Center for Clean Energy Engineering

Today, significant interdisciplinary fuel cell research and development activities are underway within the School of Engineering and involve faculty from the physical sciences, as well. Among our core cadre of researchers are:

Mark Aindow, Professor and Director, Materials Science & Engineering Program, Department of Chemical, Materials and Biomolecular Engineering
Research Interest: Diesel fuel reformation, aerogel/precious metal catalysts, hydrodesulfurization
Email: m.aindow@uconn.edu

Reda Ammar, Professor and Head, Computer Science & Engineering
Research Interest: Computer simulation of fuel cell systems, parallel processing methods,
multi-layer performance modeling and analysis
Email: reda@engr.uconn.edu

Mehdi Anwar, Associate Dean for Research & Graduate Education, School of Engineering
Research Interest: Optimization & miniaturization of power conditioning circuits for fuel cell systems
Email: anwara@engr.uconn.edu

Theodore Bergman, Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interest: Thermal Systems analysis, heat and mass transfer in fuel cell stacks
Email: tberg@engr.uconn.edu

C. Barry Carter, Professor and Head, Department of Chemical, Materials and Biomolecular Engineering
Research Interests: Relating structure, chemistry and bonding of materials to properties; solid-state reactions, ceramic materials, microscopy
Email: cbcarter@engr.uconn.edu

Baki Cetegen, Professor and Department Head, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interest: In-situ fuel cell diagnostics, near infra-red laser adsorption spectroscopy - water, carbon and carbon monoxide concentration
Email: cetegen@engr.uconn.edu

Wilson Chiu, Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interest: Electrochemical modeling and thermal control of underwater fuel cell systems
Email: wchiu@engr.uconn.edu

Eric Donkor, Associate Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering
Research Interest: Distributed nanostructures for fuel cell bipolar plate design, High power D.C. to A.C. converters, Electrical measurement and characterization of fuel cell systems.
Email: donkor@engr.uconn.edu

Amir Faghri, United Technologies Chair Professor in Thermal-Fluids Engineering, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interest: Thermal systems analysis and application of heat pipe technology in portable fuel cell stacks and systems
Email: faghri@engr.uconn.edu

Bahram Javidi, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
Research Interest: Microstructural evolution in SOFC's, 3-D digital holography, interfacial relations
Email: bahram@engr.uconn.edu

Jeong-Ho Kim, Assistant Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering
Research Interest: Solid oxide fuel cells; Functionally graded electrodes; PEM fuel cells
Email: jhkim@engr.uconn.edu

Russ Kunz, Professor-in-Residence, CT Global Fuel Cell Center
Research Interest: Fuel cell technology and electrochemistry
Email: russkunz@engr.uconn.edu

Baikun Li, Assistant Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering
Research Interest: Biological hydrogen production as a sustainable environmental technology.
Email: Baikun@engr.uconn.edu

Tianfeng Lu, Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interest: Computational fluid dynamics with detailed chemistry; reduction of large chemical kinetic mechanisms for computationally efficient simulation of complex multidimensional, turbulent flows.
Email: tlu@engr.uconn.edu

Harris Marcus, Professor and Director, Institute of Materials Science
Research Interest: Carbide metallurgy and laser sintering, miniature fuel cell systems, low power applications
Email: hmarcus@mail.ims.uconn.edu

Jeffrey McCutcheon, Assistant Professor, Chemical, Materials & Biomolecular Engineering
Research Interest: Electrospun nanofiber nonwoven webs for use as substrates for novel water filtration membranes
Email: jeff@engr.uconn.edu

William Mustain, Assistant Professor, Chemical, Materials & Biomolecular Engineering Research Interest: New materials for proton exchange membrane fuel cells, molten carbonate fuel cells, aerobic biocathodes for oxygen reduction reaction, microfabricated biological fuel cells and fundamental studies on both electrochemical kinetics and ionic transport in solid electrolytes. Email: mustain@engr.uconn.edu

Trent Molter, Research Scientist and Business Development Officer
Research Interest: Regenerative fuel cells, hydrogen production, electrochemical compressors, fuel cell materials and hydrogen electrolyzers
Email: tmolter@engr.uconn.edu

Kenneth Noll, Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology
Research Interest: Microbial fuel cells, catabolic fuel oxidation, Computer modeling methods
Email: kenneth.noll@uconn.edu

Richard Parnas, Associate Professor and Director, Chemical Engineering Program, Department of Chemical, Materials and Biomolecular Engineering
Research Interest: Optical fiber based sensors, monitoring in-situ membrane operating performance
Email: rparnas@mail.ims.uconn.edu

Ugur Pasaogullari, Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering
Research Interest: PEM fuel cells, multiphase transport phenomena
E-mail: ugurpasa@engr.uconn.edu

Sanjuthevar Rajasekaran, UTC Professor of Computer Science & Engineering and Director, BECAT
Research Interest: Computer simulation of fuel cell systems, parallel processing methods, multi-layer performance modeling and analysis
Email: rajasek@engr.uconn.edu

Michael Renfro, Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering
Research Interest: In-situ fuel cell diagnostics, near infra-red laser adsorption spectroscopy, water, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide concentration
Email: michael.renfro@uconn.edu

George Rossetti, Jr., Associate Professor, Chemical, Materials & Biomolecular Engineering
Research Interest: Thermodynamic theory, reactive processing, microstructure evolution, and physical properties of dielectric, piezoelectric and ferroelectric materials and their applications in sensing, actuation, energy transduction and storage, and active structural / precision motion control systems.
Email: george.rossetti_jr@uconn.edu

Leon Shaw, Professor, Chemical, Materials and Biomolecular Engineering
Research Interest: PEM fuel cells, bipolar plates, carbon/polymer composites
Email: lshaw@mail.ims.uconn.edu

Montgomery Shaw, A.T. DiBenedetto Distinguished Professor, Chemical, Materials and Biomolecular Engineering
Research Interest: Phase behavior in polymer solutions and blends, aging of polymer electrolytes
Email: shawmt@uconnvm.uconn.edu

Prabhakar Singh, Director, Connecticut Global Fuel Cell Center and UTC Chair Professor of Fuel Cell Technology
Research Interest: Solid oxide fuel cells: systems operation, process optimization, hydrocarbon fuel processing, hydrogen separation and electrical management
singh@engr.uconn.edu

Alevtina Smirnova, Assistant Research Professor, Chemical, Materials and Biomolecular Engineering
Research Interest: Novel materials (ceramics, composites, polymers and catalysts) for SOFC, PEMFC and DMFC. Modeling of fuel cell system performance
Email: alevtina@engr.uconn.edu

Steven Suib, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor and Head, Department of Chemistry
Research Interest: Development of CO tolerant fuel cell catalysts
Email: steven.suib@uconn.edu

Jiong Tang, Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interest: PEM fuel cells, system level dynamic modeling, control strategy
Email: jtang@engr.uconn.edu

Mei Wei, Assistant Professor, Chemical, Materials and Biomolecular Engineering
Research Interest: Nanoparticle deposition methods, interfacial integrity, tubular SOFC's
Email: m.wei@mail.ims.uconn.edu

Robert Weiss, UTC Professor of Advanced Materials & Processing, and Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor
Research Interest: Development of polymer blends for electrically conductive materials for application in PEM fuel cells
Email: rweiss@mail.ims.uconn.edu

Ben Wilhite, Assistant Professor, Chemical, Materials and Biomolecular Engineering
Research Interest: Heat integration in microchannel arrays for fuel reforming and fuel cells. Multiphase flow in fuel cell microchannels.
Email: bwilhite@engr.uconn.edu

Brian Willis, Associate Professor, Chemical, Materials & Biomolecular Engineering
Research Interest: Tunneling spectroscopy for molecular electronics and nano-sensors, catalyst and support materials for improved durability of electrocatalyst formulations in fuel cells.
Email: bgwillis@engr.uconn.edu

Bi Zhang, Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interest: Improved machining and manufacturing techniques for PEM fuel cell systems
Email: zhang@engr.uconn.edu