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Mission Statement

Goals

Objectives and Significance

Leadership

Participating Members

Mission Statement

Our mission is to build a trans-disciplinary Research Coordination Network (RCN) on Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) that will facilitate research collaborations and training that cross the boundaries of the natural sciences, engineering, and the social and economic sciences to develop new understanding, theories, models and technologies as well as assessment tools for the developed technologies and their implementation plans for global communities.

Goals of RCN-CCUS Program

The goal of the RCN program is to advance a field or create new directions in research or education by supporting groups of investigators to communicate and coordinate their research, training and educational activities across disciplinary, organizational, geographic and international boundaries.  RCN provides opportunities to foster new collaborations, including international partnerships, and address interdisciplinary topics.  Innovative ideas for implementing novel networking strategies, collaborative technologies, and development of community standards for data and meta-data are especially encouraged.

Objectives and Significance of RCN-CCUS

The RCN-CCUS is formulated to provide transformative research collaborations in Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) that effectively cross the boundaries of the natural sciences, engineering, and the social and economic sciences. This effort would lead to new understandings, theories, models and technologies as well as assessment tools for CCUS and their implementation plans for global communities, while allowing the creation of the workforce that has the holistic understanding of CCUS related issues with strong scientific and engineering skills through extensive educational and outreach activities.

Learn More about CCUS


Leadership

Columbia Team

Prof. Ah-Hyung Alissa Park

The PI of the RCN-CCUS, Prof. Ah-Hyung Alissa Park, has extensive experience in energy and environmental related research with emphasis on Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) as well as sustainable energy conversion technologies particularly involving biomass and wastes.

Park is the Lenfest Junior Professor in Applied Climate Science of Earth and Environmental Engineering & Chemical Engineering at Columbia University. She is also the Associate Director of the Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy. Under her leadership, a management team at Columbia University and AIChE work collegially to coordinate all the research, educational and outreach activities.

AIChE Team

Dr. Darlene Schuster

Dr. Darlene Schuster serves as the Executive Director of the Institute for Sustainability, an AIChE Technological Community, where she oversees the industry, membership and youth-focused entities formed to advance the science and state of sustainability and the creation of the AIChE Sustainability Index (sm), a benchmark for industry. She also staffs the new AIChE Center for Energy Initiatives, the Society for Biological Engineering, and the International Society for Water Solutions.


Participating Members

The participating members of the proposed RCN-CCUS include researchers in academia, national labs, young professionals, K-12 teachers, international partners and industrial members. The active participation of the five Engineering Founder Societies (i.e., AIChE (American Institute of Chemical Engineers), AIME (American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers), ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers), ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) and IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)) allow this RCN-CCUS network team to reach vast groups of potential participants with diverse backgrounds and skills.

With the belief that it is the responsibility of engineers and engineering professional societies to respond to this grand challenge of CCUS, these engineering societies have already launched “The Engineering Founder Societies Climate Change Grand Challenge Initiative.” It is rare for these traditional engineering societies to work together for the same goals so that their efforts are one of the integral parts of our RCN-CCUS. The overall management of the RCN-CCUS is carried out by the Earth Institute at Columbia University. The Earth Institute has successfully brought together the people and tools needed to address some of the world's most difficult problems from climate change and environmental degradation, poverty, disease and the sustainable use of resources. Thus, the existing organizational structures at the Earth Institute and the national engineering societies provide important supporting systems for the proposed RCN-SEES and ensure its success.

See list of participating members