Congratulations to Kristina Higgens, a chemical engineering major, whose Q&A with UMBC Giving was recently published on their blog. Kristina is a recipient of the Alumni Association Legacy Scholarship, and was asked to share her UMBC experience with donors and alumni. Her feature can be found here: http://bit.ly/1nfLUcF

2014 AEESP Distinguished Lecture Series with Dr. Bruce E. Logan , Kappe Professor of Environmental Engineering & Evan Pugh Professor, Director of Engineering Energy & Environmental Institute, Penn State University

Date: Thursday, November 13, 2014
Time: 12pm
Location: Howard University: L. K. Downing Hall, #2019 (Reading Room)

Reception to follow

Lecture 1: Microbial Fuel Technologies for Renewable Power and Biofuels Production From Waste Biomass

The ability of certain microorganisms to transfer electrons outside the cell has created opportunities for new methods of renewable energy generation based on microbial fuel cells (MFCs) that can be used to produce electrical power, microbial electrolysis cells (MECs) for transforming biologically generated electrical current into transportable fuels such as hydrogen and methane gases, as well as other devices to desalinate water or capture phosphorus. In this presentation, Dr. Logan will summarize key findings in the electromicrobiological studies of the exoelectrogenic microorganisms and communities that produce electrical current, and the electrotrophic and methanogenic communities that are used to produce hydrogen and methane gases. Recent advances will be highlighted on materials and architectures that are being developed to make these different types of METs more cost efficient, which are leading to them becoming commercially viable technologies.

Bruce Logan Professor Bruce E Logan is an Evan Pugh Professor, the Stan & Flora Kappe Professor of Environmental Engineering, and Director of the Engineering Energy & Environmental Institute at Penn State University. His current research efforts are in bioenergy production and the development of an energy sustainable water infrastructure. Dr. Logan has mentored over 110 graduate students and post docs, and is the author or co-author of over 380 refereed publications (h-index = 91) and several books. He is the founding Deputy Editor of the new ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters, and a member of the US National Academy of Engineering (NAE), and a fellow of AAAS, the International Water Association (IWA), the Water Environment Federation (WEF), and the Association of Environmental Engineering & Science Professors (AEESP). Dr. Logan is a visiting professor at several universities including Newcastle University (England) and Tsinghua University (China), with ties to several other universities in Saudi Arabia, Belgium and China. He received his Ph.D. in 1986 from the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to joining the faculty at Penn State in 1997, he was on the faculty at the University of Arizona.

Co-Hosts: Howard University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Maryland College Park, University of Maryland Baltimore County

Directions and Parking: http://auxiliary.howard.edu/parking-directions-to-the-main-campus-.html

Campus Map (Downing Hall is #26): http://www.howard.edu/explore/map/

Website

For further information, please contact Kimberly Jones, kljones@howard.edu

Congratulations to PhD student Adil Zuber, who is featured on myUMBC blog The Helix. Zuber is involved in therapeutic protein research in the Frey lab at TRC. He is working on a “factory-in-a-shoebox” device that could revolutionize access to protein-based medications in remote or war-torn locales.

His feature can be found here: http://my.umbc.edu/groups/helix/news/47510

Congratulations to Swarnalatha Balasubramanian, who successfully defended her Ph.D. on October 30th, 2014. Her research was performed in the Leach Lab; the title of her dissertation was Astrocyte Response to 3D Microenvironments