image placeholder

Greetings! 

In these newsletters, we hope to provide a resource that informs, stimulates, and keeps you apprised of the activities and events of the Institute for Energy Efficiency.  We always appreciate any input you may have on how we can improve, so please don't hesitate to send us your feedback.

This issue follows closely on two very significant events for the Institute. The first is the exciting news that we have been awarded a $19 million grant from the Department of Energy to establish a new Center on Materials for Energy Efficiency Applications. This highly competitive grant was one of 16 awarded from Federal stimulus funds, and will support the research of 21 institute faculty, along with researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, UC Santa Cruz, and Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The second is the success of our first annual Santa Barbara Summit on Energy Efficiency. Over 200 participants attended two days of in-depth discussions and industry updates relating to new technologies for energy efficiency. We have just added video of all sessions and invite you to view the presentations on our website. The evening between the two days of the Summit saw a special event: a lecture by Bill McDonough, one of Time Magazine's "Heroes of the Planet." He spoke to a full crowd in Campbell Hall on sustainable design, garnering a standing ovation at the conclusion of his talk.

Finally, we are pleased to welcome United Technologies Corporation and Southern California Edisonas the first Charter Members of the Industry Partners Program. We're excited about working with them, and other companies - large and small - who find value in partnering with the Institute.

We are proud of these and other accomplishments over the past year-my first as Executive Director-and we aim to achieve a great deal more.  With our terrific staff, and your participation, I'm entirely confident we'll reach our goals.

Kind regards,
Dan Colbert

Institute News

New UCSB Energy Research Center Funded with $19 Million from Stimulus Act
UC Santa Barbara's Institute for Energy Efficiency will be home to one of 46 new multi-million-dollar Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs) announced April 27th by the White House. 
The UCSB EFRC is one of 16 to be funded by President Obama's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It will receive a total of $19.0 million over the five-year initial award period. The EFRCs, which will pursue advanced scientific research on energy, are being established by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science at universities, national laboratories, nonprofit organizations, and private firms across the nation.  Read More ...

The Institute Welcomes its Newest Staff Member: Sejal Hall 
Sejal Hall joined the Institute as Industry Partners Program Manager in April 2009.  Sejal will be the point of contact for all Industry Partners, and has already begun to transform this critical program into one of real impact. She is also a UC Discovery Fellow, working with campus leaders to build sustainable industry-university relationships.  Sejal earned her bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering from MIT and her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from UCSB where she developed and commercialized technologies to improve disease diagnosis.  In support of her work, she received a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Prior to graduate school, Sejal held positions in product development at both Guidant Corporation and Nanogen, Inc.  She is actively involved in the local entrepreneurial community serving on the board of directors for the MIT Enterprise Forum of the Central Coast.

Research Insights

Energy Star Ratings for Servers
by Computing Solutions Group Head Fred Chong
With the recent rollout of the initial Energy Star ratings for computer servers, the public is becoming increasingly aware of the energy demands of computer hardware and the implications of our growing reliance on large-scale IT infrastructure.  As corporations and government agencies move towards thin-clients, we will see an increasing centralization of services in large datacenters.  These datacenters will enjoy an economy of scale that can give them unprecedented efficiency, but several technical challenges will need to be addressed.
At the Institute for Energy Efficiency, the Greenscale Center for Energy-Efficient Computing applies cutting-edge software and hardware techniques to addressing these challenges.  Research in cloud computing, large-scale data algorithms, virtualization, and server design focuses on building datacenters that use power that adjusts more readily to the amount of work presented to the datacenter (a key measure not yet incorporated into the Energy Star metrics).  Working with the Institute's Center for Energy-Efficient Design, Greenscale researchers also work to integrate the scheduling of computation with the control of next-generation air and liquid cooling technologies.  Finally, Greenscale collaborates with the Institute's Center for Silicon Photonics to design revolutionary new servers that exploit integrated lasers for internal communication and even highly-efficient hybrid memory structures.
 

Faculty News

The Optical Society Honors John E. Bowers
The Optical Society (OSA) has awarded Institute Director John E. Bowers the Nick Holonyak, Jr. Award in recognition of his fundamental and technological advances in active hybrid silicon photonic devices including lasers, modulators, amplifiers and silicon-based active photonic integrated circuits. Read More ...

Related: On Monday, June 15th, Dr. Bowers will be appointed to the Fred Kavli Chair in Nanotechnology.

Fredrickson Leads New Global Research Institute 
Glenn Fredrickson, Professor of Chemical Engineering and director of the UCSB-based Mitsubishi Chemical Center for Advanced Materials (MC-CAM), has been named executive director of the KAITEKI Institute, Inc., a global research institute focused on meeting 21st century challenges in energy, the environment, and healthcare. The institute was established earlier this year by Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corporation (MCHC), and became operational on April 1.
Read More ...