Collaborative international projects funded in solar power, cell-based systems, and ultra-low power systems

Research is part of agreement between Autonomous Province of Trento, Italy and University of Maryland

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  February 16, 2012

CONTACT:
Rebecca Copeland
301 405 6602
rebeccac@umd.edu

TRENTO, Italy and COLLEGE PARK, Md.—Funding for international research projects in solar power, cell-based systems, and ultra-low power systems has been announced by the Autonomous Province of Trento, Italy, and the Institute for Systems Research (ISR), a unit of the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland.

These collaborations funded by the Autonomous Province of Trento are part of a partnership recently cemented through a framework program agreement between the province and the University of Maryland.

As part of this relationship, the province and ISR solicited white papers for joint projects in bioengineering/biomedical devices/bio-microsystems; renewable energy and storage/nanomaterials; and microsystems.

Ten papers were submitted from 19 different University of Maryland faculty in 11 organizations across campus and 20 different faculty from four different organizations in Trento.

The Scientific and Technical Committee (CTS) of the Province of Trento selected a premier group of international researchers to provide detailed reviews and comments on the white papers. This referee group collected and considered the information, then made recommendations to the CTS, which made the final decisions. The projects receiving funding are:

Applications for solar dishes: solar cooling and photovoltaic cells in dense array—Roberto Brusa, Sebastiano Turrini, Department of Physics, University of Trento. Reinhard Radermacher and Yunho Hwang, Department of Mechanical Engineering; and Mario Dagenais, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Maryland.

Control of living cells through communication with artificial cells—Sheref Mansy, Center for Integrative Biology, University of Trento. William Bentley, Fischell Department of Bioengineering, University of Maryland.

Energy-Autonomous Ultra-Low Power Vision Systems (EnerVis)—Dario Petri, Roberto Passerone and Davide Brunelli, Information Engineering and Computer Science, Trento. Massimo Gottardi and Pierluigi Bellutti, Center for Materials and Microsystems; Jacopo Iannacci, MEMS research unit, Fondazione Bruno Kessler. Pamela Abshire, Reza Ghodssi, Gang Qu (all Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering/Institute for Systems Research, University of Maryland); and Martin Peckerar, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Maryland.

“I’m sure this is the first important step for strengthening the cooperation between the University of Maryland  and the Trentino System for High Education and Research,” said Dr. Mariano Anderle, the Autonomous Province of Trento’s director of international relations.

“We are excited to begin this new operational phase of our partnership with the Autonomous Province of Trento,” said ISR Director Reza Ghodssi. “The research projects promise to break new ground and will serve as the catalysts for new relationships among faculty, postdoctoral researchers and students in both Maryland and Trento.”

Significantly, researchers will be exchanged between the province and ISR for portions of the projects. This is in keeping with the research internationalization goals of the province and the University of Maryland.

Initial funding for each project is for one year; it is anticipated that the projects will continue beyond this time.

Management and implementation of the agreement is provided by a permanent joint management group with two representatives from the Autonomous Province of Trento—Mariano Anderle and Alberto Lui, deputy director of international relations for the province; and two from the University of Maryland—Reza Ghodssi and Jeff Coriale, ISR’s director of external relations.

Details about the partnership between the Autonomous Province of Trento, Italy, and the University of Maryland are available online at: http://www.isr.umd.edu/news/news_story.php?id=6102.

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