inform / educating undergraduates
Certificate Programs The Andlinger Center offers two certificate programs that cater to students of all majors and backgrounds. The Program in Technology and Society: Energy Track is jointly run by the Andlinger Center and the Keller Center for Innovation in Engineering Education. The curriculum has a strong social science component and the coursework explores the intersection of technology and society, and how their coevolution affects innovation in energy technologies. The Program in Sustainable Energy is geared toward students who want to pursue graduate degrees in technical fields, and enables students to quantitatively analyze and design sustainable energy systems. The curriculum focuses on alternative fuels, advanced energy conversion and storage systems, and emerging innovations, and typically includes laboratory work in addition to site visits. Yiguang Ju
Andlinger Center Certificate Symposium and Class Day Celebration Acknowledging the difficult circumstances of the past year, Andlinger Center Director Lynn Loo praised the resilience and adaptability of the center’s 14 graduating seniors in the annual Class Day ceremony on Monday, May 24, 2021. “You all were grappling with remote classes, thesis research, the loss of family and friends, and even fellow students,” said Loo, the Theodora D. ’78 and William H. Walton III ’74 Professor in Engineering and professor of chemical and biological engineering. “And yet, you are here, where classes of students have stood before you, celebrating the outstanding accomplishment of earning a Princeton degree, and a certificate in an area that will serve you and allow you to serve the world, striving for a better future for all.” The Senior Thesis Prize in Energy and the Environment was awarded to Alex Kaplan, a senior in the Program in Sustainable Energy, for his research on using a laser to convert methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, into hydrogen that could be used for fuel or energy
storage. Typically, hydrogen is produced using steam reformation of methane, an energy-intensive process producing large amounts of CO2. The laser technique promotes a reaction that breaks the methane into hydrogen gas for use and solid carbon, avoiding CO2 emissions. Kaplan was advised by Claire Gmachl, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Electrical Engineering. Yiguang Ju, the Robert Porter Patterson Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and director of the Program in Sustainable Energy, said that Kaplan’s approach “provides a promising low-emission hydrogen production pathway.” The graduates embarked on their next adventure to apply what they have learned to remediate energy and environmental issues of all types. Rei Zhang, who studied nitrogen dioxide pollution in the United States, applies the analysis skills gained during her senior thesis in her role as an air quality engineer for Ramboll. Five of the graduating certificate students are pursuing master's of engineering degrees at Princeton, building upon their senior theses by undertaking further studies in their fields in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
Alex Kaplan
Rei Zhang
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