Edward A. Bogucz, Executive Director, Syracuse Center of Excellence in Environmental and Energy Systems
Ed Bogucz became executive director of the New York Center of Excellence in Environmental Systems in August 2003.
Previously, Dr. Bogucz served more than eight years as dean of Syracuse University’s College of Engineering and Computer Science (ECS). His areas of research expertise include fluid dynamics, heat transfer, and multidisciplinary analysis and design.
Over the course of his career at Syracuse University, Bogucz has been principal investigator or co-PI on research projects with sponsors such as the Carrier Corp., Niagara Mohawk - a National Grid Company, NASA, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, and the New York State Office of Science, Technology, and Academic Research.
He currently serves as a director on the boards of Herley Industries, as well as the Erie Canal Museum in Syracuse, and he holds B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering from Lehigh University, in addition to an M.S. degree in heat transfer engineering from Imperial College of the University of London.
Bob Delzoppo, Syracuse Research Corporation
Robert DelZoppo serves as corporate technology director for Syracuse Research Corporation, an independent, not-for-profit research and development organization which plays a leadership role in providing solutions to programs of national significance through the innovative application of science, technology, and information.
As corporate technology director, DelZoppo is responsible for the company’s corporate-level strategic technology initiatives. These initiatives include technology roadmapping, advanced research and development programs, and partnerships with external research and technology providers, including various universities. In this position, he will also identify and manage information on technology assets and play a key role in the company's Intellectual Property Program.
Prior to this position, DelZoppo served as technology director for the Information Science and Engineering business area and spearheaded the Advanced Technology Initiative Program at SRC. He has more than 25 years experience in information technology for the commercial and U.S. Government sectors. He holds a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in mathematics from the State University of New York College at Fredonia and completed post-master’s graduate coursework in computer science at the State University of New York at Buffalo.
Volker Hartkopf, Professor of Architecture, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
Volker Hartkopf is the director of the Center for Building Performance and Diagnostics at Carnegie Mellon University. Since 1972, Professor Hartkopf has been teaching and conducting research at Carnegie Mellon University.
Hartkopf’s work covers a broad range of activities: international initiatives, funded research and professional consulting on building systems integration, advanced technology, building performance, energy conservation, urban revitalization, third-world housing and disaster prevention. He has realized as an architect building projects in Germany, Bangladesh, Peru and the US. He also led masterplanning efforts for Volkswagen A.G. and the City of Wolfsburg, Germany; EXPO 2000 Hanover and Berlin-Lichtenberg, Germany.
In 1975, Hartkopf co-initiated and subsequently directed the first multi-disciplinary program in Architecture, Engineering and Planning in the United States. In 1981, he co-founded the Center for Building Performance and Diagnostics (CBPD) at Carnegie Mellon. Hartkopf has created and directs the Advanced Building Systems Integration Consortium (ABSIC), which focuses on the impact of advanced technology on the physical, environmental, and social settings in office buildings to create high performance work environments. ABSIC, in cooperation with Carnegie Mellon, has designed, constructed and maintained the Robert L. Preger Intelligent Workplace, officially opened in the winter of 1997.
An award winning teacher and frequent keynote speaker in Australia, Europe, Asia and the Americas, Hartkopf has authored more than 100 technical publications. He continues his consulting with such organizations as DaimlerChrysler, Volkswagen, Thyssen Krupp, Electricite de France, U.S. Department of State, U.S. Department of Energy, and Siemens.
Hartkopf holds a Master of Architecture degree from the University of Texas at Austin and a Ph.D. in Architecture from the University of Stuttgart, Germany.
Toshiko Mori, Toshiko Mori Architects, New York, NY and Professor and Chair, Department of Architecture, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Toshiko Mori, FAIA is the Robert P. Hubbard Professor in the Practice of Architecture and the chair of the Department of Architecture at Harvard University Graduate School of Design since 2002. She is also principal of Toshiko Mori Architect, which she established in 1981 in New York City. Mori taught at the Cooper Union School of Architecture from 1983, until joining the Harvard GSD faculty with tenure in 1995. She has been a visiting faculty member at Columbia University and Yale University, where she was the Eero Saarinen Visiting Professor in 1992.
Mori's strong research-based approach to design has been commended in awards and invitations to lectures and exhibitions around the world. In the fall of 2005, her work was exhibited in "Renewing Wright" at the Heinz Architectural Center of the Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh. Her profile, "Postscripts: Building on Sacred Ground", appeared in The New York Times in May 2005. She has edited a volume on material and fabrication research, Immaterial/Ultramaterial, and is currently preparing her next publication: Textile Tectonic in Architecture.
In 2003 Mori was awarded the Cooper Union Inaugural John Hejduk Award. In 2005, she received the Academy Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Medal of Honor from the New York City chapter of the AIA. She has served on the board of trustees of the Van Alen Institute and the Storefront for Art and Architecture, and has been an advisor to the New York Foundation for the Arts. She is currently an advisor to A+U Magazine and serves on the President's Council for the Cooper Union. Mori earned a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the Cooper Union and an Honorary Master of Architecture degree from Harvard University.
Alan Plattus, Professor, Yale School of Architecture and Director of Urban Design Workshop, Yale University, New Haven, CT
Alan Plattus is professor of Architecture and Urbanism at the Yale University School of Architecture. He has an independent practice as an urban design consultant and has lectured across the country and abroad on urban history and architectural theory. He also founded and directs the Yale Urban Design Workshop, a community design center based at the School of Architecture that has pursued practice-based research on the form and function of neighborhoods, towns and regions, and undertaken civic design projects in cities and towns throughout Connecticut. Current projects include downtown plans for the towns of Madison and New Britain, ongoing work for the Dwight-Edgewood neighborhood in New Haven, including a recently completed neighborhood daycare center, and plans for a new campus center for the Yale Faculty of Engineering, as well as research on design strategies for Main Street and neighborhood revitalization.
Plattus frequently conducts design charrettes and policy workshops for citizens and civic leaders, and is working with the Connecticut Main Street Center on a design manual for Main Street communities. For his contributions to the City of New Haven, Plattus was presented with the Elm-Ivy Award by the mayor of New Haven and the president of Yale University.
Plattus was the chairman of the Flushing Meadows Corona Park Task Force, an interdisciplinary team that prepared a new master plan for the 1200-acre park in New York City. The plan was awarded a Progressive Architecture Urban Design Citation. He has also collaborated with Diana Balmori on the design of an urban greenway along the route of the abandoned Farmington Canal corridor in New Haven. This project has been awarded a Connecticut AIA/ALA Public Space Award.
Along with his work as an urban designer, Professor Plattus has served on the Committee for the Third Regional Plan of New York and is a Fellow of the Institute for Urban Design. He was the Chair of the Education Task Force for the Congress for the New Urbanism. In New Haven, he was a member of the Research Committee of the Regional Economic Growth Partnership and has served on the Boards of the New Haven Trust for Historic Preservation, the Eli Whitney Museum, the Foote School, and the Connecticut Main Street Center.
Hon. Susan Roaf, Oxford City Council, Oxford, England
Prof. Sue Roaf is an award winning teacher, architect, and author, and she is Professor of Architectural Engineering at Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh, and Visiting Professor at Arizona State University and the Open University.
Roaf gained her first degree in architecture in 1975 at Manchester University. She subsequently went on to gain her diploma in architecture at the Architectural Association in London where she also took her Part 3 professional exam in 1978. In 1989 she was awarded a Ph.D. for her study of the Windcatchers of the Central Persian Desert from Oxford Brookes University where she taught from 1989 to 2005 both in professional studies, technology, and design.
Roaf has practiced for a number of years on the design of housing, schools, hospitals, and town planning. She is best known as a designer for her Oxford Ecohouse which was the first UK building with an integrated photovoltaic roof. At Oxford Brookes University, Roaf helped develop the Oxford Solar Initiative with the Oxford City Council.
Roaf sits on a range of national and international research and design bodies. She was Chair of the 2006 2nd International Solar Cities Congress in Oxford, and she will Co-Chair the Westminster Carbon Counting Conference, January 2008, Chair the 2nd Oxford Conference on Architectural Education, July 2008, and Co-Chair the 4th Windsor Conference on Air-Conditioning and the Low Carbon Cooling Challenge, July 2008. She has published books on traditional technologies, energy efficient buildings, ecohouse design, benchmarks for sustainable buildings, and adapting buildings and cities for climate change. Roaf lives in the well known Oxford Ecohouse. In June 2004, she was elected an Oxford City Councillor.
Suresh Santanam, Deputy Executive Director, Syracuse Center of Excellence in Environmental and Energy Systems
Suresh Santanam joined Syracuse CoE in January 2005. He is involved in all aspects of Syracuse CoE, including activities to identify, secure, and manage sponsored projects; plan, design, construct, and operate facilities; and communicate the center’s activities.
Dr. Santanam provides leadership in developing the design of the Syracuse CoE headquarters, currently under construction at the former Midtown Plaza in downtown Syracuse. He works with local companies and CoE partners to ensure that the design of the new building supports and maximizes collaboration. He is currently working with Syracuse CoE’s advisory board, and its partners to develop a clean and renewable energy roadmap.
Santanam brings a wide range of experience—from his work the some of the world’s most well known laboratories to his tenure as an engineer and educator in Syracuse over the past 18 years. In the early 1980s at the Oregon Graduate Institute he studied the global trend of methane, a significant greenhouse gas, over the past 20,000 years using ice core and ambient air measurements. As a doctoral student at Harvard University’s School of Public Health, he worked with renowned environmental health expert Dr. John Spengler and contributed to Harvard’s groundbreaking Six Cities Study, which explored the health effects of air pollution in America and prompted the Environmental Protection Agency to revise existing air quality standards, laying the foundation for laws and regulations banning smoking.
Years later, working for East Syracuse’s Galson Corp., Santanam studied how traffic flow improvements can be used to mitigate and improve the air quality in downtown Syracuse with the construction of the proposed Oncenter convention center. Santanam is an expert in air pollution control and air quality regulations, and as part of Cazenovia, New York based Stearns & Wheler, has worked extensively on environmental engineering, pollution control and renewable energy projects.
Santanam has also been an adjunct associate professor in the biomedical and chemical engineering department of Syracuse University’s L.C. Smith College of Engineering and Computer Science (ECS) and an adjunct faculty member in ECS’ civil and environmental engineering department for the past 16 years. He teaches courses in fundamentals and design of air pollution control and air resources. In a course on green engineering, Santanam teaches chemical engineering students on ways to accomplish projects while reducing demand on natural resources.
Prior to receiving his doctorate from Harvard University, Santanam received a master’s degree in environmental engineering from the Oregon Graduate Center and a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Kakatiya University in Warangal, India.
Jerald Schnoor, Professor and Chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Iowa
Professor Jerald Schnoor is a member of the National Academy of Engineering (elected in 1999) for his pioneering work using mathematical models in science policy decisions. He testified several times before Congress on the environmental effects of acid deposition and the importance of passing the 1990 Clean Air Act.
While serving as Editor-in-Chief of Environmental Science and Technology, Schnoor guides the leading journal in the world in both environmental engineering and environmental science. His editorial writings on environmental policy and research have been widely accessed by the international community. Schnoor has published (as author, co-author, or editor) six books and more than 150 research articles in archival journals, in addition to serving as lead editor of a series of texts and monographs for John Wiley & Sons (Wiley Interscience on Environmental Science and Technology).
Schnoor chaired the Board of Scientific Counselors for the Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development from 2000-2004. Currently, he is one of three Co-Directors for the National Science Foundation Project Office on a Collaborative Large-scale Engineering Analysis Network for Environmental Research (CLEANER), a $250 million proposal to construct a national environmental observatory network for the sensing, modeling, and forecasting of environmental contaminants beginning in 2011.
Schnoor and his students have pioneered phytoremediation, the use of plants to help clean the environment. The research involves discovering novel pathways for the uptake, storage, and metabolism of toxic organic chemicals at waste sites. Schnoor has been instrumental in the full-scale clean-up and demonstration of phytoremediation systems to remediate petrochemical contaminations, explosives contaminant remediation from groundwater using created wetlands, and the interception and treatment of groundwater plumes containing industrial chemicals.
Schnoor's publications cover a wide range of environmental problems including toxic chemical fate and transport, surface and groundwater contaminant modeling, phytoremediation, and carbon sequestration for mitigation of greenhouse gases. Over the past three years, Schnoor has developed a novel course at the University of Iowa on sustainable environmental systems and has worked closely with students in Engineers for a Sustainable World (ESW).
Paul D. Tonko, President and CEO, New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA)
Paul D. Tonko was appointed President and CEO of New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) on July 1, 2007 by the NYSERDA Board of Directors. Prior to his appointment, Tonko served in the New York State Assembly, representing the 105th Assembly District—including all of Montgomery and part of Schenectady County—from April 1983 to June 2007.
At age 26, he was the youngest person in the history of Montgomery County to be elected to the county’s Board of Supervisors. He served as chairman of that body in 1981. Prior to his election to the Assembly in 1983, Tonko was an engineer in the New York State Department of Transportation and also served on the staff of the Department of Public Service.
Tonko has gained a national reputation as an expert on energy and utility issues. From 1992 to June 2007, Tonko served as chairman of the New York Assembly Standing Committee on Energy. In April 2007, Tonko was called upon by the Congress of the United States, to provide expert testimony before the Subcommittee on Domestic Policy, in relation to the Energy Policy Act of 2005. In 2007 he was awarded the Solar Leadership Award by the New York Solar Energy Industries Association.
Tonko graduated from Clarkson University with a degree in mechanical and industrial engineering. He is a lifelong resident of the city of Amsterdam, New York.
W. Dan Turner, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Director of Energy Systems Laboratory, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX
W. Dan Turner has been the only director of the Energy Systems Laboratory at Texas A&M University since 1985. Under the direction of Turner, the lab has grown and expanded its programs to now have an annual budget of over $5 million. His credits also include a full professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, since 1986; associate dean, College of Engineering from 1989 to 1996; and interim department head, Mechanical Engineering from 1985-1987. He is one of the developers of the Continuous Commissioning Process and has overseen more than $20 million in CC projects. He is founder of the International Conference on Enhanced Building Operations, now in its 7th year and founder of the Hot and Humid Building Conference, now in its 22nd year.
Turner has recently been named the Portland Energy Conservation, Inc. (PECI) 2007 Benner Award recipient given annually for outstanding contributions to building commissioning and the ASEE-Mechanical Engineering Division, 2006 Ralph Coats Roe Outstanding Educator Award Recipient. In 2005, he was named a Regents Fellow by the Texas A&M University System. Turner handed over the ESL Directorship to Dr. David E. Claridge effective September 1st, 2007, but will continue on partial time with the lab until December 2008 providing guidance and research on current projects.
Timothy Wagner, Principal Research Engineer, United Technologies Research Center, East Hartford, CT
Tim Wagner is a Principal Engineer in the UTC Power Program Office at United Technologies Research Center (UTRC). Wagner is currently leading the development of technology for cooling, heating and power (CHP) systems that couple electric generators and thermally activated technologies.
During his 20 years at UTRC, Wagner has led or contributed to numerous projects in the fields of thermodynamics and heat transfer. He holds several issued or pending patents. In addition to his position at UTRC, Dr. Wagner is an Adjunct Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Rensselaer at Hartford, where he has been an advisor for over 30 Master’s Seminar Projects.
Wagner holds a B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Virginia Tech. During his doctoral program he was a NASA Fellow at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. Wagner also is an Associate Fellow of AIAA and a member of ASHRAE and ASME.
Hon. James T. Walsh, U.S. House of Representatives
Now in his tenth term, Jim Walsh proudly represents New York's 25th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. Walsh's 25th Congressional District stretches from Syracuse and Onondaga County west along Lake Ontario to the Rochester suburbs in Monroe County.
His district includes Onondaga County, northern Cayuga County, Wayne County, and the northeastern portion of Monroe County.
Walsh is a longtime member of the House Appropriations Committee. As Ranking Member of the panel's Labor-Health and Human Services-Education Subcommittee and senior member of the Transportation-Housing and Urban Development Subcommittee, Walsh is in a strong position to continue his work to bring needed federal investment home to Syracuse and New York State.
The New York Times has called Walsh's role on Appropriations "important to New York State," and the Buffalo News has described Walsh as "commonly seen as New York's most powerful House member."
John Ward, CSIRO Energy Technology, New Castle, Australia
As a research project leader at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Dr Ward’s research has focused on adding intelligence to the interaction of distributed energy systems within the electricity distribution network.
As lead engineer and project manager for the Hornsby Library TrigenAir development, Dr Ward delivered Australia’s first desiccant based cogeneration system – providing building heating and cooling utilizing waste heat from a micro turbine generator whilst minimizing greenhouse gas emissions and also reducing the site electricity load during times of peak electricity demand. The TrigenAir system is now being adapted to provide solar cooling.
Dr Ward obtained his Ph.D. in control theory in 2002 from the University of Newcastle. He has published research in a range of areas and is currently focusing on energy efficient building systems, optimization methods for distributed (energy) systems and multi-agent learning methods.