Engineers for a Sustainable World
RENSSELAER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE
Introducing our Speakers
Margretta Morris is an expert on solid waste management, waste reduction, reuse, recycling, composting, waste to energy, and much more. She is Vice President, Materials Management at Covanta Energy Corp, with 20+ years experience in integrated solid waste management, has served on over 15 boards and commissions related to solid waste management, and has presented throughout the USA and in Europe, including television, videos and radio. BA Physical Geography, Radford College.
Dean Nieusma studies engineering and social justice, engineering education, and efforts to reform the system. Nieusma also develops curricula that integrate social sciences with engineering, such as coursework within Rensselaer’s signature interdisciplinary Programs in Design and Innovation (PDI). His research interests include design and social studies of design, development and appropriate technology, renewable energy technology, and the relationship between expertise and democratic process.
Dr. Steven A. Leibo, of the Sage Colleges specializes in Modern International History & Politics. He teaches courses on a range of topics from Modern China, the Modern Middle East, the Modern World History to classes on Globalization and Climate Change. Dr. Leibo has also taught at the State University of New York at Albany since 1986. A former Fulbright scholar, Prof. Leibo specializes in the relationship between Asia and the West.
Leibo is probably best known to upstate New York residents for his work as a frequent international political analyst for regional television, radio, and newspapers. During the Persian Gulf War of 1990-91 he served as the international political analyst for WTEN TV. Since 1997 Dr. Leibo has served as an international affairs commentator for WAMC Northeast Public Radio.
More recently Leibo was among those personally trained by Al Gore and The Climate Reality Project to give updated versions of the slide show featured in the Academy Award-winning film An Inconvenient Truth. He currently serves as a Climate “Mentor” for the organization and has given over a hundred and sixty talks on global warming in the upstate New York region. He also serves as an international adviser for Brill Publication’s up-coming series on Chinese research on climate change.
In November 0f 2012 Dr. Leibo appeared as a guest on Al Gore’s 24 Hours of Climate Reality: The Dirty Weather Report global webcast which attracted over 17 million viewers. He was recently elected to membership on the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. He spent the summer of 2013 in China and Mongolia speaking, learning and studying US China Climate Change Issues.
Professor Leibo is the author/and or editor/adviser of many academic and popular works, among them:
Adviser with Li Yang of the English language translation of Tsinghua University’s Annual Review of Low Carbon Development in China (2011-2012) Brill Publications
“The New Mongolia: From Gold Rush to Climate Change” Education About Asia
“Asia & the Climate Crisis” Education about Asia Winter 2010/11 issue vol. 15, number 3)
“Can Historians Be Helpful in Addressing the Climate Crisis”
East, And Southeast Asia 1997 to 2013 an annual from Rowman-Tienkuo: The Heavenly Kingdom (published under the name Li Bo) this is a historical novel set in nineteen China and is now available as an e-book through Amazon.
Activities
Project Showcase - A major highlight of the weekend, ESW chapter will have the opportunity to share the projects they are working on and ideas for the future. This will be an important opportunity for both Students and Professionals bounce ideas off each other and make plans for future collaborations.
Solar Workshop - This will be a chance for students to get real hands on experience, designing and wiring a solar PV system complete with batteries, a controller, and a load.
Panel Discussion on Solar Power - A group of experts will come together to discuss Solar Power at present and where it might end up in the future. This will be an interactive event, and students will be encouraged to share their opinions and ask questions
David Hauber has over 40 years of experience in composites, textile R&D, robotics, additive manufacturingand advanced automation. He helped start Automated Dynamics in 1984 after leaving the Center for Advanced Technology and Systems at RPI. He was instrumental in the development of in-situ thermoplastic fiber placement which is the primary focus of Automated Dynamics. Additionally, Mr. Hauber has extensive experience in welding of metals and polymers and has performed research using high energy lasers and ultrasonics. Mr. Hauber holds 7 patents and has published over 25 papers on fiber placement, thermoplastic composites, advanced automation, complexity theory and energy conservation. He holds degrees in math, physics, & business.
Vistex is an innovation company that has developed disruptive technology for the manufacture of advanced composite materials, including carbon-fiber, which reduces energy consumption and CapEx/OpEx by at least an order of magnitude, while improving throughput and performance. This revolutionary technology will lower the cost of carbon-fiber products, enabling broader adoption of these materials in the already rapidly growing $85 billion composites market, including for small scale wind, automotive (light-weighting for extended range) and consumer products. Vistex utilizes digital modeling and proprietary optimization algorithms to drive the design of a patented fabrication process, and manufacture complex components without the need for extensive heat, vacuum, autoclaves, etc. In an industry that traditionally relies on brute force, Vistex provides an elegant, energy-efficient solution.
Casey Hoffman is co-founder and COO of Vistex Composites. A recipient of the National Science Foundation’s prestigious IGERT PhD Fellowship, he developed automated manufacturing processes for accurately depositing platinum nanoparticles onto fuel cell electrodes at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI).
He also received his M.S. degree from RPI in 2008 after researching manufacturing methods for advanced composites and inventing the processes used by Vistex. Casey has authored several journal and magazine articles in the fields of composites and fuel cell manufacturing, and has been invited to present at several international conferences. He previously graduated magna cum laude with Honors in Physics from Moravian College in 2006.
Jaron Kuppers is co-founder and CTO of Vistex Composites. As a PhD student at RPI, he developed and demonstrated two technologies for rapid and efficient manufacturing of advanced composites that Vistex is further developing. Jaron authored many peer reviewed journal papers on composites and has been an invited speaker at international composites conferences.
He received his M.S. degree from RPI in 2009 having focused on synthesis and unique properties of Silicon Carbide nanowires on the macroscopic scale. Previously, Jaron worked at Sandia National Laboratories on a variety of fuel cell technologies and microscale systems. He graduated magna cum laude in Mechanical Engineering with focuses in Electrical Engineering and Physics from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 2006.
Partha Dutta
The emergence of smart lighting technologies are enabled by the rapid development of energy efficient, digitally controllable, miniaturized, semiconductor LED based solid state light (SSL) sources. Smart lighting systems are envisioned to enable dual usage paradigm such as light and health, light and data, light and entertainment, light and safety, etc. that goes beyond the realm of harvesting basic LED functionalities. The dual usage paradigm is also a key precursor for future lighting business models when LED lamps will be sold as durable commodity product. The development of smart lighting systems requires overcoming many technological and societal barriers. Key fundamental research in areas such as effect of lighting on human cognitive psycho-physiology, LED and sensor device designs for dual usage applications, protocols and control algorithms for ubiquitous, mobile and secure visible light networks, energy budget and economics of smart lighting systems, etc. are necessary. This talk will present a snapshot of our integrated research and development in the general area of smart lighting technologies. Examples of (a) efficient full spectrum adaptive lighting and (b) dual illumination-data communication systems will be presented.
Dr. Partha S. Dutta is a professor in the Electrical, Computer and Systems Engineering Department and the Deputy Director of Smart Lighting Engineering Research Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York. His research interests are in the areas of optoelectronics and photonics with specialization in solid state lighting and photovoltaics. He has co-authored over 125 research papers and 4 book chapters. He is the inventor of 8 issued US Patents. Dr. Dutta is the author of two forthcoming textbooks (Optoelectronics and Photonics Engineering, Solid State Physics; Basics, Materials and Applications) to be published by Springer. He is the co-founder of Auterra Inc., a company specializing in clean energy technologies using nano-scale materials. He is a senior member of IEEE.