Innovators of the Month: January 2015

soc-inn-nwi-logoThis issue of "NWI Innovators of the Month" highlights Scott Duncan, Ph.D., a member of the award-winning 2014 – 2015 Team of the James S. Markiewicz Solar Energy Facility, College of Engineering, Valparaiso University; and Neeti Parashar, Ph.D., Purdue University Calumet and a 2014-2015 Fellow. This issue is for the media serving Jasper, Lake, LaPorte, Newton, Porter, Pulaski and Starke Counties.

The Society celebrates Fellows, Chanute Prize and Accelerating Greatness co-recipients; and other Members of the 2014 – 2015 Class of Innovators. The Society shares inspiring stories of innovation in each edition. The Society is part of the Gerald I. Lamkin Innovation & Entrepreneurship Center of Ivy Tech Community College Northwest. For information, contact O'Merrial Butchee, Director, Gerald I. Lamkin Innovation & Entrepreneurship Center at (219) 981-4942, or John Davies, Assistant Director, at (219) 981-1111, Ext. 2292.

Scott-DuncanValpo Solar Furnace Achieves Milestones in High Stakes Project!

Using 305 mirrors of the solar furnace that has the power of 2000 suns and concentrates energy like a giant magnifying glass, the team of the James S. Markiewicz Solar Energy Facility at Valparaiso University is preparing to move from the lab into the solar furnace to continue its groundbreaking research. Funded through a $2.3 million grant through the Department of Energy, the goal is to create a commercially viable process of making magnesium using sunlight.

"The team has proven the feasibility of doing this in the laboratory, and now we are preparing to do this in the solar furnace," said Scott Duncan, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering, Valpo College of Engineering.

This follows on the heels of the team meeting multiple milestones of the DOE for the first year of its ARPA – E grant. Success could result in a cost-effective manufacturing process in the U.S. that is less harmful to the environment and less energy intensive. Today, most magnesium comes from China and is desirable in the transportation sector because it is 30% lighter than aluminum. Now students guided by faculty are designing and building a solar thermal reactor for the second phase of this three-year project. The DOE grant is the first of two grants awarded the College. The second is from the National Science Foundation to produce hydrogen for fuel cells and other sectors. These projects have involved upwards of 60 undergraduate students. Research is directed by Dr. Robert Palumbo, principal investigator, who had the idea to create the nation's 5th solar furnace at Valpo. This team won the 2014 – 2015 Accelerating Greatness Award for Team Innovation.

neeti1Purdue Cal's Parashar is Part of Global Team that Made 'History!'

When describing the Higgs-Boson particle – the so-called "God particle" - that revolutionized world science, Neeti Parashar, Ph.D., Professor, Physics at Purdue University Calumet, said being a member of a global team of thousands of scientists who contributed to this discovery made "history." This proved the particle exists which helps explain the origins of the universe, and led to the 2013 Nobel Prize being awarded to Peter Higgs and Francois Englert. The discovery was announced on July 4, 2012 at the huge collider in CERN, culminating for Dr. Parashar 17 years of research at Tier 1 institutions. She had worked at Northeastern University, Boston; Louisiana Tech University; and at Purdue Cal, doing her research while carrying a full load as a faculty member.

In addition to visiting CERN, she and her team also did federally funded research at the Fermilab outside of Chicago. She added that her most important contributions came during her seven years here. She led a team of Purdue post-doctoral fellows, graduate and undergraduate students, including at least one student who joined her in Switzerland to visit the collider where the discovery took place in a five-story underground facility. She and her team worked on the pixel detector where a massive collision of subatomic particles produced 8 trillion volts of electricity. Today, her work continues, updating the collider to find more Higgs particles, as well as teaching three classes and two labs.

"I am proud that Purdue Calumet is on the world's map as one of 200 institutions involved in this historic research."