With over 360 speakers from 28 nations, the International Conference on Energy and Environment (ICEE), held in Shanghai, China during the period December 11–13, 2003, was a tremendous success. The event was organized jointly by the George Washington University and the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology (USST).
SEAS Dean Timothy Tong was Co-Chairman of the ICEE and served as the moderator of the opening plenary session. Also participating in the ICEE were Prof. Jonathan Deason, Lead Professor of the Environmental and Energy Management program in the Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Department; Prof. Charles Garris, Chairman of the Civil & Environmental Engineering Department; Prof. William Roper of the Civil & Environmental Engineering Department; and doctoral students Elvin Yuzugullu (Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Department), Yi-Chun Catherine Liu (Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Department) and Hongfang Zhang (Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department).
In addition, a number of other colleagues were involved in the organizing team for the past two years. These included Prof. Robert Romano (Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Department), Oscar Carrasco (Civil & Environmental Engineering Department), Adina Lav (SEAS), Prof. Mark Starik (School of Business & Public Management), Prof. Tee Guidotti (School of Public Health & Health Services), Prof. Robert Beauchamp (University of Maryland), Prof. Timothy Kao (The Catholic University of America), Prof. Michael Chi (The Catholic University of America) and Prof. Gajanan Sabnis (Howard University).
The ICEE conference served as an international forum for the exchange of information and creation of a dialogue on critical energy and related environmental issues. Topics covered during the conference ranged from technical issues such as measuring techniques in energy and environmental engineering, cryogenic engineering, waste technologies, combustion, power equipments and renewable energy technologies, to policy issues such as climate change and energy/environmental policies. The conference opened with welcome addresses (by SEAS Dean Tong and USST President Prof. Kangmin Chen) and plenary lectures, and continued for three days at the USST’s Conference Center in Shanghai.
Prof. Deason, who served as Co-Chairman of the International Organizing Committee for the event, chaired two sessions on Advances in Waste-Stream Technologies and also presented the keynote paper (“A New Approach to Cleaning up Contaminated Urban River Corridors in the United States: The Urban River Restoration Initiative”) at one of the sessions. Prof. Roper chaired two sessions on Advances in Measuring Technologies and presented three papers (“Off Shore Wind Energy Production: A United States Case Study at Cape Cod, Massachusetts”; “Environmental Assessment Case Study: AES Parana Power Plant Development Project in San Nicolás, Argentina”; and “Remote Sensing and Geospatial Technology Assessment of Pipeline Safety and Security”) in the Renewable Energy Technologies, Urban Environmental Protection Technologies and Advances in Measuring Technologies sessions. Prof. Garris chaired two sessions on Advances on Refrigeration, Air Conditioning and Cryogenic Engineering.
Doctoral student Elvin Yuzugullu presented a paper (“Renewable Electricity Generation in the U.S.: the REPiS Database”) in one of the Renewable Energy Technologies sessions, and doctoral student Hongfang Zhang (Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department) presented a paper (“Recent Progress in an Experimental and Computational Investigation on the Supersonic Pressure-Exchange Ejector”) in one of the Advances in Refrigeration, Air-conditioning and Cryogenic Engineering sessions.
During the conference, participants had a chance to socialize and exchange ideas at the lunch and coffee breaks and at the receptions held in the evenings after the sessions. On the day following the end of the conference, a one-day tour was organized to Zhouzhuang, a 900-year old ancient city by the water.
The conference web site and logo were developed by doctoral student Elvin Yuzugullu. For more information on the conference, please visit the conference web site.