Letter from the (Interim) Director

Welcome to the summer 2023 edition of the EMS Energy Institute (EI) Newsletter. In the newsletter, we showcase faculty research in several topical areas with an emphasis on energy-related research contributions to human health, introduce new faculty, and highlight the honors received by our students, faculty, and staff.

This will be the last letter that I will be writing. Finally, after three years, EI will be getting a new director. Sanjay Srinivasan, formerly the head of the John and Willie Leone Family Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering at Penn State, has taken over the leadership of EI, effective July 1, 2023. Although Sanjay was not officially the director until July 1, we have been working on a six-month transition plan, so that Sanjay can “hit the ground running.”

The research, education, and outreach efforts of the institute continue to focus on energy and energy-related environmental effects and involve researchers in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences and the College of Engineering, along with collaborators worldwide. Current research projects cover the production and use of energy along with carbon dioxide capture, storage, and utilization, and the recovery of critical materials from various feedstock streams.

The faculty and staff of the institute have been very busy over the last year. In fiscal year 2021-22 (June 1, 2021, through June 30, 2022), the institute’s staff assisted faculty in preparing 120 proposals, which resulted in fifty-seven projects being funded for a total of approximately $13.4 million in research funding. From July 1, 2022, through April 30, 2023, seventy-three proposals were prepared with forty-eight projects funded for a total of $7.2 million in research funding. Proposal preparation is handled primarily by two staff members, Kelly Rhoades and Heather Harpster. They were assisted by Stephanie Emigh, who handled our post-award activities, and Jennifer McKenrick, our administrative assistant, who joined EI in January 2023.

Faculty and staff received research support from Ronnie Wasco (safety officer, space and facilities coordinator, and researcher) and Brad Maben (research support technologist). Jennifer Matthews and Elizabeth Wood handled our communications and website management, respectively.

I want to take this opportunity to thank all institute faculty members, research staff, students, and visiting scholars whose ideas and hard work have advanced energy science and engineering research. I also want to thank all our staff members whose hard work supports our faculty-driven research efforts. I am extremely proud of our staff members. Sanjay is inheriting a very capable, efficient, and productive team.

Bruce G. Miller
Interim Director and Research Professor, EMS Energy Institute