Engineering stakeholders in the materials engineering space will find this webinar of high interest, as well as academic and industry researchers in chemical engineering, physics, and biology whose focus is on materials science and development.
Leading the engaging webinar are the visioning event co-chairs, Yael Vodovotz, professor and director, The Ohio State University, and Jennifer Dionne, professor of materials science and engineering and Chan-Zuckerberg Investigator, Stanford University.
Overview
Multidisciplinary engineering is critical at all stages of sustainable materials scenarios: design, scale-up and manufacturing, and end-of-use. Engineering research is critical to transition to using more sustainable materials throughout the nation’s economy.
The Engineering Research Visioning Alliance (ERVA), an initiative funded by the National Science Foundation Engineering Directorate, convened a July 2023 visioning workshop on the future of sustainable materials with a keen focus on three industry verticals: chemical, construction, and single-use consumer materials. Three main research thrusts were explored during the event and will be elucidated in the event’s visioning report. This webinar features the event’s Thematic Task Force chairs, who discuss key findings and answer questions from the audience.
Objective
In this webinar, we discuss the future engineering research directions within these three areas:
- Process and performance research to enable bio-based replacements for petroleum-based materials that meet product specifications. This includes engineering research that expands the role of microbes and enzymes in the material's lifespan to either (a) sustain it, or (b) decompose materials selectively and efficiently at the end of their useful life.
- Predictive models/simulations for all stages in materials development encompassing atomistic-to-continuum structure property-function relationships to accurately represent the new materials' properties, processability, and performance.
- Facilities design to enable new feedstocks and low-temperature transformations at scale.
The Engineering Research Visioning Alliance hosted a webinar on August 15, 2023 at 12 p.m. EDT, to discuss the findings of ERVA's report, Engineered Systems for Water Security. The event featured Stacy Hutchinson, associate dean for research and graduate programs, Kansas State University; Seth Darling, chief science & technology officer for advanced energy technologies, Argonne National Laboratory; and Upmanu Lall, director of the Columbia Water Center and the Alan and Carol Silberstein Professor of Engineering at Columbia University.
The webinar discussed the key research directions identified as a result of this visioning event and subsequent report.
The Engineering Research Visioning Alliance hosted a webinar May 24, 2023, to discuss the findings of ERVA's report, Sustainable Transportation Networks. The event featured Cathy Choi, chief sustainability officer and VP of engineering at ClearFlame; and Erin Bell, professor and chair, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of New Hampshire, who co-chaired the ERVA visioning event that culminated in the report. The engineering research priorities discussed during the webinar were identified within four themes: infrastructure, vehicles and transportation modes, data, and our people and community. These are ripe directions for engineering research to lead and to enable sustainable transportation networks.
The Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable, an initiative of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, convened a webinar March 22, 2023, to discuss the findings of ERVA's report, Engineering R&D Solutions for Unhackable Infrastructure.
Visioning Thematic Task Force Co-Chairs Saurabh Amin, associate professor of CEE, Laboratory for Information & Decision Systems, MIT, and David Ott, senior researcher, VMware Research, presented the identified research priorities and key recommendations from the report and discussed how the engineering research community can lead in advancing the high-impact, multidisciplinary research necessary to mitigate the economic and security threats inherent in cybercrime and secure both physical and virtual spaces.
