From the Lab : Current Research at Cooper Union
On November 2, 2016, Engineering students and advisors gave presentations to alumni and parents on some of the research being performed at The Cooper Union. The theme for the evening was Sustainability.
The evening began with presentations in Rose Auditorium. Acting Dean of the Nerken Engineering School, Richard Stock welcomed everyone who attended. He thanked Assistant Dean Anita Raja for organizing the event. Richard announced that 2 new professors have joined the engineering staff. One of those is Neil Kwong who graduated from The Cooper Union in 2009. The other is Neveen Shlayan who joins the electrical engineering faculty. He also announced that a posting has been made for an additional Chemical Engineering professor and that the search is underway for a new Engineering Dean.
Assistant Dean Anita Raja then introduced the 3 students who made presentations in Rose Auditorium. The first presentation was given by Carol Wolfe CE’17, who spoke of a new way to implement hydropower for electric generation. Rather than build a dam to collect water and power a large scale hydroturbine, or place a mid sized kinetic turbine in a river where it can disrupt the ecological and navigational uses of the river, Carol advocates the creation of flumes (ditches) that channel water for use by micro hydro-turbines with out significant impact on the environment. Samuel Canvas ME’17 spoke about the potential use of micro sized autonomous boats to track environmental spills. The boats would move along currents similar to the ways spills typically do, and radio back important data allowing improved remediation. Ariana Frietag EE’20 gave a presentation on a freshman EID project that examines what is necessary to create a sustainable laboratory that requires no utilities. It would generate its own power, process waste, and recycle water.
The evening’s guests were divided into two groups and then went to various classrooms and laboratories to see work by students and alumni. Each classroom had displays with presenters who gave mini-presentations. There were a number of projects that represent multi-year efforts. Former students joined with the current students for these presentations. Next to the display showing the latest version of the Cooper Super Cooler, was a poster listing all the alumni who have worked on this product line. The list has the names of almost 70 Alumni.
Following the exhibit presentations, there were refreshment in Gillman Foyer.
Samuel Cavas ME’17 explaining how robotic boats travel on sea currents
Ariana Frietag EE’20 gave a presentation on the Freshman Engineering in Design (EID) course
Carol Wolfe CE’17 with model of micro turbine
Kenneth O’Neil ChE’16 presenting his research on separation process for purifying Ethylene
Greg Lobl ChE’94 and Mike Gutierrez ChE’09 with the cooler for soup stock
Joseph Viola ME’16 discussing energy usages for 41 Cooper Square building
The students and alumni presenters are listed below along with the project titles.
| Catherine Wolfe ChE’17 | In-stream Kinetic Hydropower Generation from Slow-moving Waters |
| Samuel Cavas ME’17, Sal Chikine ME’17, John Donnellan CE’17, Ryan Yun ME’17, Nikhil lyengar ME’18, Cristian Lacey ME’18, David Shekhtman ME’16/MME’18 | Energy-efficient Propulsion of Robotic Boats in Oceanic Flows |
| lhsan Gunay EE’18 | Distributed Algorithms for Reducing Traffic Congestion Using Social Network Data |
| Greg Loibl ChE’94, Mike Gutierrez ChE’09 | Reinventing Household Refrigeration |
| Chae Jeong ChE’16, Josephine Chen ChE’16 | Life Cycle Assessment of Menstrual Products |
| Kenneth O’Neill ChE’16 | Synthesis of a Separation System for OCM Reactor Effluent |
| Anthony Assal MME’17 | Measuring Elevator Efficiency |
| Jay Dalal MME’17 | Modal Analysis of a Mysticete Tympanic Bulla (Balaenoptera physalus) Using Finite Element Methods |
| Soyoung Moon ME’17, Joseph Viola ME’16 | Optimizing Cogeneration Heat Recovery |
| Tony Zhao ME’17, John Han MME’16 | Laboratory Ventilation Energy Conservation Measures |
| Zhengqi Xi ME’17 | Building Energy Analytics |
| Iceland Study Abroad students | Patented Thermoelectric Generator |
| Iceland Study Abroad students | Heated Gardens |