Bringing Education to Light

A University of Wyoming College of Engineering and Applied Science alumnus is using his Laramie ranch to create a solar energy research facility that will donate its energy proceeds to the university while also creating research and curriculum opportunities for students and faculty members.

Thanks to a generous alumnus, the 9H Research Foundation’s solar facility will offer students and faculty the chance for handson learning in renewable energy.

By Micaela Myers

Renewable energy is on the rise. According to the government Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, U.S. solar installations have grown 35-fold since 2008. Many University of Wyoming current and prospective students are interested in this growing market.

Recently, a College of Engineering and Applied Science (CEAS) generous alumnus dreamed up a great way to give back to his alma mater while providing educational and research opportunities in renewable energy to UW faculty and students.

An Idea is Born

Gene Humphrey flew helicopters for two tours in Vietnam, studied mechanical engineering at UW and continued to serve for 27 years in the Wyoming Army National Guard, including a tour in Iraq. Humphrey put his education to good use, creating the highly successful technology company International Test Solutions.

“The thing I’m most proud of is the company I started from scratch in my garage in California,” he says. “Now we supply material to every company in the world that makes a computer chip. I’ve developed 64 patents that control that one segment of the semiconductor manufacturing space.”

A Wyoming native, Humphrey grew up in Burns. He currently owns 9H Ranch in Albany County, just north of Laramie, and was looking for a way to give back to his alma mater.

Together with co-founders Brendan Reilly and Sophia Corona, they came up with a brilliant idea: Take a 30-acre piece of his ranch and create a solar energy research facility that will donate its energy proceeds to the university while

BRINGING EDUCATION TO LIGHT

also creating research and curriculum opportunities for students and faculty members.

“9H Research Foundation is committed to the long-term future success of the University of Wyoming and the Laramie community,” Humphrey says. “Our solar research center will allow students to gain hands-on experience for their future careers. Through our partnership with UW, we will be creating endowed professorships and student scholarships to attract the best minds in the clean energy sphere. This will help position Wyoming as the best university for clean energy, driving jobs and economic growth for the state.”

The 9H Research Foundation will donate possibly millions of dollars to UW in the form of clean energy installations and in-kind support services. 9H began the construction of the philanthropic student research facility this spring, which includes a 3-megawatt solar installation powered by First Solar Series 6 modules.

“It’s terrific to have alumni like Gene who can not only work with us on cutting-edge technology and on the future of research and energy, but to provide support for programs so that our students can benefit,” says UW President Ed Seidel.

Industry Partnership

The partnership is attracting attention from companies across the United States. First Solar, the largest U.S. solar manufacturer, made a $300,000 in-kind donation to 9H, giving more than 2,000 advanced thin film solar photovoltaic modules totaling nearly 1MW of capacity.

“We are thankful to the 9H Research Foundation for the opportunity to lend our support to such an impactful project,” says Adam Smith, director of business development for First Solar. “It is always exciting for us to see our American technology powering American communities, and in this case, also the next generation of American clean tech engineers. The clean energy industry is set to be one of the most important industries globally in the coming decades, with solar energy making up a big portion of it. It is our hope that these modules are the start of an illustrious story for not just the University of Wyoming, but for all Wyomingites.”

Already, other industry partners include Creative Energies Solar, Argonne National Laboratory, Wyoming NASA Space Grant Consortium, Alt E Wind and Solar, RiskThinking.AI, and Black Bean Capital Partners. In line with Gov. Mark Gordon’s Wyoming Innovation Network (WIN) initiative, the partnership aims to help attract companies by providing them with solar energy, abundant Wyoming natural gas, a skilled workforce and state tax incentives.

Hands-on Learning

The research facility will also support the creation of a world-class clean energy engineering curriculum at UW. This will include concentrations or specializations for engineering students and possibly certificates in the future.

“We have a lot of students who come into CEAS and are interested in renewable energy,” says Dean Cameron Wright. “The 9H energy project is a real, large-scale energy application that they can get in on the ground floor and be a part of.”

The partnership between 9H and UW kicked off this past school year

“This will help position Wyoming as the best university for clean energy, driving jobs and economic growth for the state.“

– Gene Humphrey

Clockwise from left: Lucas Morrissette, Alex Jansen, Justin Keller, Rhett Cook, Chase Bancroft, Ben Wimpenny. PHOTO BY ALI GROSSMAN

to see that what we’re working on will have an impact. I think this partnership will really put us on the map.”

Cutting-Edge Research

“The 9H project represents an amazing opportunity for students and faculty from CEAS to be closely involved in a cutting-edge, large-scale renewable energy installation,” Wright says. “While a typical installation of this size would never have opportunities like this, 9H Research Foundation is willing to adjust the overall design, as it is developed and installed, to better facilitate research, student involvement, and general benefit to the UW and CEAS community. We are very fortunate to have Gene and the 9H team so dedicated to working with the college. There is no other project like this in the world.”

Wright says the facility will help recruit students and faculty. Researchers around the world are studying all facets of solar energy, including creating more efficient solar panels and installations, energy storage and power grids.

“Some of the world’s leading experts on grid stability are right here in this college,” Wright says. “They’ve been doing modeling for years on how to improve grid stability. So to be able to have this facility right in their back yard is an opportunity we didn’t expect.”

Interdisciplinary research is also wide ranging, such as how panels impact the underlying vegetation, animals and migrations, even down to the microbes in the soil. Wright says, “These are things that people have not really looked at yet, but we’ll have an opportunity to do.”

Gene Humphrey (left), CEO and Co-Founder of the 9H Research Foundation, and Paul Bonifas, Director of Operations at 9H Energy, pose for a photo in front of more than 2,000 solar panels donated by First Solar to the 9H Research Foundation to benefit UW, research, and students. COURTESY PHOTO

with 9H sponsoring a yearlong senior design competition. Thirty-one UW engineering seniors competed in a $5,000 renewable energy design challenge. Two team winners were announced in February at a celebration event hosted by Seidel and attended by the governor.

This hands-on learning is key to success as an engineer, Humphrey says. “My advice to engineering students is to do practical projects. Don’t just read about it in a book. Fly your drone. Make a topographical map. Make something and fail. Only after you fail a few times will you truly be successful.”

Jumping in to do just that—handson projects—this year’s student teams were from three engineering departments led by instructors Dave Bell from chemical engineering, Jonathan Naughton from mechanical engineering and Jeff Anderson from electrical and computer engineering. The teams were broken into two categories. One set of teams focused on photovoltaic systems, answering the question: What is the optimal design/ planning/location for installation? The other teams focused on energy storage proposals, answering the question: What energy storage technologies and in what configuration provide the optimal energy storage at the lowest overall cost? A team from each category split the grand prize, but all seven teams were funded to the tune of $15,000 for the spring semester to design and build their solar and energy storage projects out of the new research facility. 9H has also hired two student interns.

One of the participating students in the inaugural design competition was Taylor Romshek, a mechanical engineering and energy systems engineering student from Windsor, Colo. “This partnership has really opened my eyes and guided me toward a different career path,” she says. “I’m really excited for 9H and hope to be a part of the future innovation that will come from this. As a student, it’s nice

HEAR FROM STUDENTS, FACULTY AND 9H RESEARCH FOUNDATION FOUNDER GENE HUMPHREY. HEAD TO BIT.LY/9H-SPOTLIGHT TO WATCH THE VIDEO.

UW ENGINEERING FACULTY MEMBER HONORED FOR I-80 TRUCK DRIVER SAFETY RESEARCH

A University of Wyoming College of Engineering and Applied Science faculty member’s work to improve safety on Interstate 80 and other routes has been recognized by the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.

Mohamed Ahmed, UW’s Williams and Person Professor in the Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering and Construction Management, along with co-author Omar Raddaoui, received the Transportation Research Board Truck and Bus Safety Committee’s Deborah Freund Paper Award for their study, “Evaluating the Effects of Connected Vehicle Weather and Work Zone Warnings on Truck Drivers’ Workload and Distraction Using Eye Glance Behavior.”

“Dr. Ahmed and his team are conducting leading-edge research that directly benefits the state of Wyoming and its citizens. It is a well-deserved award. This is a great example of UW’s commitment to the land-grant mission, and it demonstrates how civil engineers help solve real-world problems and improve the quality of life for people,” says Tony Denzer, head of the Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering and Construction Management. “As we all know, highway travel in Wyoming can be dangerous, and I believe Dr. Ahmed and his team are making a real contribution to safety. It’s rewarding to see that work validated and honored at a national level.”

“We are very grateful and humbled to start 2021 with such great news,” Ahmed says. “This has been a tough year for everyone, and it is such an honor to see our hard work is paying off.”

For the winning study, Ahmed and Raddaoui sought to analyze the workload demands and distraction introduced by spot weather impact warning (SWIW) and work zone warning (WZW) applications— features of new “connected vehicle” technology that allows vehicles to communicate with one another and transportation agencies, providing realtime information regarding weather, road conditions and hazards—on professional truck drivers.

Ahmed operates the WyoSafe Simulation and Human Factors Center for Connected and Automated Vehicles, which includes state-of-the-art driving simulator technology. The center has been working on various traffic safety topics to assist the Wyoming Department of Transportation (WYDOT) and other transportation agencies in their mission of improving safety and operations of roadways, especially for heavy commercial vehicles.

According to the study, driving is primarily a visual task. At least 90 percent of the information consumed as part of the driving task is the product of the streaming of visual information, such as vehicle speed, road geometry, position relative to lane markings, brake lights of nearby vehicles, headway distance and traffic signs, among myriad other elements.

“The traffic environment, by its very nature, is a dynamic and continually evolving visual-cognitive construct,” Ahmed says. “As a result, the safe navigation of the traffic environment necessitates continual driver attention to operate the vehicle and scan the roadway for potential hazards.”

Using driving simulator experimentation and eye-tracking technology, the researchers determined that weather notifications did not invoke any notable workload or distraction to the participants. Conversely, the WZWs deteriorated the participants’ roadway scanning behavior and brought about prolonged off-road glances and, therefore, could carry adverse safety impacts to drivers in real-life conditions.

“This was largely attributed to the fact that, unlike the weather notifications, the WZW application appeared to have overcommunicated information to the participants during a short-time window and under difficult driving conditions,” Ahmed says.

In light of these findings, WYDOT, the leading stakeholder in the study, is reevaluating and amending the design of the WZW application so that message flow rate is reduced, and only necessary information is displayed to minimize the distraction introduced from the application.

Ahmed credits his team members, including Sherif Gaweesh, deputy manager of the WyoSafe Simulation and Human Factors Center for Connected and Automated Vehicles, for their work and assistance in various driving simulator studies.

The paper was presented at the Transportation Research Board annual meeting, an international conference in the transportation engineering field, in Washington, D.C., last year. Shortly after, the paper was published in the Transportation Research Record (TRR).

“The TRR has long been recognized as one of the preeminent, peer-reviewed publications for transportation research papers in the United States and around the world,” Ahmed says. “This recognition means a lot in our research community due to its great competitiveness and overall impact on people’s lives.”

Ahmed and Raddaoui received the award virtually at the 2021 Transportation Research Board annual meeting Jan. 12.

To learn more about Ahmed’s research, visit his UW faculty webpage or email mahmed@uwyo.edu.

TO VIEW A VIDEO OF ONE OF THE DRIVING SIMULATOR STUDIES, GO TO BIT.LY/WYOSAFE-SIM

Governor’s Higher Education Initiative Enhances Collaboration Between UW, Community Colleges

Gov. Mark Gordon has unveiled a proposal for modernizing and refocusing Wyoming’s higher education system. The initiative, called the Wyoming Innovation Network (WIN), calls for closer collaboration between the University of Wyoming and the state’s community colleges—and an emphasis on developing innovative solutions that will support and enhance Wyoming’s economy and workforce.

“Given the challenges facing our state, I’m committed to ensuring that our higher education institutions work together more effectively,” Gordon says. “Together, we are going to develop and deploy innovative solutions that will provide more and better opportunities to our workers, giving them the tools to compete in a rapidly evolving workplace and helping to strengthen Wyoming’s economy.”

The WIN initiative will have the state’s higher education institutions collaborate and develop strategic programming in key areas focused on Wyoming’s needs. It includes an emphasis on focusing workforce development on high-potential areas; supporting and training entrepreneurs and new business startups; a research and market analysis agenda aimed at technology transfer and commercialization; and developing outside revenue sources such as corporate partnerships to provide new opportunities for students.

UW President Ed Seidel will chair a committee directing the effort that includes higher education leadership from around the state.

“Wyoming’s institutions of higher education are excited to take our relationships to a higher level with a focus on helping propel the state’s economy,” Seidel says. “Our discussions have identified some excellent opportunities for collaboration, and we’re committed to pursuing them for the benefit of our students and the people of Wyoming.”

WIN is intended to support the state’s overall economic vision set forth by the Wyoming Business Council and support education attainment goals developed by the state. Gordon stresses that this collaborative approach will allow the state to better focus its resources to assist both existing industries and areas identified as having significant growth potential.

“Our goal is a unified effort that will help catalyze economic development, strengthen our workforce, support Wyoming businesses and enhance our ability to attract businesses from outside the state,” the governor says.

“While they have different and distinct missions, complementary and synergistic efforts are already underway between the community colleges and university,” says Casper College President Darren Divine, representing the presidents of all seven community colleges. “This new effort will enhance Wyoming’s ability to meet the challenges created by our current economic environment.”

Work has already begun on the WIN effort. Development is underway for a software engineering program that could ultimately be offered across all community colleges and UW. In addition, tourism and hospitality programs and entrepreneurship training programs for a variety of marketing sectors are under development.

A RYA NA NA M ED U W ’ S OCCIDENTA L CH A IR IN ENERGY A ND EN V IRONM ENTA L TECHNOLOGIE S

Saman Aryana is the first Occidental Chair in Energy and Environmental Technologies in the University of Wyoming’s School of Energy Resources (SER).

A UW chemical engineering associate professor, Aryana’s research has primarily focused on the fundamental physics of flow instabilities and the dynamics of subsurface displacement processes.

Inspired by Occidental’s pursuit of enhanced oil recovery technologies and leading-edge carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS) projects, the chair was created to champion a distinguished UW faculty member whose research expertise lies in improving enhanced oil recovery techniques, as well as longterm carbon dioxide storage solutions. Occidental is one of the largest oil producers in the U.S., including a leading producer in the Permian and DJ basins, and offshore Gulf of Mexico.

“I am honored and humbled to have been awarded the Occidental Chair in Energy and Environmental Technologies, and I am grateful to Occidental for their generosity and vision,” Aryana says. “I look forward to the opportunities made possible through this endowed chair position to address timely and impactful questions related to CCUS and CO2-enhanced oil recovery, and help establish the University of Wyoming and the state of Wyoming as leaders in CCUS.”

He adds that he looks forward to working with students and mentoring the next generation of environmentally prudent engineers and scientists.

Throughout his career, Aryana has demonstrated a commitment to excellence in the pursuit of multiscale systems at the nexus of energy, water and the environment— encompassing the intent of the chair. In particular, he has extensively examined macroscale models of flow in porous media and the fundamentals of subsurface flow processes. Many of his research endeavors have explored experimental investigation techniques of flow dynamics in shale oil reservoirs and the application of reservoir management using data analytics.

His understanding of subsurface interactions makes him keenly aware of CO2 mitigation technologies and will help him excel in his applied research to provide guidance for the economic success of CCUS projects in Wyoming, says SER Executive Director Holly Krutka. Additionally, Aryana will collaborate with the Occidental Chair in Energy and Environmental Policies—a search for that chairholder has been recently launched.

“Professor Aryana is an ideal fit for the Occidental Chair in Energy and Environmental Technologies, given his historic scholarship focused on energy technologies,” says UW Vice Provost for Strategic Planning and Initiatives Anne Alexander. “Under this chair, he will increase knowledge needed to train the next generation of Wyoming energy leaders on novel and emerging technologies.”

Krutka says the overarching mission of SER is to develop and deploy expertise necessary to solve critical energy challenges. In pursuit of this mission, SER facilitates the hiring, professional development and retention of internationally competitive faculty at UW.

“SER is incredibly grateful to Occidental for working with us to create this chaired position,” she says. “We hope that this chair will further grow UW’s already strong expertise in CCUS and increase collaboration with Occidental as a global leader in the technology. In addition, this chair is a wonderful tool to help us advance SER’s energy-focused economic development mission for the state and support talented faculty like Dr. Aryana.”

In an effort to continue growth in energy education and investigation, Aryana has dedicated much of his expertise to students. He has taught courses in macroscale models of flow through permeable media, multicomponent thermodynamics, chemical engineering computing and petroleum economics.

In 2019, he was nominated for UW’s Distinguished Graduate Faculty Mentor Award. He currently leads a research team of graduate and doctoral students in the Department of Chemical Engineering. Over the years, he has helped to launch the careers of many UW graduates.

Since working at UW, he has been involved in multiple university services and professional activities. He is the founder and president of the Northern Section of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, which covers Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming. He also has taken on an administrative role as the UW Department of Chemical Engineering’s graduate program coordinator.

Before joining UW’s faculty, Aryana worked as a reservoir engineer for Occidental as part of a reservoir management team, and he served on a business development group for the company. He earned his B.S. and M.S. degrees in civil engineering from the University of Texas-Arlington, and his Ph.D. in energy resources engineering from Stanford University.

UW Research Scientist Makes Important Contribution to Use of POD Sampler

A University of Wyoming senior research scientist has made important field contributions in the use of the POD sampler, an instrument used to accurately sample pollution levels.

Robert Field, in UW’s Department of Atmospheric Science, has collaborated with Pascual Perez Ballesta, the inventor of the POD sampler, on volatile organic compounds (VOCs) measurement methodology validation research since the 1990s. At that time, Field was part of a small team establishing a state-of-the-art national hydrocarbon network in the United Kingdom. Procedures developed by Field remain, to this day, at the core of automated data handling to ensure data quality.

The POD sampler is next-generation technology in radial diffusive sampling, a diffusive sampling that has a radial membrane for uptake of pollutants. This increases the surface area and responsiveness to changes in environmental conditions. The POD sampler simply collects pollutants by diffusion and may collect pollutants over a period of hours to months. The time period depends on the situation being examined.

“I performed the first field intercomparison in the Upper Green River Basin,” Field says. “I deployed PODs and my canister sampling system. I performed analysis of canisters back in my lab on campus, and that was compared to independent analysis of the POD samplers in Europe. This was one of a few different tests led by the inventor.”

The POD sampler can be placed almost anywhere and has been used to measure trace levels of VOCs in Antarctica; to define personal exposure of commuters; and estimate emission profiles from oil and gas extraction activities, Field says. Additionally, the POD sampler is well suited to fence-line monitoring and can help government agencies, developers and citizens accurately sample pollution levels.

Field also has performed field deployments of the POD samplers in different oil and gas basins in Wyoming and Utah.

“In this work, I set the samplers in situations to enable analysis of VOC to determine emission source profiles,” Field explains. “These are used to determine the contribution of different emission sources to ambient air pollution.”

This research has really been “a long haul with field work since 2013,” he says.

During this time, Field’s efforts were supported by a $5,000 seed grant from UW’s Center for Global Studies; by undergraduate research interns from the UW School of Energy Resources; and by Rachel Edie, a UW doctoral student in atmospheric science.

“I have a lot of groups and people in Wyoming to thank for their support,” Field says. “I had to be quite resourceful and piggyback this work onto research activities funded by other agencies, including the Wyoming Bureau of Land Management (BLM).”

“The support and expertise of Dr. Field has been critical for the implementation of the POD sampler, and his practical vision and scientific enthusiasm have always served as a collaborative bridge for tackling new projects,” Ballesta says.

The sampler will improve the quality of VOC sampling. While the next step is to complete the publication of a new diffusion model to extend the range of the sampler, the current POD sampler is now the cheapest and easiest approach for measuring air toxics, such as benzene, Field says.

Field is one of four co-authors of a paper on the subject of the POD sampler, which was published in Analytica Chimica Acta.

From left: Jeffrey Soltis, Matthew Burkhart and Robert Field, all UW senior research scientists with the Wyoming Air Quality Assessment Monitoring Laboratory.

ZACHARY LEBO RECEIVES AMERICAN METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY’S EARLY CAREER AWARD

No one could blame Zachary Lebo if he has his head in the clouds.

Lebo, an associate professor in the University of Wyoming’s Department of Atmospheric Science, was recognized by the American Meteorological Society (AMS) with its Scientific and Technological Activities Commission (STAC) Early Career Award. The honor is for significant contributions to the understanding of and ability to model cloud microphysical processes and the effects of aerosols on clouds, deep convection and precipitation processes.

The AMS is the premier scientific and professional organization in the United States that promotes and disseminates information about the atmospheric, oceanic and hydrologic sciences.

“I am truly honored to be recognized by my colleagues and peers through this early career award,” Lebo says. “It demonstrates the appreciation for my research by others in the field.”

His research has helped bridge the gap between cloud physics—very small-scale processes such as the growth of individual cloud drops or snowflakes—and mesoscale processes— events occurring on the scale of thunderstorms—through the use of high-resolution numerical models and the development of new, detailed cloud microphysics parameterizations.

“By bridging these scales and applying new modeling techniques, my research has enabled a deeper understanding of how cloud microphysical processes affect the structure of clouds, in particular, convective clouds like thunderstorms. I also have contributed to the reverse effect, namely the influence of the environment and convection in the Earth’s atmosphere on clouds themselves and the resulting precipitation,” says Lebo, who chairs the STAC’s Committee on Cloud Physics. Lebo joined UW’s Department of Atmospheric Science in fall 2015. His areas of expertise are cloud microphysics and dynamics, mesoscale dynamics and numerical modeling.

Besides his research on cloud models, Lebo also has advanced understanding of the aerosol-cloudprecipitation system in the context of deep convective clouds, and he has suggested new pathways by which cloud microphysical characteristics may change under different aerosol conditions.

“A hot topic in the field currently is the effects of changes in aerosols, which are tiny particles all around us that act as nuclei for the condensation of water in the Earth’s atmosphere and on clouds,” he says. “My research has made significant contributions to this topic through uncovering new mechanisms for how aerosols may influence these clouds and quantifying the impact, especially relative to how small changes in the environmental conditions can affect these convective clouds.”

Another line of important research Lebo has focused on is the growth and demise of hail, which has received increased attention in recent years, owing to the immense economic losses annually. Through several studies, he and his research team have identified factors that cause storms to produce small accumulating hail versus large hail, as well as the influence of melting hailstones on precipitation and the structure of thunderstorms.

Lebo received his Ph.D. in environmental science and engineering from the California Institute of Technology; his master’s degree in meteorology; and bachelor’s degrees in meteorology and mathematics, all from Pennsylvania State University. He conducted postdoctoral work at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

The award, a certificate, will be formally presented at the 19th Conference on Mesoscale Processes, which will take place at the 102nd AMS Annual Meeting in Houston, Texas, in January 2022.