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Syracuse Center of Excellence to provide funding for green energy projects

Courtesy of SyracuseCoE

Syracuse University professors work in a lab in SU's Center of Excellence. SyracuseCoE is accepting applications for projects that focus on green technology.

The Syracuse Center of Excellence is accepting applications until Sunday for its Faculty Fellows Program, which provides seed funding for projects that focus on clean and renewable energy, indoor environmental quality and water resources, according to a Syracuse University News release.

Led by SU and partially funded by New York state, SyracuseCoE engages faculty, students and collaborators at more than 200 firms and institutions to foster innovations that work towards healthier buildings and cleaner, greener communities, according to SyracuseCoE’s website.

Chetna Chianese, SyracuseCoE’s associate director of research, said the program will award $10,000 to faculty members whose projects align with the program’s goals, while projects that involve multiple faculty members may request up to $20,000.  

“We try to look particularly for proposals that will address how the faculty will leverage that funding,” Chianese said. “The goal is to seed new research. The university does this in some ways, as well, but we’re focusing on the environment.”

The program, which began in 2015 and is in its third year of full proposal requests, awarded nearly $113,000 to 17 faculty members working on eight different projects at SU, SUNY-ESF and SUNY Upstate Medical University last year, according to the release.



Each faculty member involved in one of the projects is appointed to a three-year term as a Faculty Fellow, according to SyracuseCoE’s website. There are currently 38 Faculty Fellows.

Ian Hosein, a professor in SU’s College of Engineering and Computer Science, received funding from the program in 2017 for his research on alternative batteries, specifically ones made from calcium ions.

Lithium ion batteries, which are commonly used in portable electronics, can be expensive and toxic, Hosein said. Calcium is cheap and environmentally friendly, he said, and preliminary works suggests it could work more effectively than lithium.

Hosein said the seed funding he received from the CoE provided the money needed for his preliminary work: making the materials and acquiring the initial battery equipment.

“We’re very appreciative of that because battery work is very expensive, and it’s a very competitive field,” Hosein said.

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SyracuseCoE is located at 727 E. Washington St. Daily Orange File Photo

Projects that receive funding from the center often include professors from colleges across SU. The Community Energy Dashboard, a project focused on developing an interactive energy dashboard that can be used to promote community energy programs, involved two professors from the School of Architecture and one from the School of Information Studies.

Jason Dedrick, an iSchool professor who conducted interviews with stakeholders and provided input into the design of the dashboard, said the project gives valuable tools and knowledge that will achieve environmental, social and economic goals, as well as build stronger communities.

At a more local level, we’ve been able to train several students in hands-on research methods and have built a network of researchers at SU and other institutions to pursue funding for implementing and studying Community Energy projects,” Dedrick said in an email. “We’ve also made a successful planning proposal to the National Science Foundation which builds on the CoE grant.”

Chianese said many Faculty Fellows will apply for additional funding from organizations such as the National Science Foundation, one of the largest sources of funding.

While the program’s goal is to fund projects that focus on environmental and energy systems, Chianese said it also fosters collaboration.

“Another goal of the project is to engage students in the research,” she said. “This provides some of the research supplies so they can hire more students and engage them in this kind of research. What we’re trying to do is build a community of researchers or help with the existing community.”


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