News

Prof. Andrea Alù has been named the recipient of the inaugural ACS Photonics Young Investigator Award and Lectureship from the American Chemical Society (ACS). The award “honors the contributions of one individual, within the first 5-10 years of an independent research career, who has made major impacts on the field of photonics.” Prof. Alù will receive the award and be the plenary speaker at META’16, the 7th International Conference on Metamaterials, Photonic Crystals and Plasmonics, in Malaga, Spain in July 2016.

Currently, local utilities in the U.S. generate 12 percent more energy than they anticipate needing. Otherwise, if they experience a brownout or blackout, utility companies face heavy penalties from the government. “Most of that extra energy is going to waste,” WNCG Prof. Brian Evans states. “If utility companies had access to better information, they could predict user demand and how it evolves over the day. They could reduce energy waste by around four-to-six percent.”