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NU and Argonne Explore Collaboration to Offer Energy Solutions

The threat of the international energy crisis is ominous. But the tone of the Workshop in Energy Demand, which focused on collaborative solutions, was optimistic and upbeat.

"Energy is the problem of our generation," said Jay Walsh, vice president for research, in his opening remarks at the March 17 event. "In its kindest form, we call this a robust problem."

Walsh went on to add that when humanity is faced with dire problems, it is historically the scientists and engineers who have solved them by working together.

The Initiative for Sustainability and Energy at Northwestern (ISEN), Office for Research, and McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science sponsored the event to help foster research collaborations between the University and Argonne National Laboratory. The daylong workshop featured presentations from researchers at both institutions, focusing on the production and use of energy and offering solutions through alternative fuels.

Following the presentations, researchers participated in energy-themed roundtable discussions and then offered ideas for how Argonne and Northwestern can work together to turn the discussion topics into new or teamed areas of study.

Adam Cohen, deputy associate laboratory director for energy science and engineering at Argonne, was instrumental in organizing the workshop to renew interest in collaboration with Northwestern.

"There's always been some collaboration between the two institutions, but I feel there is much more potential than is being leveraged," he said. "We want researchers to be talking to each other, developing proposals for eventual research, and grow into sharing graduate students and building programs."

The Workshop in Energy Demand hosted a total of 95 researchers and graduate students from both institutions. Held in Northwestern's Allen Center, it was the first in a proposed series of similar workshops. The follow-up event is scheduled for April 29 at Argonne and will focus on energy supply.

"If we're successful in these energy workshops, then we might consider having workshops that focus on other topics," said Mark Petri of Argonne, who is organizing the next event. "What I mean by 'successful' is whether we're able to find areas of collaboration between researchers at both institutions that actually lead to funded proposals."

For more information about ISEN or the Northwestern-Argonne workshop series, please contact Bridget Calendo, ISEN's director of operations and outreach, at bridget@northwestern.edu.

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