• Cockrell Investment in Excellence Honored in School's Name
• Star Engineers Start in High School
• Arriving at Energy Future Requires All Able Hands and Minds
• Engineers Shed Light on Biotechnology

• Dean's Message
• Department News
• Alumni Notes
• A Half-Century of Focus

Cockrell School faculty expertise spans the entire spectrum of energy-related issues, from CO2 emissions to solar cells to plant operations management. Here is a sample of the heavy-hitting research being conducted at the school today—research that has real implications for the energy industry and individual consumers.

Bruce Eldridge (PhDChE ’86) and Frank Seibert (PhDChE ’86)

Chemical Engineering

In the university’s Separations Research Program, Eldridge and Seibert help to develop energy-reducing technologies in collaboration with the oil and petrochemical industry, including low energy approaches to carbon dioxide sequestration and chemical production.

Brian Korgel

Chemical Engineering

Korgel is working on strategies to make reasonably high-efficiency solar cells at low cost using nanowires and nanocrystals made of silicon and germanium.

Elmira Popova

Mechanical Engineering

Popova focuses on risk assessment, risk management and reliability problems that arise in electric power generation equipment and processes. Her research seeks to help industry officials make the best operational decisions.

Gary Rochelle and Steve Bryant (PhDChE ’86)

Chemical Engineering
Petroleum Engineering

Rochelle, Bryant (see page 17) and their colleagues are seeking a more economical technology to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fueled power plants. The process involves capturing carbon dioxide gas by dissolving it in a solution, then storing it underground.

Surya Santoso (MSEE ’94, PhDEE ’96)

Electrical Engineering

Santoso is working on better ways to get electrical power produced by large-scale intermittent energy sources (i.e., wind farms) into the power system. Once wind power can be made more dispatchable, it can be integrated more easily into the conventional electrical power network.

Carlos Torres-Verdin (MSPE ’85)

Petroleum Engineering

Torres-Verdin researches methods to improve formation evaluation technologies so petroleum exploration companies can determine more readily whether a new field contains enough oil or gas for commercial production.

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