Applied Physics Undergraduate Presentations Address Sustainable Energy

Applied Physics juniors and seniors participated in a seminar entitled “Innovation and science to advance our energy and climate goals.” Students learned the physics of climate and energy from leading experts at Columbia, and followed the world-wide events leading up to the 2015 Paris Climate Conference.

In addition to studying the physics of planetary climate and the scale of world-wide energy technology, students formed five “Innovation Teams” to bring their own ideas to the seminar. Each student prepared presentations, based on individual interests, about an innovation contributing to sustainable energy including a technical summary of work and research to be done and arguments showing why their ideas showed promise. Each presentation was lead by members of this year’s senior class. They explained the innovation with minimal jargon and explained how it addresses sustainable energy issues.

This year's team presentations were:

* "Revolutionize Battery Technology using Supercapacitors built with graphene and carbon nanotubes" by Seth Olsen, Jonathan Fletcher, Alex Battey, Kevin Murphy, and Chen Zhang

* "The Smart Grid: A look at how technology and data can revolutionize the energy industry" by Omar Mahmood, Drew Feldman, Edwin Vargas, William Wei, Tyler Cowan, and Derek Tropff

* “A Platform for Public Education on Basic Climate Change Science" by Joshua Cohen, Lucas Zeppetello, and Jason Williams

* "Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors: Back to the Future" by Sean Ballinger, Ben Israeli, Michael Wang, and Farrah Simpson

* "Agricultural Methane Capture and Use" by Anton Baleato Lizancos, Richard Creswell, James Page, and Lauren Riddiford

The activities and presentations from Applied Physics Undergraduate Seminar is available online at http://sites.apam.columbia.edu/courses/apph4903-2015/