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Organizing Committee
Mahendra Sunkara
Workshop Chair
Founding Director, Conn Center for Renewable Energy Research
Professor, Chemical Engineering
University Scholar
University of Louisville
Mahendra Sunkara, PhD, is the Founding Director of the Conn Center for Renewable Energy Research (2009-2024) and Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Louisville.
Dr. Sunkara received his B. Tech. degree in Chemical Engineering from Andhra University (India) in 1986, a M.S. in Chemical Engineering from Clarkson University in 1988, and a PhD in 1993 from Case Western Reserve. He earned his PhD under guidance of Prof. John Angus on chemical vapor deposition of diamond. He worked at Faraday Technology, Inc. in Dayton, OH, from 1993-1996 as a Project Engineer before joining UofL as an assistant professor in 1996.
Mahendra’s primary research is in the development of such renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies as solar cells, lithium ion batteries, electrochromics, production of hydrogen from water, and process development for growing large crystals of diamond, gallium nitride, and bulk quantities of nanowires. He has published over 150 articles in refereed journals, four book chapters, and was awarded over 25 U.S. patents. He co-authored a book entitled “Inorganic Nanowires: Applications, Properties and Characterization” published by CRC Press. He was awarded the Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty in Engineering award in 1999 and a NSF CAREER award in 1999. In 2002, the Louisville Magazine placed him in the list of top 25 young guns in the city of Louisville. In 2009, he received the UofL President’s distinguished faculty award for research and United Phosphorus CDS Award from the Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers in 2009. He has been named as Fellow of Kentucky Science and Engineering Foundation in 2017. His research work was cited about 8000 times with an h-index of 42. He graduated over 20 M.S/M.Eng and 20 PhD students who found successful careers in academia as faculty at institutions such as RPI, Texas A&M, U of Tulsa, IIT - Hyderabad and in Industry such as Intel, HP, Veeco, Applied Materials, and Lexmark, etc. He serves on the board of a publicly traded company, Karuturi Global and serves on the editorial boards of Nanotechnology and Nature Scientific Reports.
He founded Advanced Energy Materials, LLC (ADEM) in 2010 to commercialize his technology on scalable manufacturing of nanowire based materials for catalysts, batteries and absorbents. The company recently established commercial production facilities for advanced catalysts and adsorbents for removal of sulfur from diesel and fuels and hydrogenation applications around the world. He founded a IT training and consulting company, Indacle Software, Inc.in 1995, and established Chemener Batteries Ltd, a lead acid battery manufacturing unit in India.
Founding Director, Conn Center for Renewable Energy Research
Professor, Chemical Engineering
University Scholar
University of Louisville
Mahendra Sunkara, PhD, is the Founding Director of the Conn Center for Renewable Energy Research (2009-2024) and Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Louisville.
Dr. Sunkara received his B. Tech. degree in Chemical Engineering from Andhra University (India) in 1986, a M.S. in Chemical Engineering from Clarkson University in 1988, and a PhD in 1993 from Case Western Reserve. He earned his PhD under guidance of Prof. John Angus on chemical vapor deposition of diamond. He worked at Faraday Technology, Inc. in Dayton, OH, from 1993-1996 as a Project Engineer before joining UofL as an assistant professor in 1996.
Mahendra’s primary research is in the development of such renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies as solar cells, lithium ion batteries, electrochromics, production of hydrogen from water, and process development for growing large crystals of diamond, gallium nitride, and bulk quantities of nanowires. He has published over 150 articles in refereed journals, four book chapters, and was awarded over 25 U.S. patents. He co-authored a book entitled “Inorganic Nanowires: Applications, Properties and Characterization” published by CRC Press. He was awarded the Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty in Engineering award in 1999 and a NSF CAREER award in 1999. In 2002, the Louisville Magazine placed him in the list of top 25 young guns in the city of Louisville. In 2009, he received the UofL President’s distinguished faculty award for research and United Phosphorus CDS Award from the Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers in 2009. He has been named as Fellow of Kentucky Science and Engineering Foundation in 2017. His research work was cited about 8000 times with an h-index of 42. He graduated over 20 M.S/M.Eng and 20 PhD students who found successful careers in academia as faculty at institutions such as RPI, Texas A&M, U of Tulsa, IIT - Hyderabad and in Industry such as Intel, HP, Veeco, Applied Materials, and Lexmark, etc. He serves on the board of a publicly traded company, Karuturi Global and serves on the editorial boards of Nanotechnology and Nature Scientific Reports.
He founded Advanced Energy Materials, LLC (ADEM) in 2010 to commercialize his technology on scalable manufacturing of nanowire based materials for catalysts, batteries and absorbents. The company recently established commercial production facilities for advanced catalysts and adsorbents for removal of sulfur from diesel and fuels and hydrogenation applications around the world. He founded a IT training and consulting company, Indacle Software, Inc.in 1995, and established Chemener Batteries Ltd, a lead acid battery manufacturing unit in India.
W. Mark McGinley
Energy Efficiency Theme Leader, Conn Center for Renewable Energy Research
Endowed Chair in Infrastructure Research & Professor,
Civil & Environmental Engineering
University of Louisville
Dr. McGinley is a structural engineer and building scientist with over 25 years of research and forensic engineering practice in building systems. Prior to joining UofL, he served 20 years at North Carolina A&T State University in the Civil, Architectural, Agricultural and Environmental Engineering Department. He is an expert in masonry building systems, in particular, masonry building envelopes.
Dr. McGinley's research has included research on the structural performance of masonry walls, water penetration experiments on envelopes, and the building envelope performance of brick veneer and steel stud wall systems. He has also been involved in multidisciplinary efforts on the evaluation of the energy systems of existing buildings and demonstration projects evaluating condensing heat exchangers and thermal mass effects of night time ventilation. He has been a primary author of all seven editions of the Masonry Designers Guide.
Endowed Chair in Infrastructure Research & Professor,
Civil & Environmental Engineering
University of Louisville
Dr. McGinley is a structural engineer and building scientist with over 25 years of research and forensic engineering practice in building systems. Prior to joining UofL, he served 20 years at North Carolina A&T State University in the Civil, Architectural, Agricultural and Environmental Engineering Department. He is an expert in masonry building systems, in particular, masonry building envelopes.
Dr. McGinley's research has included research on the structural performance of masonry walls, water penetration experiments on envelopes, and the building envelope performance of brick veneer and steel stud wall systems. He has also been involved in multidisciplinary efforts on the evaluation of the energy systems of existing buildings and demonstration projects evaluating condensing heat exchangers and thermal mass effects of night time ventilation. He has been a primary author of all seven editions of the Masonry Designers Guide.
Michael McIntyre
Microgrids & Renewable Power Resiliency Theme Leader, Conn Center for Renewable Energy Research
Associate Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering
University of Louisville
Dr. McIntyre is a native of Nelson County KY and received his B.S. and M. Eng degrees in 1997 and 2000, respectively, from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Louisville, Louisville KY. From 1995 to 1998, he was with Phillip Morris USA as a process controls engineer. He received a PhD in 2006 from the Department of Electrical Engineering, Clemson University, Clemson SC. He was with General Electric as a senior electronic design engineer from 1998 to 2003 and then again from 2006 to 2007. He was the Kerr-Greulich Chair of Energy Systems at Western Kentucky University, Department of Engineering at the rank of Assistant Professor from 2007 to 2011. In August of 2011, he joined the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Louisville, Louisville KY, as an Assistant Professor. He teaches courses in power electronics, and control systems, and does research in the area of electrical energy systems.
Associate Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering
University of Louisville
Dr. McIntyre is a native of Nelson County KY and received his B.S. and M. Eng degrees in 1997 and 2000, respectively, from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Louisville, Louisville KY. From 1995 to 1998, he was with Phillip Morris USA as a process controls engineer. He received a PhD in 2006 from the Department of Electrical Engineering, Clemson University, Clemson SC. He was with General Electric as a senior electronic design engineer from 1998 to 2003 and then again from 2006 to 2007. He was the Kerr-Greulich Chair of Energy Systems at Western Kentucky University, Department of Engineering at the rank of Assistant Professor from 2007 to 2011. In August of 2011, he joined the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Louisville, Louisville KY, as an Assistant Professor. He teaches courses in power electronics, and control systems, and does research in the area of electrical energy systems.
Joshua Spurgeon
Solar Fuels Theme Leader, Conn Center for Renewable Energy Research
E.On Endowed Chair in Sustainability
University of Louisville
Joshua Spurgeon, PhD, is a Research Engineer and Theme Leader for Solar Fuels research focused on economically viable approaches to solar water splitting, electrosynthetic fuel formation, and advanced electrocatalysts.
He received his doctorate in Chemical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 2010. He also holds an MS in Chemical Engineering from Caltech (2006) and a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of South Carolina (2004). He conducted research on proton exchange membrane fuels cell at the University of South Carolina (2000-2004), before pursuing research into scalable and inexpensive nanostructured photovoltaics at Caltech (2004-2009). As a post-doctoral scholar at Caltech (2010), he worked on multifunctional membranes for solar fuels applications and demonstrated the viability of solar-driven water vapor electrolysis. He then became a Research Scientist at the inception of the Department of Energy's solar fuels innovation hub, the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP, 2011-2013), where his research involved photoelectrochemical studies of the interfaces between catalysts and semiconductors. He became Project Lead for the Interface group and Processing, Materials, and Integration Team at JCAP (2013) before joining the Conn Center at the University of Louisville in 2014.
Josh was a National Merit Scholar and McNair Scholar at the University of South Carolina, as well as a National Science Foundation Fellow at Caltech, where he also won the Demetriades Prize in Renewable Energy and was a distinguished Everhart Lecturer. His research includes the study of novel photoelectrode materials for solar fuels generation, catalysts and strategies for controlling the selectivity in electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction, and developing novel approaches to efficient, cost-effective solar water electrolysis.
E.On Endowed Chair in Sustainability
University of Louisville
Joshua Spurgeon, PhD, is a Research Engineer and Theme Leader for Solar Fuels research focused on economically viable approaches to solar water splitting, electrosynthetic fuel formation, and advanced electrocatalysts.
He received his doctorate in Chemical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 2010. He also holds an MS in Chemical Engineering from Caltech (2006) and a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of South Carolina (2004). He conducted research on proton exchange membrane fuels cell at the University of South Carolina (2000-2004), before pursuing research into scalable and inexpensive nanostructured photovoltaics at Caltech (2004-2009). As a post-doctoral scholar at Caltech (2010), he worked on multifunctional membranes for solar fuels applications and demonstrated the viability of solar-driven water vapor electrolysis. He then became a Research Scientist at the inception of the Department of Energy's solar fuels innovation hub, the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP, 2011-2013), where his research involved photoelectrochemical studies of the interfaces between catalysts and semiconductors. He became Project Lead for the Interface group and Processing, Materials, and Integration Team at JCAP (2013) before joining the Conn Center at the University of Louisville in 2014.
Josh was a National Merit Scholar and McNair Scholar at the University of South Carolina, as well as a National Science Foundation Fellow at Caltech, where he also won the Demetriades Prize in Renewable Energy and was a distinguished Everhart Lecturer. His research includes the study of novel photoelectrode materials for solar fuels generation, catalysts and strategies for controlling the selectivity in electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction, and developing novel approaches to efficient, cost-effective solar water electrolysis.
Andrew Marsh
Workshop Coordinator
Assistant Director, Conn Center for Renewable Energy Research
Program Officer, Leigh Ann Conn Prize for Renewable Energy
University of Louisville
Andrew Marsh is a prolific artist, writer, and activist. He is assistant director for Conn Center for Renewable Energy Research and program officer for the Leigh Ann Conn Prize for Renewable Energy at the University of Louisville. Marsh is the founder of Lucky 7 Arts, LLC at BLDG 15 Studios in Louisville, KY. He was artist in residence at City Museum in St. Louis after earning his MFA at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (‘01) and BFA at the University of Kentucky (‘95). He serves as chair of the board of directors and executive officer for Josephine Sculpture Park, is a contributing artist at Sculpture Trails Outdoor Museum, and co-chaired the 2017 & 2019 National Conferences on Contemporary Cast Iron Art & Practices. For more information, see www.Lucky7Arts.com.
Assistant Director, Conn Center for Renewable Energy Research
Program Officer, Leigh Ann Conn Prize for Renewable Energy
University of Louisville
Andrew Marsh is a prolific artist, writer, and activist. He is assistant director for Conn Center for Renewable Energy Research and program officer for the Leigh Ann Conn Prize for Renewable Energy at the University of Louisville. Marsh is the founder of Lucky 7 Arts, LLC at BLDG 15 Studios in Louisville, KY. He was artist in residence at City Museum in St. Louis after earning his MFA at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (‘01) and BFA at the University of Kentucky (‘95). He serves as chair of the board of directors and executive officer for Josephine Sculpture Park, is a contributing artist at Sculpture Trails Outdoor Museum, and co-chaired the 2017 & 2019 National Conferences on Contemporary Cast Iron Art & Practices. For more information, see www.Lucky7Arts.com.
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