News: CBE

Awards fund innovations in digital agriculture

Projects ranging from a soil-swimming robot that can sense conditions in the root zone in real time to computational models that can predict produce spoilage received seed funds from the Cornell Initiative for Digital Agriculture’s new Research Innovation Fund. Read more

Hybrid energy system could slash campus greenhouse emissions

A study led by Fengqi You , the Roxanne E. and Michael J. Zak Professor in Energy Systems Engineering in the Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, proposed two hybrid energy systems based on Cornell’s Ithaca campus, using geothermal energy in combination with other sources. First author of the paper is Xueyu Tian, M.S. ‘19, who will begin his doctoral studies at Cornell next month and is a researcher in You’s lab. Read more

Piyush Jain of the Stroock Research Group has been awarded a Mong fellowship

The Mong Fellows program will nurture the next generation of scientists and projects at the interface between technology and studies of the function and dysfunction of the brain. About the Mong Fellowship Program: Funding will be provided to exceptionally talented postdoctoral fellows (Mong Senior Fellows) or graduate students (Mong Junior Fellows) pursuing risky, highly creative, projects focused on the development and application of novel technologies for understanding neural function. Appropriate proposals will involve work at early stages, when traditional funding mechanisms are inadequate... Read more

Sheep grazing

Atkinson Academic Venture Fund awards $1.3M to 10 projects

By: Cornell Chronicle

One of the 10 projects supported with this funding is titled, "Expanding AnyTown USA Wastewater Treatment Facilities Into Local Microgrid Hubs" and includes CBE professors Jeff Tester and Fengqi You, as well as Ruth Richardson, civil and environmental engineering; Lori Leonard, development sociology; and Francis Vanek, civil and environmental engineering. Professor You is also a lead investigator on a second funded project titled, "Design Research for Carbon Removal," along with Jamie Vanucchi, landscape architecture; Timur Dogan, architecture; Johannes Lehmann, soil and crop sciences; Allison... Read more

Robert Frederick Smith

Robert F. Smith '85: A billionaire's promise to pay off student loans

By: CNN.com

Morehouse College grads are surprised by the billionaire's promise to pay off their student loans. "On behalf of the eight generations of my family who have been in this country, we're going to put a little fuel in your bus," Smith told the newly minted graduates in Atlanta before saying his family was creating a grant to eliminate their student loans. Read more

Yong Joo

Joo and Suntivich “DOE Battery 500 Seedling” Award selected for Phase II

The team lead by Professor Yong Joo, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Cornell University has been down-selected as a Phase II U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Battery500 Seedlings project. In 2017, Joo group partnered with EIC Labs started working on the development of highly load cathode and coated separator for Li-sulfur batteries as one of 12 Phase I DOE Battery 500 Seedling Projects whose purpose is to identify proof-of-concept that will complement the research in the Battery 500 Program to research, develop and demonstrate lithium-battery technologies capable of achieving a cell... Read more

Susan Daniel, Hadas Kress-Gazit and Associate Dean Hernandez

Susan Daniel received the Senior Faculty Champion Award

This award honors faculty members who have served as dedicated advocates who foster diversity, inclusion, and equity in higher education through exemplary mentorship, leadership, and/or outreach activities within the Cornell community. Those who receive this award have shown an unwavering commitment to promoting the growth and personal and professional development of graduate and professional students who represent the diversity of the Cornell community. It is given by the Office of Inclusion and Student Engagement at the Graduate School and selected by the Graduate and Professional Diversity... Read more

Sijin Li

Siijin Li is awarded a PCCW Affinito-Stewart Grant 

The President’s Council of Cornell Women (PCCW) has awarded Sijin Li a PCCW Affinito-Stewart Grant for her work on the project titled, "Discover novel plant natural products in a yeast-based synthetic biology platform." Sijin will present to PCCW members during the PCCW Symposium in spring 2020. Read more