AUS Faculty Workshop on Renewable Energy Education and Research: Addressing the Need of Industry

Summary and Objectives

The Renewable Energy Research Center (RERC) at American University of Sharjah (AUS) is proud to host the First Faculty Workshop on Renewable Energy Education and Research: Addressing the Need of Industry (FW-REER’18) in Sharjah, UAE.

The objective of the proposed two-day workshop is to discuss current and future renewable energy education and research activities that address the need of the energy industrial sectors while offering efficient energy sustainability. The workshop will discuss the recent development made in the renewable sources, energy efficiency and conversion and how such topics can be integrated in the electrical engineering curriculum to enhance the knowledge of power engineers. In addition, possible joint research collaboration between industry and university will be addressed.

The workshop will focus on renewable energy course requirements in different curricula while identifying new topics that must be integrated to fit the major developments in the energy sector. This is achieved by providing an opportunity to many experts from both academia and industry and students to share their experiences in the energy field, especially renewable sources, energy efficiency and conversion. This will enable the participants to reach a consensus on global energy curricula.

The workshop will also address the implementation of  laboratories accompanying the energy courses to enhance the practical accepts as well as to boost the learning process and to induce critical thinking for better energy solutions. In addition, recent research and development issues in the energy sector will be presented while exploring possible international collaboration. The second day will highlight the importance of upgrading the skills of current engineers to meet the new and current energy developments through lifelong learning. Finally, recommendations from industrial and academic representatives will take place.

Intellectual Merit

Intellectual merit of the proposed workshop centers on the need to engage dialogue on renewable energy education and research activities between experts in the Gulf region and the near countries and the US and European experts, and explore possible joint research collaboration between the different sides. This is timely in light of the increasing pressures of globalization in the engineering profession.

Broader Impact

The broader impact of the proposed workshop is develop a better understanding of the curriculum changes when it comes to teaching renewable energy systems from different prospective. New course materials and laboratory experiments will be outlined and distributed to universities in the Middle East. The workshop will pay attention to ways to promote the ever increasing need for engineers focusing on energy, in particular renewable sources, energy efficiency and conversion, hence, ideas for recruiting, retaining and mentoring undergraduate students, graduate students and young faculty in these areas will be discussed.

Faculty and Student Participation

We propose to have invited speakers from Europe and the US, in addition to graduate students, who over the course of the workshop will present diverse research and educational activities in the renewable energy field. It is expected that during the final day of the workshop, possible future research collaboration between industry and universities in the region will be explored and identified.

The Need for the Workshop in the UAE

The host institution (AUS) has unique experience in energy and educational activities, and has strong commitment to bring expertise from the US and elsewhere. This proposed workshop calls for a joint collaboration between several energy faculty in the US, Europe and the Gulf area. The PIs are proposing to organize a workshop with emphasis on curriculum development, laboratory teaching, interactive and lifelong learning in the energy area.

AUS, as in the past, should continue to take the lead in organizing such workshops, especially at the international level. This workshop allows all sides to establish joint collaboration in renewable energy education development and research to enhance the worldwide industrial energy sector.

Topics of Discussions

I. Updating of energy requirements in current curricula:

• Discuss the status of energy education in the US and the region with specific interest to renewable sources and energy efficiency.  
• Discuss the integration of these topics in energy systems courses.
• Identify key course offerings in renewable energy, energy efficiency and conversion at both undergraduate, graduate levels and short courses for industry.
• Explore existing multimedia delivery of renewable energy, energy efficiency and conversion education and lifelong learning.

II. Modern laboratory and tools development:

• The importance of hardware and software laboratories accompanying energy courses.
• Critical experiments to be included in lab courses, software package(s) for renewable energy, energy efficiency and conversion and identification of specific simulation assignments.
• Typical hardware and software laboratory set up for renewable sources and energy efficiency.
• Integration of interactive classroom instructions in the energy field with specific industrial applications.

III. Recent research development in renewable energy and its role in the future energy sector:

• Present research outcomes in renewable energy and its application to future energy industry.
• Discuss current trends and future directions of renewable energy, energy efficiency and conversion in the energy industry.
• Discuss the university role in educating energy engineers for the industry, and what kind of expertise they need to have.

2. Final Workshop Schedule

To download the final workshop schedule, please click here.

3. Presentation Abstracts

To download the presentation abstracts, please click here.

Zaher Daboussi, PhD

CTO Technology & Engineering Limited.
Abu Dhabi, UAE
E-mail: [email protected]

Biography:

Dr. Daboussi is a power electronics and system/control specialist with 27+ years of experience developing innovative technologies and delivering hardware/software solutions for the energy and the transportation sectors.

In the USA for 18 years while at KEC Boston, MA and Aerovironment Los Angeles, CA Dr. Daboussi developed electrical propulsion systems for ground and aerial applications, and power processing equipment for renewable energy, distributed resources, energy storage and fast charging solutions for the energy and utility sectors. Since 2007, Dr. Daboussi has been working in the UAE with Mubadala and Tawazun establishing engineering capabilities in robotics and automation. Currently Dr. Daboussi is the CTO of GLOTEC LTD a company based in the UK and UAE.

Dr. Daboussi’s has 10 US Patents registered under his name and many technical publications. His interests are technology driven solutions for transforming the energy, utility and transportation sectors. Dr. Daboussi is a senior IEEE member and served on the IEEE committee for 1547 National Standard for Interconnecting Distributed Generation. In addition, Dr. Daboussi is an ABET PEV who participate in accrediting electrical engineering programs.

Chaouki Ghenai, PhD

Associate Professor - Sustainable and Renewable Energy Engineering Department, College of Engineering
Coordinator – Sustainable Energy Development Research Group, Research Institute for Science and Engineering
Chairman – Research Funding Department
University of Sharjah
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 971-505-3971

Biography:

Chaouki Ghenai is an Associate Professor at the Sustainable and Renewable Energy Engineering (SREE) Department, College of Engineering; the Coordinator of the Sustainable Energy Development Research Group at the Research Institute of Science and Engineering (RISE); and the Chairman of the Research Funding Department at the Office of Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Studies, University of Sharjah. Dr. Ghenai has a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Orleans University, France. Before joining the University of Sharjah, He worked at Florida Atlantic University (Boca Raton, Florida, USA), Florida International University (Miami, FL), University of Los Angeles California (CA), Kansas State University (KS), and Cornell University, Ithaca (NY). Dr. Ghenai is teaching renewable energy courses at the SREE department, coordinating the Sustainable Energy Development Research program at the Research Institute of Science and Engineering, and chairing the Research Funding Department at the University of Sharjah. Dr. Ghenai research interests are renewable energy (solar, wind, bioenergy), energy efficiency, energy conversion systems, combustion, biofuels, alternative fuels, clean combustion technologies, waste to energy, sustainability, eco-design, energy-water nexus, energy planning and climate change mitigation assessment, modeling and simulation of micro gird power systems and air pollution. Dr. Ghenai has more 100 papers published in journals, conferences, books, and book chapters. Dr. Ghenai has proven record of multidisciplinary research in energy and thermal fluids; management of research groups and laboratories; and leadership role in collaborative and sponsored research projects (Sharjah Electricity and Water Authority, Sharjah Research Academy, Enova, DryWired ME Green Tech, NSF, NASA, U.S Air Force, U.S. Army, DOE).

Khaled Nigim, Ph.D., SMIEEE, PEng.

Lambton College, School of Technology, Energy and Apprenticeship
Canada
Email: [email protected]

Biography:

Khaled Nigim is senior member of IEEE and currently the research lead in developing power management controller in the renewable energy conversion and storage research project funded by NSERC at Lambton College, Sarnia, Ontario, Canada. He has PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Leicester, England and is a registered professional engineer in Ontario, Canada. His research interest are, Renewable Energy Conversion & Storage and Automation and Process Control. Author of more than 60 technical papers covering topics in renewable energy resources integration, islanding strategy, challenging and opportunities of distributed generation fuelled by alternative energy sources, the development of AC and DC micro-grid concepts, as well as reactive power compensation for wind farms and photovoltaic energy parks. Khaled also works as a consultant for the World Bank’s post-secondary quality improvement fund that investigates and makes recommendations for academic institutions curriculum development and upgrade in collaboration with the private sector in the Palestinian Universities.

Siddharth Suryanarayanan

Associate Professor & Rhoden Professor
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
1373 Campus Delivery, Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO 80523-1373, USA
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +1 970 491-4632

Biography:

Sid Suryanarayanan is from Chennai, India. He received the M.S. and the Ph.D. in electrical engineering in 2001 and 2004, respectively, from Arizona State University. Currently, he is an associate professor in the Dept. of ECE at Colorado State University and holds the Lisa and Desi Rhoden College Professorship in Electrical and Computer Engineering. He has over 100 technical publications in journals and conferences. Suryanarayanan is the co-editor of two books in electric power engineering. He is a senior member of the IEEE and actively contributes to the IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES). His recent awards include the 2017 IEEE Eta-Kappa-Nu (HKN) C. Holmes MacDonald Outstanding Teaching Award and the 2015 IEEE Power and Energy Society Outstanding Young Engineer Award.

Abdul-Ghani Olabi

Chair and Director of Sustainable and Renewable Energy Department,
University of Sharjah,
P.O. Box: 27272
Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
Email: [email protected]

Biography:

Prof Olabi is Chair and Head of Sustainable and Renewable Energy Engineering Department “SREE” at the University Of Sharjah “UOS”. Before joining UOS, he was the director and founding member of the Institute of Engineering and Energy Technologies at the University of the West of Scotland.

Prof Olabi received his M.Eng and Ph.D. from Dublin City University, since 1984 he worked at different national and international institutes such as; National Research Centre-Italy “CNR”, Research Centre of FIAT-Italy “CRF”, Dublin City University “DCU” and Institute of Engineering and Energy Technologies “IEET” at UWS. Prof Olabi has supervised postgraduate research students (10 M.Phil and 32PhD) to successful completion. Prof Olabi has edited more than 20 proceedings, and has published more than 350 papers in peer-reviewed international journals and international conferences, in addition to more than 25 book chapters. In the last 4 years Prof Olabi has patented 2 innovative projects. Prof Olabi is the founder of the International Conference on Sustainable Energy and Environmental Protection SEEP, www.seepconference.com  and the International Conference on Materials Science and Smart Materials.

He is the Subject Editor of the Elsevier Energy Journal, Editor in Chief of the Encyclopedia of Smart Materials (Elsevier), Editor of the Reference Module of Materials Science and Engineering (Elsevier), Editor in Chief of Renewable Energy section of Energies and board member of a few other journals. Prof Olabi has coordinated different National, EU and International Projects. He has produced different reports to the Irish Gov. regarding: Hydrogen and Fuel Cells and Solar Energy.

Sustainable and Renewable Energy Engineering Department “SREE” has around 600 students, 15 academic members, 6 Engineers and administrators working on Teaching, Research and Innovation of the renewable energy sectors and related fields.

Associate Professor
Applied Automation and Industrial Diagnostic Laboratory,
University of Djelfa 17000 DZ, Algeria.
URL: https://www.univ-djelfa.dz/labo/laadi

Biography:

Mr Kouzou Abdellah (IEEE Senior memebr & IACSIT Senior member, IFAC,IAENG & IISRO member, IEEE-HKN Alumni Member) was born in Djelfa, Algeria in 1964. He is a collaborator researcher at Texas A&M University at Qatar. He has been the president of the Scientific council of the faculty since June 2014. He has participated in several research projects and has led several research projects. He is the founder of the Power Electronics and Power Quality research group at the Applied Automation and Industrial Diagnostic Laboratory, University of Djelfa in Algeria. He is the supervisor of many PhD Students in Algeria. He is a member of the Smart Grid Center at Qatar SGC-Q . He is a member of many editorial boards for several scientific journals and a member of the scientific and steering committees in several national and international conferences. He is the Editor-In-Chief of two journals. He is the coordinator of the Algerian IEEE Power Electronics Chapter and the chair of the sub-committee on FACTs and HVDC under the international committee PETC/IEEE-IES. He was a plenary and an invited keynote speaker and session chair in several national and international conferences and an experts in several national and international scientific activities and project evaluations, he was invited as a keynote speaker in several international conferences. He has published more than 220 papers, his main research interests include Active Power Filtering techniques, Power Quality issues, Power Electronics Devices, Application of Power electronics in Renewable Energies and Application of meta-heuristics optimization algorithms, Smart Grid and Smart Buildings, reliability and diagnostics in power electronics converters.

Amjad Gawanmeh

Assistant professor, Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi, UAE
Email: [email protected]

Biography:

Amjad Gawanmeh [Senior Member IEEE], is an assistant professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Khalifa University since 2010. He is also an affiliate Assistant professor, Concordia University Montreal, Canada since 2015. He received the M.S. and the Ph.D degrees from Concordia University, Montreal, Canada, 2003 and 2008. He worked as a researcher for the Hardware Verification Group at Concordia University between 2000 and 2008. He worked for Applied Science University in Jordan from 2008 until 2010 as an assistant professor. He has co-authored two edited books, 3 book chapters, more than 20 peer reviewed journal papers, and around 50 peer reviwed conference papers. His research interests are verification of hardware systems, security systems, and healthcare systems, modeling and analysis of complex systems such as CPS, performance analysis of complex systems, reliability of as medical system, and Energy efficient algorithms design in CPS. He is an associate editor for IEEE Access Journal, and for Human-centric Computing and Information Sciences Journal, Springer. He acted as guest editor for several special issues. He is on the reviewer board for several journals in IEEE, Elsevier, Wiley, and many others. He is a member of the executive committee for IPCCC conference. He has co-chaired several conferences and chaired several workshops organized in key conferences including ICC, ICDCS, IPCCC, Healthcom, and WiMob. Has served on the TPC for key conference such as Globecom, ICC, PIMRC, ICCVE, WCNC, and Infocom workshops. He is an IEEE member.

Postdoctoral Associate, University of Minnesota, USA
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 612-836-8978

Biography:

Siddharth Raju received his BE in Electrical and Electronics engineering from Anna University, India in 2011 and, his MS and PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Minnesota, USA in 2017. As part of his research, he has worked extensively on Multi-level matrix converters. Siddharth Raju is currently working as a Post-doctoral researcher at the University of Minnesota, researching on developing an extremely low cost alternative to currently available expensive model-based real-time rapid prototyping platforms. As part of this work, he is currently in the process of commercializing this solution through Sciamble.

Centro Sharjah

Centro Sharjah is uniquely located adjacent to Sharjah international Airport only 2 minutes’ drive. 25 minutes’ drive from Dubai International Airport, and 5 minutes away from Sharjah University City.

Special Room Rates

• 10% discount on our best available rate on all rooms category.
• Inclusive of the complimentary buffet breakfast.
• With complementary Internet access at the room and lobby

Note: To avail the 10% discount on our best available rates, booking should be done through email mentioning the conference or event name you coming to attend in

Transportation

Complimentary transfer for groups only (10 and above) to and from the AUS conference venue. Timing to be informed in advance.

Cancellation and No-Show Policy

Reservations or bookings require a valid credit card (guest's credit card number and expiry date) to guarantee the booking and to keep the reservation in the system for guests arriving at a later time. Non-guaranteed reservations/bookings may only be kept in the hotel's system. Any cancellation received three days before arrival will attract no cancellation fees. Any no show rooms will attract full stay accommodation fee.

All the above rates are subject to availability and previous reservation is required with enough notice period.

Reservations: 

PO Box 3677, Sharjah, UAE
Tel: + 971 6 508 8155 or + 971 6 508 8000
Fax: + 971 6 508 8111
[email protected]

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Radisson Blu Resort Sharjah

This stunning resort hotel in Sharjah is the perfect choice for both business and leisure travelers with its proximity to prime shopping and business areas, the Arabian Gulf's spectacular beaches and the glimmer city of Dubai. Other features, such as private beach and a lagoon, ensure a memorable and unique stay.

Room Rates

Terms and Conditions

• Above rate are inclusive of 10 percent municipal taxes and 10 percent service charges.
• Above rates are net and non-commissionable.
• Above rates are inclusive of one buffet breakfast for single and two for double.
• Above rates are inclusive of 24 hour-Internet access.
• Free group transfer to AUS and back for minimum of 10 rooms booked in house.

Reservations:

Corniche Street, PO Box 3527
Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
Tel +971 6 565 7777
Fax +971 6 565 0090
[email protected]

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Rached Dhaouadi

Petrofac Research Chair in Renewable Energy
Department of Electrical Engineering
College of Engineering, American University of Sharjah
Sharjah 26666, UAE
Phone: +971 6515 2927
Email: [email protected]

Ned Mohan

Oscar A. Schott Professor of Power Electronics
Member: National Academy of Engineering; Fellow IEEE
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis MN 55455, USA
Phone: 612-625-3362
Email: [email protected]
Homepage: www.ece.umn.edu/~mohan

Tore Undeland

Professor Emeritus
Department of Electric Power Engineering
Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)
N-7491 Trondheim, Norway
Phone: +47 7359 4436
Mobile: +47 9002 4567
Email: [email protected]