Lab Members
Principle Investigator Dr. Max Zhang joined the Cornell MAE faculty in 2006. Prior to that, he was a research scientist at the Air Quality Research Center, University of California at Davis. Before that he was a visiting scientist to USEPA National Exposure Research Laboratory in 2000 and 2002. Dr. Zhang teachs Engineering Thermodynamics, Future Energy Systems, and Air Quality classes through the Sibley School. He is also the faculty advisor to the CU Green student project team.287 Grumman Hall
607-254-5402
kz33@cornell.edu
Ph.D. Candidate Xing Wang entered Max's energy lab in 2006, researching the near-roadway air pollution topics. He conducted a series of field campaigns in several cities, such as Ithaca, Syracuse, and Beijing, for characterizing the traffic-related air pollutants and evaluating the performance of different approaches in mitigating the near-road pollution. He is also designing the Traffic-Emission-Dispersion(TED) system in Syracuse project, which is aiming to monitor the real time traffic infomation, on-road emission as well as pollutant level in near-road communities. Air Pollution, Aerosols, and Nanoparticles
xw66@cornell.edu
Ph.D. candidate Keenan Valentine's research interests are in energy and transportation systems, fluid mechanics and environmental sustainability. He earned a B.S.E in mechanical engineering (Summa Cum Laude) from Arizona State University in 2009. He was a NASA Langley Aerospace Research Summer Scholar, and a NASA Space Grant research intern in 2008. He was also the secretary of the ASU student chapter of ASME from 2007 to 2009. Electric/Transportation Systems Analysis
kfv266@cornell.edu
Ph.D. Candidate Yan Wang is currently modeling near-roadway air pollution (carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and ultrafine particles) using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models with rigorous treatments of turbulence transport, chemical reactions and aerosol dynamics. In the short time he has been working under the guidance of Prof. Zhang, he has made exceptional progress in modeling and hopes his work can make contributions to the improvement of our environment and people's life. Air Pollution, Aerosols, and Nanoparticles
yw36@cornell.edu
Ph.D. Candidate Jonathan Steffens
Ph.D. Candidate Santiago Naranjo Palacio 
Jonathan Carbajal is currently a Mechanical Engineering M.Eng student with a focus area in Energy and the Environment. Jonathan has been developing a career path in the Energy field throughout his undergraduate and graduate time at Cornell. Most recently, Jonathan spent the summer working with Mercury Solar Systems, a full-service solar company that designs, engineers and sells solar power systems. Jonathan designed layout drawings, 1-line and 3-line electrical diagrams for various sites as well as spending two weeks physically installing PV systems. During his undergrad, Jonathan also completed a Coop with National Grid, a utilities company. While at National Grid, he worked in their Power Engineering department servicing National Grid’s various power plants. Jonathan is excited to join the Electric Vehicle Charger team bringing with him a strong knowledge of Power Systems and a passion for the industry. Air Pollution, Aerosols, and Nanoparticles
jc564@cornell.edu
Chris Chamberlin is a Senior in Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering. Originally from Florida, he came to Cornell for a change of scenery and weather; however, aftering being here for four years, he hopes to move back somewhere with much warmer weather. He has tried to involve himself in as many activities, both in the engineering school and on the campus in general, that he can. As a freshman, he became involved with the FSAE project team and designed the mock up exhaust manifold for the 2006 car. In his Junior year, he began researching the aerodynamic effects created by body modifications to a Porsche 944 Turbo. He also TA'ed the Thermodynamics class. His current research is on the feasability of creating a smart home monitoring system in a cheap and easy manner. He is very excited to be working on this for the rest of the year, and he hopes that the team can make great strides in this subject. Air Pollution, Aerosols, and Nanoparticles
crc35@cornell.edu
Andy Hall is a Masters of Engineering student in Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering. He researches the impact of near-road pollutant sources on the number concentration and size distribution of airborne ultrafine particulates. In addition, he is a lead engineering manager on the Cornell 100MPG car team responsible for batteries, cooling/HVAC, modeling, and transmission. He is most interested in engineering sustainable energy systems and hopes to soon get a job in the solar or wind power industry. In his free time, he enjoys playing electric guitar in an indie rock band.Air Pollution, Aerosols, and Nanoparticles
ajh62@cornell.edu
Mathieu van Vliet goes by his middle name, Francois, and is a second-semester Master of Engineering (M&AE) candidate. His interests lie in the area of renewable energy and energy policy. His research project will cover the possibility of implementing a Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) system in the New York Metropolitan Area (NYMA) which makes use of the Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle's (PHEV) potential to sell energy back to the grid during peak demand hours. He will look at different implementation methods as well as different cost structures, considering things ranging from charging stations to which parked PHEVs can hook up to and draw charge from or deliver charge to, to real-time pricing schemes.Air Pollution, Aerosols, and Nanoparticles
mfv4@cornell.edu
Disha Patel is currently an Electrical Engineering M.Eng. student with a focus area in Power and Energy Systems. She earned a B.S (EE) from Purdue University (West Lafayette, IN) and has had internships at Cummins Inc. and Midwest ISO. Her research project with the Community Energy Simulations group will quantify the effects of using a smart grid in a community.Community Energy Simulation
dmp247@cornell.edu
Kuming Chang is a Ph.D. Candidate in Regional Science. Before coming to the U.S., he received B.S. and M.S. degree in Applied Economics from National Chung-Hsing University, with thesis work in efficiency and productivity analysis by using the nonparametric Data Envelopment Analysis(DEA). His current research interests are in applied econometrics, energy economics, environmental economics and industrial organization. His main work in EERL is to design the incentive-based market penetration model for the Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) by using the concept of discrete choice method. Meanwhile, he is also planning to compare his model with different forecasting techniques in market penetration of the new durable goods. He hopes his research can make a great contribution to improve our environment and society.
Electric/Transportation Systems Analysis
kc346@cornell.edu
Megha Basu is currently pursuing her MEng degree in Electrical
Engineering. She has graduated with a Bachelors in Electrical
Engineering from Drexel University. Her studies focussed on both Power
Systems and Controls. She has worked with Motorola and Schweitzer
Engineering Laboratories for 6 months each. Her undergraduate research
was mainly in 3 Phase Power systems analysis which is why she decided to
join this group. Her goal in this project is to model a Smart Grid for
the Cornell community and to quantify its benefits to see how useful its
implementation will be. She will be doing power flow studies and
analysis of smart devices to build a successful Smart Grid. Community Energy Simulation
mb845@cornell.edu
Harlan Blynn joins the team with more than 5 years of strategic marketing and analysis experience for technology and communications firms such as Nextel, Sprint, and XM Satellite Radio. Most recently, he was a corporate strategy summer intern for Tendril Networks and now serves as an independent consultant in the smart grid sector. As a 2nd year MBA student, Harlan leads the business team’s efforts to analyze the financial aspects of smart grid implementation and develop emerging business opportunities stemming increased communications in electricity transmission and consumption.
Community Energy Simulation
hb272@cornell.edu