and Arvind Narayanaswamy of the Department of Mechanical Engineering. With the AQF funding, they will create two novel course offerings on the graduate level. Hone’s nanofabrication lab course will give Ph.D. students a strong formal training in cutting-edge nanofabrication techniques, while Narayanaswamy's course will introduce to graduate students the different techniques from nano and microscale science that are important to energy research. Both will give graduate students hands-on skills necessary to become better scientists and researchers in the area of nanoscale and microscale science and its application to energy conversion.

The Academic Quality Fund (AQF) was created by the University to provide financing to address urgent academic needs that cross traditional school and disciplinary boundaries.