Tag: katy

SBS Lab Member Kathryn Hinkelman Receives the 2024 Outstanding Postdoctoral Scholar Award

Nathan Kurtz on

SBS Lab Member Kathryn Hinkelman Receives the 2024 Outstanding Postdoctoral Scholar Award at Pennsylvania State University. Prof. Zuo had the honor of accepting the award on her behalf. Dr. Hinkelman’s interdisciplinary research develops sustainable, resilient, and equitable energy systems through advanced modeling and simulation and bio-inspired design. Her research innovation and productivity, funding achievements, and dedication to mentoring students led to her selection as the 2024 Outstanding Postdoctoral Scholar. She will join the Department of Environmental Engineering at the University of Vermont as an Assistant Professor in Fall of 2024.

 

SBS Lab Members Katy Hinkelman and Saranya Anbarasu Publishes Paper

Nathan Kurtz on

SBS lab members Katy Hinkelman and Saranya Anbarasu published a paper applying innovative solutions to building decarbonization. In the newly published paper by Energy and Buildings, they applied ecological network analysis (ENA) for buildings. Exergy is proposed as the best for ENA dynamic systems with multiple types of energy. They also demonstrate how ENA can add novel complex network information for buildings.

They then performed case studies to redesign the heating and cooling systems for an office and data center, coupling the systems together via ambient-loop district energy. These redesigns achieved 84% heating/cooling energy savings. The paper can be accessed freely until January 24, 2024 at this link.

Opensource Modelica models related to this work have been publicly released at:

  1. Modelica Buildings Library (MBL): https://simulationresearch.lbl.gov/modelica/
  2. Biomimetic Integrated Community Energy and Power Systems (BICEPS) Library: https://sites.psu.edu/sbslab/tools/biceps-library/

This research led by Katy Hinkelman and Saranya Anbarasu at Penn State University is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) IBUILD program and the National Science Foundation (NSF). Other related papers can be found at this link.

 

Katy Hinkelman Receives 2022-23 Boyer Graduate Scholarship

Julia Ho on

Congratulations to SBS Lab PhD candidate Katy Hinkelman, who recently received the Lester L. Boyer Graduate Research Scholarship for the 2022-23 academic year. Katy is a senior PhD student in the lab who has made invaluable contributions to the lab’s research on district energy systems and sustainable communities. Katy’s current research focuses on incorporating patterns and processes found in nature, a technique called biomimicry, into energy distribution networks. Biomimicry has been adopted in many engineering fields and Katy is helping to pioneer its use in the building and energy sectors. Katy, like Dr. Boyer, also started her own family during graduate school.

We thank the late Dr. Boyer and the Penn State Architectural Engineering program for their generous support. We are very grateful.