好色先生TV

For the 14th year, the at 好色先生TV has proudly supported an interdisciplinary selection of energy and climate research projects through its seed grant program.

This year, a total of 10 projects received over $500,000 through seed funding and the hardware and software tool upgrade program, an additional resource for supporting the vitality of energy and climate research among Scott Institute faculty affiliates.

鈥淭he Scott Institute seed grant program helps our researchers take bold risks and create what鈥檚 next in energy,鈥� said , director of the Scott Institute. 鈥淲e are thrilled to support faculty-led energy research projects this year representing nearly every part of campus.鈥�

This year's award winners are based in the College of Engineering, , , Mellon College of Science, and Tepper School of Business.

Seed grant recipients

Katherine Flanigan

, an assistant professor of , will leverage artificial intelligence to fill the civic infrastructure gap, a term that describes the missing link between community knowledge of, and institutional responses to, events like blackouts that are caused by extreme weather and threaten fragile energy systems.

Flanigan will add an AI layer to a civic technology platform called re+connect so that community-generated data can inform the tool鈥檚 recommendations for how to respond to energy disruptions, resulting in improved preparedness, response, and recovery for affected communities. Pilot deployments of the updated re+connect platform will occur in areas (e.g., northwest Florida, Puerto Rico) that experience frequent blackouts and other recurring energy challenges. Flanigan鈥檚 work is in partnership with re+collective, Inc., and community organization Surcando La Historia.

As co-leader of the (CERCA) and with established research in community-engaged infrastructure system adaptation, Flanigan is poised to continue building on a strong foundation thanks to additional support from the Scott Institute, including partial support from the Rankin Grand Challenge Partnership.

Shawn Litster

A research team led by , a professor of , will explore an alternative fuel cell to power untethered robotics and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), both of which are capable of consuming more energy resources than lithium ion batteries and internal combustion engines can provide.

With support from the Scott Institute, the collaborators will purchase experimental components to produce proof-of-concept data, allowing them to answer fundamental and applied questions about the fuel cell鈥檚 properties.

Rounding out the research team are , Trustee Professor in Energy, and ; and , associate department head for Materials Science and Engineering, POSCO Professor and co-director of the Center for Iron and Steelmaking Research.

Amir Barati Farimani

Lead researcher , Russell V. Trader Associate Professor mechanical engineering; and collaborator, , Trustee Professor, engineering and public policy, will use support from the Scott Institute to address the current 鈥渄ata-rich yet insight poor鈥� approach to monitoring and forecasting U.S. power grid conditions.

Improved forecasting of grid conditions, detection of anomalies, and recommendation of real-time resilience actions is increasingly important as the grid contends with extreme weather events and accommodates new energy demands from the electrification of transportation, industry, and buildings.

Using seed funding partially supported by the Scott Institute鈥檚 , Farimani and Jaramillo will construct an initial multimodal dataset, develop a prototype foundation model for short-term forecasting and anomaly detection, and create preliminary AI agents meant to communicate findings, interpret emerging risks, and assist grid operators during rapidly evolving events.

Alan McGaughey

Multi-departmental collaboration between , Trustee Professor, mechanical engineering; and , an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, enables a computational science- and engineering-informed approach to discover new fluids that can serve as refrigerants. This project is partially supported by the Scott Institute鈥檚 .

Refrigerants support cooling, a tool for climate adaptation that only becomes more critical, including for health and safety, as global temperatures continue to rise. McGaughey and Wang aim to develop a set of models that can predict thermophysical properties relevant to refrigeration, resulting in a refrigerant recommendation engine that can propose new candidates capable of achieving specified cooling goals.

Woody Zhu

Wildfires, destructive and hazardous to human life and made more intense by extreme weather and aging infrastructure among other factors, have inspired both short- and long-term solutions that each come with tradeoffs.

A seed project to be led by , an assistant professor of data analytics at the Heinz College; and , a professor of engineering and public policy and director of the Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center, will develop an integrated causal-inference and optimization framework to determine the effectiveness of different wildfire mitigation strategies.

Looking specifically at two methods, Public Safety Power Shutoffs and fast-trip programs, Zhu and Sioshansi will combine statistical machine learning, power-system modeling, and economic assessments of outage impacts to study where and when these interventions are most effective, enabling long-term resilience planning for wildfires.

Riccardo Paccagnella

, assistant professor in the in the School of Computer Science, will address a problem for sustainability and security: processor overheating.

Processor overheating underscores the fact that 40 percent of the electricity used by data centers is used for cooling, according to the International Energy Agency. Moreover, overheated processors can be exploited to leak sensitive information, a form of attack known as Hertzbleed.

Paccagnella will design and implement a solution called Goldilocks to help maintain a frequency level that鈥檚 鈥渏ust right鈥� for each machine and workload, providing a tool for mitigating security risks and reducing overheating in data centers.

Alison Barth

Alison Barth, Maxwell H. and Gloria C. Connan Professor in the Life Sciences in the Department of Biological Sciences and a member of the Neuroscience Institute, aims to draw inspiration for engineered systems from the energy-efficiency of biological networks like the mammalian brain.

The cerebral cortex is particularly important for learning and decision making, though there鈥檚 much to be discovered about its functionalities. With support from the Scott Institute, Barth hopes to identify learning principles in cortical networks that can be applied to the design of AI systems, like deep learning networks and large-language models, for more energy-efficient learning.

Hardware & software tool upgrade program

Marc De Graef

The (MCF) at Carnegie Mellon supports the discovery of the structure and chemistry of advanced materials.

, John and Claire Bertucci Distinguished Professor of Engineering and faculty director of MCS, will apply support from the hardware and software tool upgrade program towards acquiring an integrated backscatter electron (BSE) imaging and energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS) detector for a scanning electron microscope in the MCF, also requiring a software upgrade.

By upgrading the detector and the software, the Scott Institute will by extension support the work of numerous affiliated faculty, research groups, and startups who make use of the MCF鈥檚 resources.

Nick Muller

Do power outages at oil refineries impact retail gasoline prices in the U.S.?

To research a most accurate answer to this question, , Lester and Judith Lave Professor in Economics, Engineering and Public Policy; and Ph.D. student, John Mantus, will use support from the Scott Institute to purchase comprehensive county or state daily gasoline price data, increasing the scope and resolution of their analysis.

Azadeh Sawyer

Formerly, a rooftop weather station at the Intelligent Workplace in the collected valuable local environmental data. , an assistant professor in the School of Architecture, and co-investigator Fred Betz, will use resources from the Scott Institute to get the weather station up and running again, acquiring new environmental sensors, a data logger, mounting hardware, and other accessories. A refurbished weather station will provide data relevant to researchers across the university, particularly for urban microclimate analysis and building performance analysis modeling.