The CMU Student Energy and Sustainability Research Symposium will be co-hosted by The Wilton E. Scott Institute for Energy Innovation and The Steinbrenner Institute for Environmental Education and Research. This poster competition will take place on Tuesday, March 17th, from 2 pm to 4 pm ET in the Rangos Ballroom in the Cohon University Center. Two tracks, energy and sustainability, will be taking place simultaneously, and students may enter both if their work is relevant to both. It's an excellent opportunity for participants to share their cutting-edge research and network with fellow attendees.

Who should come to see the research posters?

Peers, faculty, and leaders in energy and/or sustainability, corporate executives and the CMU community


How will judging take place? What is the judging criteria?

A judging panel will independently evaluate projects based on quality of work, quality of presentation, and understanding of environmental relevance and/or understanding of energy relevance, with an emphasis on quality of work.


Are there prizes for poster competition winners?

The Sustainability track will announce 2 winners of $1,500 Travel Award Prizes (to cover travel expenses and conference registration fees). The Energy Track will announce four winners: First Place ($1000), Second Place ($750), Third Place ($500), and Most Innovative Research Idea ($500).


posters
# Student name Research track Poster title

1

Abigail Hempy

Energy

Characterizing Conductive Additives for Improved Hydrogen Fuel Cell Platinum Utilization

2

Amara Vergara-Agyakwa

Energy

Disparities in Clean Energy Incentives

3

Avery Zakowich

Energy

Cybersecurity Challenges of AI-Based Grid Forecasting in Emerging Economies

4

Bailey Miller

Energy

Monte Carlo methods for datacenter-scale multi-physical and multi-scale thermal simulation

5

Chengyi Cai

Energy

Optimizing CAISO Generator 2030 Planning

6

Claire Bielski

Energy

Reduction of Energy Use in Datacenter Cooling through Geothermal Processes

7

Colin Ancalmo

Energy

Optimizing the processing of functionalized catalyst aggregates for high power density in proton exchange membrane fuel cells

8

Elizabeth Cucuzzella

Energy

Trustworthy Probabilistic Forecasting of Severe Weather Hazards

9

Elizabeth Foster

Energy

Optimization-Driven Distribution Planning for Electrification, EVs, and Data Centers

10

Eugene Jeong

Energy

Chemical Degradation of Polymer Binder Used in Hydrogen Fuel Cell Electrodes

11

Lauren Janicke

Energy

Quantifying minimum energy needs for thermal comfort and safety

12

Minxing Zheng

Energy

Learning to Test: Physics-Informed Representation for Electric-System Reliability Assessment

13

Moaiad Abdulaziz Alabbasi

Energy

Coupling Micro-CT Pore Architecture with Electrochemical Modeling for Anion Exchange Membrane Water Electrolyzer Performance Analysis

14

Nueraili Kuerbanjiang

Energy

Enhancing Building Control Benchmarking with Spatially Aware Physics-Informed Surrogate Model

15

Pranav Bhosale

Energy

Colocating Renewables with data centres for carbon aware scheduling

16

Sampriti Chattopadhyay

Energy

Leveraging hourly variations in electricity pricing for long-term optimal retrofit electrification planning of an oil refinery

17

Sri Bhamidipati

Energy

Public-Private Capital Stack Architecture and Bankability Gaps in Grid-Scale Clean Energy Technologies (2005-2025)

18

Thuy Nguyen

Energy

Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less: Labor Market and Air Quality Trade-offs of Oil and Gas Extraction

19

Tina Gao

Energy

Power Flow Is No Longer Enough: Formulating a Unified, Physics-Based Grid Analysis

20

Vasileios Kypriotis

Energy

LithOS & PowerWeave: A GPU Operating System Approach for Energy-Efficient AI Infrastructure

21

Wenbin Zhou

Energy

Quantifying the cost of reliability: a machine learning algorithm for robust power system operations

22

Aashritha Jaladi

Energy & Sustainability

From Remote Sensing to Circular Material Systems: AI-Driven Regional Building Condition Mapping

23

Adi Mallik

Energy & Sustainability

Charged Sorbents as Direct Air Capture Technology

24

Ananya Shrimali

Energy & Sustainability

Data-Driven Daylight Optimization for Gulf Tower Office-to-Residential Conversion: A Computational Study

25

Andres I. Cardenas

Energy & Sustainability

Strategic Design of CO2‑Reuse Pathways for Sustainable Aviation Fuel: A Game-Theoretic Techno‑Economic Analysis

26

Corinne Smith-Lewis

Energy & Sustainability

Operando electronic conductivity measurements for iridium oxide anodes in proton exchange membrane water electrolyzers

27

Hannah Morin

Energy & Sustainability

Fast Charging Is Not One Thing: Profile Heterogeneity and Its Implications for EV Modeling and Policy

28

Jessy Ha

Energy & Sustainability

Thin proton exchange membranes for water vapor electrolysis

29

Johnathan Subramanian

Energy & Sustainability

A case study of sustainable energy in Zimbabwe

30

Junlin Zhou

Energy & Sustainability

Upgrade Strategies for EV Charging Infrastructure in Shenzhen

31

Kara Ferner

Energy & Sustainability

Enabling High Performance and Low Costs for Clean Hydrogen Production: Composite Anodes for Water Electrolysis

32

Luke Cogswell

Energy & Sustainability

Mapping the Environmental Impacts of Generative AI Systems

33

Mary Anna Ebbert

Energy & Sustainability

Clean, Lightweight Fuel from the TIDE: Thermally Integrated Deionizer and Electrolyzer for Hydrogen Generation from Seawater

34

Maryam Hamidi

Energy & Sustainability

Order of magnitude assessment of strategies to reduce risks to residential electricity customers from tropical cyclones

35

Meltem Sahin Ozkoci

Energy & Sustainability

pix2ppl: Scalable Multimodal Building-Stock Characterization for Retrofit Targeting from Drone and Street-View Imagery

36

Minhyuk Nam

Energy & Sustainability

Compensating Flexibility: Capacity Market and Battery Storage Dispatch in Great Britain

37

Muhammad Mueed Khan

Energy & Sustainability

Particles Formation in Aircraft Exhaust from Sustainable Aviation Fuels and their Impact on Climate-Warming Contrails

38

Neil Sinha

Energy & Sustainability

Role of Dispersion Processing on Ink Rheology, Microstructure, and Performance in PEM Water Electrolyzers

39

Pariya Ayati

Energy & Sustainability

Learning from Windcatchers: Comparative Performance of Chimney-Coupled Evaporative Ceramic and Terracotta Facade Intake Patterns

40

Rebekah Adams

Energy & Sustainability

Investigation of In-Plane Electronic Ohmic Losses in a PEM Water Electrolyzer

41

Reyhaneh Mohsenzadeh Yazdi

Energy & Sustainability

Effects of User-Centered Communications on Homeowners' Understanding, Attitudes, and Behavioral Intentions for Solar Photovoltaics and Battery Energy Storage Systems

42

Sarfraaz Mobarak

Energy & Sustainability

Role of Humidity in Platinum Utilization in PEM Fuel Cells

43

Shambhavi Jilkar

Energy & Sustainability

Real-Time Emergency Intelligence: AI-Driven Dynamic Ontology for Climate-Resilient Transit Infrastructure

44

Shuyi Chen

Energy & Sustainability

Large-Scale Resilience Planning for Wildfire-Prone Electricity-System via Adaptive Robust Optimization

45

Stacy Godfreey-Igwe

Energy & Sustainability

Extreme Heat on Residential Electricity Demand: A Case Study in a Hot-Humid Climate

46

Tejesh Vir Singh Sandhu

Energy & Sustainability

Interactive Module for Optimal Retrofit Planning in Chemical Industry Decarbonization

47

Thuy Tran

Energy & Sustainability

Environmentally Friendly Water-based Fabrication Process for Li-ion Battery Electrodes

48

Tiansheng Tan

Energy & Sustainability

Sustainable Data Center

49

Visha Ahmad

Energy & Sustainability

Infrastructures of the Invisible: Simulating Toxic Territories and Unequal Ecologies of Extraction

50

Yue Wu

Energy & Sustainability

Tax-Equity Financing of U.S. Renewable Electricity Generation

51

Zaina Merchant

Energy & Sustainability

Clean Steel Development in Southern Africa: Air Quality, Climate, and Economic Impacts

52

Anisha Panesar

Sustainability

Carbon Accounting For Seaweed Materials: An Insight Into Biogenic Lifecycles In Correlation To Construction

53

Catalina Moreno

Sustainability

The Behavioral Governance Challenge of Well Closure: Evidence from Pennsylvania’s Oil and Gas Legacy

54

Chenrui Xu

Sustainability

A Time-Aware Assessment Framework for the Carbon Cost of AI-Enabled Decarbonization

55

Daniel Pert

Sustainability

Multi-period optimization of multi-agent circular economy networks: Application to single-use PET plastics and polyester textiles

56

Dennis Doyle

Sustainability

Droplet Accelerated Degradation and Persistent Pollutants: Physical Chemistry Fundamentals and Applications for Perfluorinated Compounds

57

Genaro Basulto

Sustainability

Strategic Pricing and Adoption Dynamics for Hydrogen Mobility Technologies

58

Johnathan Vicente

Sustainability

Characterizing Discrete Choice Model Tradeoffs in Prediction Accuracy, Tractability, and Substitution for Automotive Design

59

Kansateshri Megavarnan

Sustainability

Fire-Resistive Natural Materials for Sustainable Wall Assemblies: A Comparative Life Cycle Assessment

60

Kiara Baker

Sustainability

Investigating the Photodegradation of Disulfide-Integrated Polymers and Model Compounds by Singlet Oxygen and Hydroxyl Radical Under Environmentally Relevant Conditions

61

Malena Rybacki

Sustainability

From SAD-R to Smarter: Evaluating a Novel Device for Quantification of Atmospheric Sulfuric Acid Gas

62

Mayra Guadalupe Gonzalez Ramirez

Sustainability

Optimization of Direct Air Capture Processes using Reactive Transport Models of Adsorption-Desorption Cycles

63

Nana Oye Djan

Sustainability

Surface Water Extent Dynamics in Sub-Saharan Africa

64

Naz Esmer

Sustainability

Algebraic Modeling of Liquid-Liquid Extraction Processes for Sustainable Rare-Earth Element Recovery

65

Rafael Braga Gomes

Sustainability

Low-cost Method for Black Carbon Source Apportionment in the Global South

66

Samhita Gudapati

Sustainability

pH Effects on PFAS Sorption Rates

67

Sampriti Chattopadhyay

Sustainability

Pareto optimal Pathways fo Refinery Decarbonization: Retrofit of Small Modular Nuclear Reactors

68

Shruti Deshpande

Sustainability

Reimagining Agricultural Waste: Sugarcane Bagasse for Sustainable Building Practices and Jaali Construction in India

69

Tejas Jairange

Sustainability

Elasticity Under Uncertainty: Securing Semiconductor Supply Chains Through Substitution Dynamics

70

Theodore Kim

Sustainability

Degradation of Diclofenac Using TAML/Peroxide and Analysis of the Product

71

TJ Thomas

Sustainability

Towards Outdoor Chemical Sensing on Small Quadrotors

72

Yeye Deng

Sustainability

Biomimetic and Adaptive Channel Design for Low-Intensity Urban River Interventions

73

Yizhuo Zhang

Sustainability

Enhancing Agricultural Sustainability with Water Reuse: Understanding the Fate of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) in Soil-Crop Systems

74

Yue Wu

Sustainability

The Impact of AI on Firm Sustainability