UConn Tech Park

UConn’s SPARK, BRIDGE Summer Campers Visit IPB

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SPARK students visit IPB

This summer, IPB hosted budding young scientists participating in SPARK and BRIDGE, two UConn summer programs that serve underrepresented students including women and minorities, particularly in STEM fields. This was the perfect opportunity to pique curiosity and nurture interest in science and engineering among these middle and high school school students, who were excited to learn about engineering research applications and see firsthand IPB’s sophisticated technology including specialized 3D printers, nanoscale Xray tomography equipment and powerful electron microscopes, with visits to IPB’s additive manufacturing and materials characterization labs PW AMC, SHAP3D, and REFINE.

IPB’s Interim Executive Director Emmanouil Anagnostou stresses IPB’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, saying, “The IPB community strives to support these impactful educational efforts and it is an honor to help develop a future generation of engineers through programs that serve underrepresented groups.”

The SPARK tour was sponsored and facilitated by Pratt & Whitney’s Women’s Initiative for Success and Equity. SPARK and BRIDGE are made possible by UConn School of Engineering’s Vergnano Institute for Inclusion, launched in 2021 by alumni Betsy and Mark Vergnano, dedicated to increasing the number of underrepresented students in engineering and other STEM fields.

SPARK students visit IPB

UConn-NREL Partnership for Clean Energy Research

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October 3, 2013 - Front entrance sign at NREL's STM campus. (Photo by Dennis Schroeder / NREL)

UConn and U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) announced a new research partnership in October 2022. Hosted at UConn Tech Park, the collaboration will address global energy challenges including energy efficiency and resiliency, renewable energy technologies, and smart grid innovation, helping shape the response to these critical challenges of the 21st century.

Emmanouil Anagnostou, interim Executive Director of UConn Tech Park, and Junbo Zhao, Eversource Energy Center Grid Modernization Lead at IPB have started joint positions as Research Scientists at NREL under the partnership. They will be affiliated with the Grid Automation and Controls Group at NREL.

Among the many goals of the partnership, UConn and NREL will work together to develop solutions to clean energy challenges in the Northeast and increase funding opportunities not otherwise available to either individual institution. The program also enables undergraduate and graduate students to work jointly with NREL scientists and UConn faculty.

 “I am proud that UConn is playing an important role in this crucial sector, and I am excited to see the creativity and determination our faculty and students bring to this work.” UConn President Radenka Maric says.

“NREL sees the partnership with UConn as a critical part of achieving clean energy at scale that brings together talent from both institutions to further our collective goals,” says Dr. Ellen Morris, director of University Partnerships at NREL.

Anson Ma Named a 2020 Air Force Research Lab Summer Faculty Fellow

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Anson Ma, Director NSF SHAP3D Center for 3D Printing, Associate Professor of chemical engineering

NSF SHAP3D Center Site Director, Professor Anson Ma, has received a prestigious 2020 summer faculty fellowship from the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) Materials and Manufacturing Directorate. The fellowship is sponsored by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) with the objectives of enhancing the research interests and capabilities of faculty fellows, elevating the awareness in the U.S. academic community of Air Force research needs, and stimulating professional relationships between the faculty fellows and Air Force researchers.

With the support of this fellowship, Ma and his PhD student, Ethan Chadwick, will be working with researchers at the Wright Patterson Air Force Base on the topic of additive manufacturing, or 3D printing. “I am honored to receive this recognition. My student and I are very excited about the opportunity to interact and work closely with AFRL researchers and other fellowship recipients who are leading experts in their respective research fields,” Ma said.

Ma is the founding Site Director of the NSF SHAP3D center for additive manufacturing at UConn. His research group focuses on understanding fluid dynamics (rheology) and advancing additive manufacturing technologies. Ma has received many accolades, including a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER award, Arthur B. Metzner Award from the Society of Rheology, and faculty awards from TA Instruments, 3M, and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP)-UConn Chapter.

For more information on Ma and his research, please visit https://ma.engr.uconn.edu/.