IEOR Researchers Lead Efforts To Address Environmental Challenges In Energy, Pollution And Global Warming
February 9, 2017
IEOR professors Max Shen, Shmuel Oren, Xin Guo, Ilan Adler, and Javad Lavaei are working on some of the most pressing problems of our time as lead researchers for the Environmental Science and New Energy Technology Research Center at the two-year-old Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute (TBSI).
The center brings together a multi-disciplinary team of researchers from the University of California, Berkeley and Tsinghua University to address energy, transportation, and pollution issues.
Researchers at the center will address environmental challenges by exploring the latest research around areas such as nano energy materials, low-dimensional materials and devices, smart grid technologies, intelligent transportation, policy for the low carbon economy and financial risks for implementation.
“Our research at the Environmental Science and New Energy Technology Research Center presents a unique opportunity to bring some of the world’s best engineers to the Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute to work on the next generation of energy and transportation technology,” said Professor Shen who is currently serving as co-director for the research center. “The challenge is to meet rising global demand for energy and transportation, while at the same time working to curb pollution and climate change.”
Professor Shen is also a member of the intelligent transportation and logistics systems working group for the center and serves as a member of the academic advisory board for TBSI along with College of Engineering Dean Shankar S. Sastry and Associate Dean for Strategic Alliances Constance Chang-Hasnain.
Professor Oren and Assistant Professor Lavaei are also leading research by working on smart grid and renewable energy technologies, and Professors Adler and Guo are researching problems around the low carbon economy and assessing financial risk.
Overall, the Environmental Science and New Energy Technology Research Center will receive at least $5 million to provide fellowships to Berkeley IEOR PhD students and postdocs to support these efforts.
The Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute was established in 2015 to help facilitate research around precision medicine, new energy technologies, and data science. The establishment of the institute evolved naturally for the two leading institutions out of individual faculty collaborations and existing partnerships between Berkeley’s College of Engineering, the Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology and entrepreneurship programs at Tsinghua University in Shenzhen, the center of China’s Silicon Valley.
