SyracuseCoE held its annual Industry Partners Council meeting on December 3, 2024. Designed to strengthen the innovation ecosystem in Central New York and beyond, the meeting was open to all members of SyracuseCoE’s Partner Program.
Industry Partners Council Chair Scott MacBain, of Carrier Corporation, opened the meeting and welcomed the attendees. Professor Jianshun “Jensen” Zhang, SyracuseCoE’s Executive Director, provided an update on progress toward the five-year strategic plan, the center’s multiscale testbed capabilities, and ongoing collaborative research projects, including Faculty Fellows projects and Innovation Fund projects. He also highlighted major sponsored projects at SyracuseCoE, including:
- MycoCore Zero Carbon Insulated Panel Systems (Principal Investigator: Nina Wilson)
- Occupant-centric Data-driven Controls for Multiple Energy Assets in Commercial Buildings (PI: Bing Dong)
- Breaking the 4-COP Barrier Affordably – Reducing Applied Losses in Heat Pumps (PI: Ian Shapiro)
- Integrated Whole-Building Energy Efficiency Retrofit Solution for Residences in Cold/Very Cold Climates (PI: Bess Krietemeyer)
- Hydronic Shell: A Minimally Invasive Façade-Integrated HVAC System for High Efficiency and Decarbonized Retrofitting (PI: Jensen Zhang)
After Professor Zhang’s presentation, Professor Ian Shapiro moderated a panel of key partners participating in SyracuseCoE’s Building America project. Panelists were Lisa Hart, Public Health Analyst/Grants Manager at Syracuse Housing Authority, James Williams, Community Engagement Manager at Blueprint 15, and Professor Bing Dong, Associate Director of Grid-Interactive Buildings at SyracuseCoE. The speakers discussed the need to expand heat pump accessibility and shared their efforts to recruit and train minority contractors to install heat pumps in residential buildings throughout Syracuse.
Following the panel discussion, Professor Zhang and Scott MacBain announced the winners of this year’s Innovation Fund awards. Supported by members of the Partner Program, the Innovation Fund helps companies overcome research and development barriers to commercialization of potentially transformative innovations.
Four companies were selected for funding in this round: Hydronic Shell Technologies, M3 Innovation, ThermoVerse and tomPhyzx. Innovation Fund applications were evaluated by a panel of volunteer reviewers: Marco Adolph, TROX; Scott MacBain, Carrier Corporation; Cindy Oehmigen, Manufacturers Association of Central New York (MACNY); Kate Oja, Workforce Development Institute (WDI); and Dan Rickman, U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA).
To close the Industry Partners Council, MacBain invited attendees to provide updates from the companies, encouraging networking and collaboration.
The Industry Partners Council meeting was followed by SyracuseCoE’s December Research & Technology Forum. This month’s forum featured a presentation by Dr. Fengqi You, who serves as the Roxanne E. and Michael J. Zak Professor in Energy Systems Engineering at Cornell University. Professor You’s talk, “Nexus for Net Zero: Fueling and Refining Energy Decarbonization with Generative AI, Quantum Computing, and Blockchain,” highlighted his research at Cornell’s Process-Energy-Environmental Systems Engineering (PEESE) lab.
The final event of the day was SyracuseCoE’s annual holiday party, offering partners, students, faculty and staff the opportunity to connect and socialize before the end of the semester.
SyracuseCoE’s Partner Program is open to established businesses and startups, as well as community-based organizations. To learn more or join, Tamara Rosanio, Associate Director of Partner Programs, at tlrosani@syr.edu.