In an effort to keep our community informed about all activities and collaborations in the CCNY PIRE Project, we have created the second issue of the PIRE Newsletter Series.

#2

Winter 2020

The Second Edition of Our
Newsletter Series

News & Events

Third Annual Review Meeting

January, 2020

The Third Annual Review Meeting, initially scheduled in June of 2020 in Paris, was held remotely from January 25th-27th 2021. Though the pandemic prevented us from gathering in-person, we had a productive 3 days. The PIRE Project intends to hold its Fourth Annual Review Meeting in-person in Fall of 2021. Stay tuned!

Third Year Report

September, 2020

In the third year, research continued and journal publications have been published and submitted. Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, seminars, educational programs and internships have been heavily impacted. Despite 2020’s unique adversities, this PIRE project continues to build upon and enhance existing collaborations and its efforts to contribute to STEM education of exceptional undergraduate and graduate students from underrepresented groups by providing them with outstanding research opportunities and extensive international experiences at home and in partner countries.

Second Year Report

August, 2019

A five-year, $5.2 million project at the City College of New York (CCNY) supported by the National Science Foundation’s Office of International Science & Engineering has entered its second year in October 2018. This PIRE project builds upon and enhances existing collaborations among CCNY and three Norwegian, four French and five German institutions with the US playing a leadership role in investigations of multi-scale phenomena in complex (Non-Newtonian), multi-phase fluids that are vital to energy technologies. 
An important societal outcome of this project is that it would advance and transform key engineering technologies of high relevance in the energy industries and importance in environmental sustainability. The project has also continued to contribute to STEM education of exceptional undergraduate and graduate students from underrepresented groups by providing them with outstanding research opportunities and extensive international experiences at home and in partner countries.

Second Annual Review Meeting

June 17-18, 2019

The Second Annual Review Meeting was hosted by the Norwegian researchers Dr. Sigbjorn Sangesland and Dr. Harald Linga at Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, Norway, on June 17-18, 2019. The Norwegian hosts warmly welcomed the meeting participants who flew in from the US, France, and Oslo.

The meeting was intended to further the project’s research agenda, promote collaboration, and enhance the training of the students participating in the PIRE Project at CCNY. The agenda included a program overview, a review of distinct thrust areas, lab tours, thrust area breakout meetings, a discussion of educational and outreach programs, IP issues, and social events.
A total of five faculty and four students from CCNY and 14 collaborating researchers from Norway and France attended this meeting in person, and an additional five researchers joined the meeting via Skype. Technical sessions were followed by a tour of laboratories at NTNU and SINTEF, including the industrial- scale Tiller Multiphase Flow Research Laboratory.

Guest Lectures

October 22, 2018 to April 2, 2019
A series of lectures were held at The City College of New York during the Fall of 2018 and Spring 2019. On October 22-23 of 2018, Doctor Jeffrey Harwell gave a talk on Microemulsions: Definition, Properties, Modeling, And Design. On December 3, 2018, Professor Nicolas Alvarez’s lecture was about Correlating Electrode Slurry Microstructure To Final Electrode Performance: A Rheological Approach. On December 5, 2018, Ms. Aleksandra Pachalieva was invited, her talk was on Deriving Lattice Boltzmann Collision Operator Using The Molecular-Dynamics-Lattice-Gas (MDLG) Approach. The speakers invited in 2019 were Doctor Oliver Mullins Professor of Petroleum Engineering at Texas A&M University and Professor Ulrich Scheler head of the Department of Polyelectrolytes and Dispersions at the Leibniz Institute for Polymer Research in Dresden, Germany.

First Annual Review Meeting

June 18 – 20, 2018

The First Annual Review Meeting (ARM) was held at The City College of New York on June 18-20, 2018. A total of ten collaborating international researchers attended this meeting in person, and additional 12 researchers joined via BlueJeans. On June 17, a casual reception was held at a local restaurant to welcome some of the European collaborators. In each morning session, presentations were made by the PIRE faculty, students and international collaborators in person or via BlueJeans. In the afternoon, more detailed discussions were held in separate Thrust meetings, and lab tours were given including CUNY’s advanced Science Research Center (ASRC) located on the CCNY campus.
On the second day of the ARM, an Advisory Board meeting was held. After the introduction of all PIRE faculty and students, and representatives of international collaborators, an overview of the PIRE project and progress made in Year 1 were given by the PIRE Project Director, Masahiro Kawaji, followed by Thrust leaders and International Team Coordinators, offering the team leadership’s viewpoints and concepts of synergy. The Advisory Board also met with all the PIRE students and the postdoctoral researcher.

June 4 – 11, 2018

The PIRE Project held a series of Research Thrust meetings June 4 – 11, 2018. Each of the five PIRE Research Thrusts met separately on a particular day. Thrust meetings were attended by the City College faculty, Ph.D. students, and by European PIRE Project collaborators. The collaborators from Europe, who joined the meetings via video conference, included researchers, industry professionals, and Ph.D. students.

PIRE Project Mini-Workshop

March 15, 2018

On March 15, 2018, the PIRE Project held its first Mini-Workshop that was attended by PIRE Project City College faculty, Ph.D. students, and PIRE collaborators from Europe who participated remotely via video conference. The Mini-Workshop focused on the PIRE-related research. The workshop presentations were organized by research thrusts. PIRE Ph.D. students from each of the four research thrusts made a series of presentations on their work, followed by questions, comments, and feedback. In addition to research topics, summer and research internships and the upcoming PIRE Annual Review Meeting on June 18 – 20, 2018, were also discussed at the Mini-Workshop.

January 10, 2018

A five-year research project on complex fluids with potential for transformative scientific discoveries in industries from petro-chemical to cosmetics is underway at The City College of New York’s Grove School of Engineering.  Funded by a $5.2 million National Science Foundation grant, the initiative includes 11 partner institutions in France, Germany and Norway.

PIRE Project Director Masahiro Kawaji

PIRE Project Opening Reception​

December 6, 2017

In celebration of the achievement and the commencement of the PIRE Project, an opening reception was held at The City College of New York. The event was attended by the CUNY Executive Vice Chancellor and University Provost Vita Rabinowitz, CUNY Interim Associate Vice Chancellor for Research Daniel McCloskey, President of the City College of New York Vincent Boudreau, President of the Research Foundation of CUNY Richard Rothbard, Research Director of SINTEF Petroleum Research (Norway) Harald Linga, as well as by the City College faculty, PIRE students, and staff. 

August 30, 2017

The City College of New York-based CUNY Energy Institute is the recipient of a five-year $5.2 million National Science Foundation PIRE grant for advanced research on complex fluids. It will fund the Institute’s “PIRE: Multi-scale, Multi-phase Phenomena in Complex Fluids for the Energy Industries” project that involves 11 international partner institutions from France, Germany and Norway.