Ahhyun “Alyssa” Park has been appointed Ronald & Valerie Sugar Dean of the UCLA Samueri School of Engineering. Her appointment begins September 1st.
park, One of the nation’s leading experts in carbon capture and conversion technology. Currently He is Professor of Climate Change at the Renfest Earth Institute and Dean of the School of Global Environmental Engineering at Columbia University, where he has been on the faculty since 2007. He is also Director of the Renfest Center for Sustainable Energy and a board member of The Earth. He is a member of the Institute and Columbia School of Climate Studies and a member of the Chemical Engineering Department at Columbia University.
UCLA Executive Vice-Chancellor and Chancellor Darnell Hunt said, “President Bullock and I are confident that under Alyssa’s visionary leadership, UCLA Samuel will continue to make even greater advances in engineering education and research for the benefit of society.” I am confident that we will make progress,” he said. campus.
At Columbia University, Park created a highly interdisciplinary research and education program on sustainable energy and decarbonization. This includes the Carbon Tech Development Initiative for Translational Decarbonization Research, a collaboration between the Renfest Center for Sustainable Energy and the Center for Global Energy Policy. She has also led efforts to significantly improve the diversity of faculty and student bodies within the unit and to achieve cultural change towards equity, inclusion and respect.
She has worked actively with the United Nations initiative UN Women and with the Women in Energy initiative in Colombia on projects supporting entrepreneurship in sustainable energy in developing countries.
“I am deeply humbled and excited to serve as the next dean of engineering at UCLA, a world-class public university,” Park said. “This is an exciting and important time for engineering and computer science as we focus on addressing many of the grand challenges and opportunities that will have a huge impact on society, such as climate change, pandemics and artificial intelligence.
“To be able to work with all members of our exceptional and diverse community—faculty, students, staff, alumni, and other colleagues—to design change for a better future for all. I am excited.”
Park’s research focuses on sustainable energy and materials conversion pathways, with an emphasis on the use of integrated carbon capture, utilization and storage technologies to address climate change. Her research group also explores direct atmospheric carbon dioxide capture and negative emission technologies such as bioenergy and low carbon intensity sustainable building materials with carbon dioxide capture and storage.
In 2016, she co-founded GreenOre CleanTech. The company converts hard-to-decarbonize solid waste and carbon emissions from industrial sectors into value-added products such as carbon-negative building materials while recovering important energy-related minerals.
Park holds BS and MS degrees in Chemical and Biotechnology from the University of British Columbia and a Ph.D. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from The Ohio State University. In 2021, she received the Ohio State University Distinguished Alumni Award for her academic excellence.
Mr. Park is a member of the American Society of Chemical Engineers, known as the AIChE, as well as the American Chemical Society, the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Canadian Institute for Advanced Study, and the American Society for Scientific Progress. She is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Committee on Carbon Utilization Infrastructure, Markets, and Research and Development.
Her numerous awards include the Baron Shell Thomas Award in Fluid Particle Systems from the AIChE Particle Technology Forum, the US C3E Research Award, the PSRI Lecture Award at the AIChE PTF, the Janet and Armen Avanesian Diversity Award at Columbia University, and the American Chemical Society WCC. Rising Star Award, etc. And she won the National Science Foundation Career Award. She is a member of numerous editorial and advisory boards and has contributed to the Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage Conference, including the 2019 National Petroleum Council CCUS Report and the 2017 Mission Innovation Workshop on Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage Technologies. He has led numerous global and national discussions on technology. Storage.
Distinguished professor and former Associate Dean for Research and Material Resources at UCLA School of Engineering, Bruce Dunn will serve as the school’s interim Dean from August 2022.
