Dear students and researchers,
We are soliciting your research projects for the 2013 MIT Energy Conference Showcase!
Event Details
The Friday Night Energy Showcase will be held on Friday March 1st, 2013 from 5pm – 8pm at the Boston Park Plaza Castle in Boston. This event, which is free and open to the public, exhibits the latest research and technologies in the energy space. With 100 presenters displaying their work and 1,500 attendees, it is the most widely attended event of the MIT Energy Conference. Unlike traditional poster sessions, presenters are highly encouraged to utilize physical samples, prototypes and interactive displays to showcase their research. Some presenters will have the opportunity to give a brief elevator-style pitch to attendees during the event.
Application process – Deadline February 15th, 2013
Please use the links below for your submissions for one of the four functional areas listed below. We encourage submissions as soon as possible.
- Renewables: Features research in the areas of Wind, Biofuels, Solar and any other form of energy that is considered renewable. Please click HERE to submit.
- Oil, Gas, Nuclear: Features research within the conventional space i.e. Nuclear, Oil, Gas, Coal, and all support services associated with this sector. Please click HERE to submit.
- Energy Management & Utilities: Features research into power, products for improving energy efficiency, grid management, etc. Please click HERE to submit.
- Transportation: Features research into alternate modes of transportation. Please click HERE to submit.
Learn more about the conference at: http://www.mitenergyconference.com/
The deadline for submissions is February 15th, 2013 and selected presenters will be notified by February 19th, 2013. We encourage early submissions due to the limited space.
Benefits of presenting at the Showcase
● Access to a varied and influential audience. You gain exposure to a 1,500 audience of students, researchers, investors, entrepreneurs and policymakers in the energy space.
● Exposure to media. Past Showcases have been featured in the Newhttp://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/05/energy-geeks-converge-at-m-i-t/Yorkhttp://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/05/energy-geeks-converge-at-m-i-t/Times, Xconomy, and other specialized media.
● Pitch your technology to the audience. Select presenters will have the opportunity to give a brief elevator-style pitch to attendees.
● Preferred ticketing policy for the Saturday Conference. Each confirmed presenter will have the opportunity to purchase two (2) guaranteed tickets for the Saturday Conference.
For more information about the Showcase and the MIT Energy Conference, including a list of tracks and past presenters at the Showcase, please visit www.mitenergyconference.com. If you have any questions, please contact either Kavita Baba (kbaba24@mit.edu) or Janak Raguraman (Janak@mit.edu) for more information.
We look forward to reading your application!
Sincerely,
2013 MIT Energy Conference Organizing Team
When: Monday Feb. 25 5:30 PM
Where: Stata 32-124
- Thinking of graduating in the next 6-18 months?
- Come to this event to learn how to prepare now for writing your thesis!
- Workshop led by Dr. Xiaolu Hsi will discuss common obstacles to writing the thesis and how to avoid them
- Topics include time management and negotiating with your committee
- Dinner will be served! RSVP/registration preferred: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Pk_EAPBBP6wEigjUMfN5NgjB8JqSdmCJ8vBF7zCyZs4/viewform
Greetings!
Wen Fen successfully defended his dissertation! It will be turned in to us shortly.
Wen's dissertation title is: " Strategic Management for Large Engineering Projects - The Stakeholder Value Network Approach "
Committee: Prof. Edward Crawley (chair), Prof. Olivier de Weck, and Prof. Donald Lessard
We all join in congratulating Wen (a.k.a. Dr. Feng)!
Beth
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Elizabeth Milnes
MIT ESD Academic Office
**CALL FOR ABSTRACTS**
MIT Water Night
Thursday March 21st, 5:00 to 8:30 pm
Morss Hall, Walker Memorial, MIT Bldg. 50
MIT Water Club will hold its 1st MIT Water Night on March 21st, 2013 (one day before World Water Day). MIT Water Night is a research showcase that will provide a platform for the individuals and research groups at MIT to present their latest achievements in water-related fields. This is also a great opportunity to network with other members in the community as well as attendees from industry, and discuss ideas for new collaborations/opportunities.
We are* seeking poster presenters* for this event. If you are doing water-related research and want to share your brilliant ideas, apply now *at *http://goo.gl/szIzc .
Deadline to submit abstracts: Monday, Feb. 25th, 2013
Please feel free to forward this Call for Abstracts to colleagues that may be interested in participating in this event.
For more information visit our website at http://waterclub.mit.eduor contact xux@mit.edu.
Engineering Systems Division alumna Lynette Cheah SM '08, PhD '10 and her team won the inaugural Singapore Challenge Prize at the first ever Global Young Scientists Summit@one-north (GYSS@one-north), a prestigious international conference held in Singapore. Cheah, a research scientist at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), was presented with a special medallion by Singapore's President Tony Tan and was awarded $100,000 to pursue her research. Read news item on the MIT website and on channelnewsasia.com. Cheah’s team consisted of Dr. Francisco Pereira, Senior Research Scientist for Singapore-MIT alliance’s Future of Urban Mobility Group, Dr. Erik Wilhelm, a Postdoctoral Fellow at Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), Je McAulay, a Program Manager for Fraunhofer USA Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems, and Don MacKenzie and Stephen Zoepf, current ESD PhD students.
After five days of inspiring talks, panel discussions, mentoring sessions and close interactions between eminent scientific leaders and young researchers from around the world, the inaugural Global Young Scientists Summit@one-north (GYSS@one-north) was officially closed by President Tony Tan Keng Yam, Patron of GYSS@one-north. About 350 people-15 eminent science and technology speakers, 280 top researchers and scientists from around the world, guests from the local and international research community, and industry figures-gathered at the EduSports Centre, University Town, National University of Singapore, for the GYSS@one-north Closing Ceremony.
Based on the theme of first Singapore Challenge, “Innovations for Future Cities”, the finale saw 10 young scientists presenting ground-breaking ideas to address sustainability challenges faced by global cities to a panel of distinguished judges.
Dr. Lynette Cheah impressed the judges with her research proposal to build a dynamic transportation network to shift commuters’ travel modes in response to real-time feedback and system disruptions. Under such an adaptive urban transportation network, taxis would converge at places with predicted high demand. Shuttle buses with reconfigurable routes ply the city’s streets. Taxi and car commuters share rides and vehicle occupancy rates reach near capacity. Bus and train frequencies are automatically adjusted. Flexible traffic signals change their timings according to traffic counts to efficiently smoothen traffic flow.
(1) No prerequisite in optimization is required.
MEDICINE: How does a doctor optimally radiate a brain tumor and not kill the surrounding brain tissue?
ENGINEERING: How does an engineer optimally size and arrange the truss elements of a bridge so that it is as strong as possible for a given allowable weight and cost, and avoids wind-induced resonance?
BUSINESS: Where should Wal-Mart optimally place its warehouses and distribution centers to maximize profits?
BIOLOGY: How do we optimally predict that a cell-sample is malignant or benign?
PLANNING: How does a powerplant optimally choose to produce electricity from coal, gas, and nuclear sources?
These are some of the question that you will learn how to formulate and solve in Systems Optimization: Models and Computation. Students from all departments are welcomed and encouraged to explore this exciting subject. The examples and topics are relevant to problems in business, medicine and biology, and engineering.
Final projects and hands-on applications and exercises facilitate the practical use of the techniques described in the lectures. You will develop your problem formulation and solution skills on real-world problems in homework assignments. You will formulate and solve a large-scale optimization problem according to your own interests in a final project.
The Official Description: This course is a computational and application-oriented introduction to optimization modeling of large-scale systems in a wide variety of decision-making domains. We focus on using state-of-the-art optimization software to solve models and understanding the limitations of the modeling and solution techniques. Application domains include transportation, logistics, and telecommunications system planning; pattern classification and artificial intelligence; structural and engineering design; and financial engineering. Model formulation techniques include linear optimization, nonlinear convex and non-convex optimization, as well as discrete optimization and conic semidefinite optimization. Solution techniques covered include decomposition methods, column and constraint generation, continuous mappings, stochastic programming, and conic optimization and solution methods via interior-point methods. Students will develop formulation and solution skills in homework assignments and will formulate and solve a problem aligned with their interests for a final project.
MIT Units: 3-0-9, Graduate H-level Grad Credit
Prerequisites: This course does not have required prerequisite in optimization.
Course Meeting Time and Location:
Lecture: Tuesday and Thursday, 2:30 PM - 4:00 PM in 3-333. Recitation: To be scheduled on an as necessary basis.
Course Materials: Text: Introduction to Linear Optimization, D. Bertsimas and J. Tsitsiklis, Athena Scientific, Belmont, MA, 1997, on reserve at Dewey Library (MIT).
Instructor: Brian W. Anthony TA : Sisir Koppaka
MIT Room 35-130 E-mail : koppaka@mit.edu
Telephone: 324-7437
E-mail: banthony@mit.edu
The TUM School of Management at the Technische Universität München (TUM) has several open positions for
PhD students/postdocs in Operations and Supply Chain Management
The Area of Operations and Supply Chain Management at the TUM School of Management analyses, models and optimizes decision problems occurring in the design and operation of manufacturing and service systems,including logistics and supply chains. With an emphasis on providing decision support for real-world problems, operations research and management sciencetechniques are being applied and improved. Within the Area, the positions are attached to the Production & Supply Chain Management and the OperationsManagement & Technology groups. For more information on these groups, please visit http://www.scm.wi.tum.de/.
The candidates are expected to start as soon as possible but no later then Summer 2013. Salary is depending on experience, based on the German civil servant pay scale E13 TV-L (between 66% and 100% positions).
Job description:
Most of the on-going research applies quantitative operations management methods to a variety of industries (notably food, pharmaceuticals, automotive, and electronics). We are aiming to bridge between technology and management, investigating, for example, the introduction of new products and manufacturing technologies from an operations perspective. These technological developments normally affect the way production is planned and scheduled, but often also change the way production systems and supply chains are designed. Our research aims to support these processes and as such contributes to high-quality, efficient, and sustainable operations. For additional inspiration on topics relevant to the research groups in question, please see the publication lists of the group leaders: Martin Grunow, Professor in Production and Supply Chain Management, and Renzo Akkerman, Professor inOperations Management and Technology (see http://www.scm.wi.tum.de/). Next to your research project, you will also be expected to contribute to the educational programme of the TUM School of Management.
Requirements:
For PhD students, we are looking for candidates with master’s degrees in Operations Management, Operations Research, Industrial Engineering, or related fields. For postdocs, a PhD degree in those fields is required. Candidates who are close to completion of the relevant degree will also be considered.
Application:
An application should consist of the following documents:
- Application letter, detailing why you are pursuing this position at TUM
- Curriculum Vitae, including list of publications
- Transcripts and grade lists from your degrees
- A research proposal of max. 3 pages
- Co-authored publications, if available
- For postdoc positions: summary of PhD thesis (max. 1 page)
Your application package can be sent digitally to scm@wi.tum.de, using ‘OSCM position 2013’ as subject for the mail message.
ESD Faculty, Students, and local alumni:
Please join us for the dissertation defense of Kat Donnelly.
Date: Friday, February 1st, 2013
Time: 1:00 pm
Room: E40-298
Title: Empowering Consumers to Reduce Residential Energy Waste: Designing, Deploying, and Evaluating the Connecticut Neighbor to Neighbor Energy Challenge
Committee: D. Marks (chair), S. Sarma (supervisor), T. Malone, D. Ariely (Duke)
The abstract follows, and a draft of the dissertation is available to ESD Faculty and doctoral students online
Other ESD Community members may request a draft for review from me.
Regards,
Beth
ABSTRACT
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) competitive BetterBuildings Neighborhood Program grant announcement provided an opportunity to improve Connecticut’s residential energy efficiency and clean energy program uptake rates. N2N was designed to determine the minimum conditions necessary for supporting cost-‐effective community-‐based energy efficiency program administration. The Connecticut Neighbor to Neighbor Energy Challenge (N2N) was awarded a three-‐year, $4.2 million BetterBuildings grant in August
2010. N2N steps customers in 14 small towns through actions to achieve household energy savings of at least 15 percent, such as efficient lighting, home weatherization, and more extensive home energy upgrades, like building insulation, appliance upgrades, and renewable energy installations. N2N uses Community Based Social Marketing to meet customers in the field by partnering with local community groups, town governments, low income and senior organizations, faith communities, education facilities, and business organizations, as well as through social and earned media channels.
N2N relied on action research to continuously test, learn, and adapt program design, leading to frequent process refinements and course corrections. N2N used three main components to deploy the pilot: a technology platform that tracks the customer through the sales pipeline; behavioral research; and frequently published N2N results dashboards. Chapter 1 documents scaling up the lessons learned in six topic areas: 1) contractor networks, 2) behavioral and community-‐based social science, 3) technology platform, 4) market innovation, 5) policy structure, and 6) N2N program administration. Chapter 2 describes the toolbox of community and behavioral science best practices. Chapter 3 details the N2N case study. Chapter 4 includes a behavioral economics experiment designed to compare participant reactions to varying levels of home energy performance information given the homeowner’s housing situation.
The main research finding is that Connecticut needs a fast-‐paced, testing ground for energy efficiency programs to inform policy decisions and drive market innovation outside of the current regulatory constraints. N2N’s final contribution could meet that need: the N2N Innovation Lab. N2N is currently seeking funding post-‐grant to compete as a third-‐party administrator for energy efficiency and renewable funding using the proven strategies of community-‐based organizing, contractor coordination and support, and behavioral marketing.