EDUCATORS
Because we believe that education on energy systems is incredibly important and increasingly so, all of our educators are teaching professors or industry leaders from various places: University of Notre Dame, Kalamazoo College, and Raytheon. They bring a variety of perspectives from different fields and different backgrounds that we believe helps ensure students are able to best understand the interdisciplinary nature of energy, while also giving them direct exposure to different fields of study as they look to choose their future fields of study. This Energy Summer Camp was first taught at MIT when Dr. Mechtenberg lived in Massachusetts and now she brings it to University of Notre Dame.
DR. MECHTENBERG, UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME
Dr. Abigail Mechtenberg’s research lab includes socio-technical design research involving hybrid microgrid and vehicle power management focused within an energy, sustainable development, and averting sixth extinction nexus; physics education and experimental design; global health risks associated with inaccessible, unaffordable and unreliable electricity, sustainable development involving the interconnections between health, education, and economics; renewable energy; and merging traditional with technological skills and microgrid modeling with uncertainty as well as known variability for robust design and control algorithms of power management. As such, her energy and sustainable development research lab has students from multiple disciplines including physics (complex systems and applied physics), physics education, medical school (or pre-professional), engineering (electrical, mechanical and environmental engineering predominately), business entrepreneurship, and international development. She publishes on energy systems for US military forward operating bases and Ugandan sustainable development systems which we talk about in our discussions about Sustainable Energy for Everyone.
DR. WILSON, KALAMAZOO COLLEGE
Dr. David Wilson is a biophysicist at Kalamazoo College. He researches the stability of viruses and how their structures affect their stability and ability to infect their hosts. Recently he discovered that all spherical viruses use the same geometric relationships for locating their protruding features and he is now investigating ways to use this to modify drug delivery and combat infection. David has also begun studying sustainable energy systems, including biogas and microbial energy production (MudWatt) and ways they these small systems can be scaled up to have a larger impact.
DR. MBENGUE, UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME
Dr. Mbengue is a postdoctoral scholar on drug resistance in malaria treatments. See Alassane’s recent published study on , “A molecular mechanism of artemisinin resistance in Plasmodium falciparum malaria,” published in Nature in the journal April 2015. The work was supported by the National Institutes of Health and Notre Dame International. He will be joining the summer camp to teach about the importance of electricity in so-called developing nations and about the use of biological systems in generating electricity. He was born in Senegal where energy electrification rates are 45% (compared to 100% in the US) which we talk about in our discussions about Sustainable Energy for Everyone.
DR. GOODENOUGH-LASHUA, UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME
Dr. Goodenough received her B.S. in Chemistry from Valparaiso University in 1994. She went on to earn her Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry in 2002 from the University of Michigan. She joined the faculty at Notre Dame in 2001. In addition to her scientific interests, Dr. Goodenough is a member of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics and is actively involved in educating our undergraduate students in the responsible conduct of research. Dee Anne has also begun studying sustainable energy systems, including biogas and biodiesel (for example, from algae) and ways they these small systems can be scaled up to have a larger impact.
DR. CAMPBELL, RAYTHEON
Dr. Nicole L. Campbell is a Sr. Systems Engineer and Research Scientist at Raytheon Missile Systems in Tucson, AZ. Dr.Campbell has previously worked at IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose, CA. and at Pacific Northwest National Labs. Dr. Campbell received her Ph.D in Applied Physics and Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan. She will be giving a guest lecture on industry and available for questions.