ISSNAF - Italian Ministry for Environment Land and Sea
(General Directorate for Sustainable Development, Energy and Climate)

Click here for the interim report of Dr Mozumdar's project
Click here for the first year report of Dr Materia's project

JANUARY 2010: THE FOURTH ISSNAF FELLOWSHIP WAS AWARDED. DETAILS OF THE WINNING PROJECT

The ISSNAF Fellowship in the Field of Climate Change Modeling, sponsored by Ministero dell'Ambiente e della Tutela del Territorio e del Mare, Direzione Generale per la Ricerca Ambientale e lo Sviluppo, has been awarded to Dr. Stefano Materia who submitted a project titled "The effects of freshwater discharge into Eastern Equatorial Atlantic on Western and Central Africa climate variability."

Click here for the project 's summary and Stefano Materia's CV.

OCTOBER 2009: THE THIRD ISSNAF FELLOWSHIP WAS AWARDED. DETAILS OF THE WINNING PROJECT

Mozumdar's project, "Development of a framework for monitoring and controlling energy consumption of smart buildings" was submitted for evaluation to a committee chaired by Prof. Franco Einaudi and composed by:

• prof. Vito Campese
• prof. Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli
• prof. Luciano Lavagno

Follow the link for a summary of the project and Mostafizur Mozumdar's biographical information.

OCTOBER 2009: ISSNAF ANNOUNCES THE LAUNCH OF A FELLOWSHIP IN THE FIELD OF CLIMATE CHANGE MODELING

Background

Climate change is quickly becoming one of the great challenges of our time. Climate is changing rapidly, and human activities and use of the environment are playing a large part in the process. The availability of sound, accurate and reliable climate scenarios are increasingly required by planners and decision makers for infrastructure planning, operations, and energy security. The focus is shifting to the period closer to us, the next thirty years, which includes the horizon of major strategic decisions that are taken today. Developing quantitative systems for simulating climate scenarios for the next few decades is becoming the next challenge for climate science. We must overcome significant scientific problems, from further development of climate models to the development of statistical techniques to detect climate change signals at low amplitude levels, to interaction with the socioeconomic community that produces the emissions scenarios.

The fellowship is made possible thanks to an Agreement between ISSNAF and the Ministero dell'Ambiente e della Tutela del Territorio e del Mare, Direzione Generale per la Ricerca Ambientale e lo Sviluppo.

Program

The research projects should have particular focus on decadal scale climate simulations and analysis; possible topics include: coupled data assimilation and the initialization of coupled models, decadal predictions, climate models development, statistical methods for detection and attribution.

The fellowship recipient is expected to work in the context of ongoing Italy - NCAR projects, under the supervision of one American and one Italian advisor. The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) has a cooperation agreement with the EuroMediterranean Center on Climate Change (CMCC). While not restricted to these institutions, the fellowship recipient will have an existing framework to collaborate and thus he/she will be able to start working on the joint projects in a short span of time.

• ELIGIBILITY: Only graduate students or PhD graduates in Physics, and in Engineering are eligible for the Fellowship*.
• STIPEND: 55,000 USD per year (50,000 + 5,000 for medical insurance). * The fellowship can be renewed on a yearly basis, up to a maximum of 3 years.
• REVIEW BOARD: The applications will be evaluated by the Scientific Advisory Board for EnvironmentalSciences.
• REPORTING AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF SUPPORT: At the end of the fellowship, candidates will be required to submit a summary of their research and publications, and a plan for the future. Any publication arising from work supported by the grant should acknowledge the ITALIAN SCIENTISTS AND SCHOLARS OF NORTH AMERICA FOUNDATION (ISSNAF) and the Ministero dell'Ambiente e della Tutela del Territorio e del Mare, Direzione Generale per la Ricerca Ambientale e lo Sviluppo.
• APPLICATION SUBMISSIONS: All applications have to be submitted before November 30, 2009. The Scientific Advisory Board will make a selection by December 15, 2009.

DOWNLOAD THE APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS (PDF)

AUGUST 2009: ISSNAF ANNOUNCES THE LAUNCH OF A FELLOWSHIP IN THE FIELD OF TECHNOLOGY FOR ENERGY EFFICIENCY

Background

The largest sector of energy consumption in the US and in the OECD is in buildings with a share of 40% of the total primary energy consumption, 72% of US electricity consumption, and 38% carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. And, a huge fraction of this is wasted.

EPA studies show that typically 30% energy savings can be achieved through improvements to facilities and facility management, while more aggressive measures have obtained 50% reductions. To stabilize global green house emissions, and to meet national, international, state and local Climate Action Plans, the energy consumption and carbon footprint of buildings must be dramatically reduced. Further, since we cannot wait for the building stock to turn over to new buildings, deep improvements must be effected through modifying currently operational buildings consistent with their usage. The most energy intensive buildings support substantial operational processes, in addition to human occupants. Efforts to improve efficiency that sacrifice the productivity of the people or operations within the building will invariably be discarded. On the other hand, the first lesson learned from a DoE NREL study of six energy efficient buildings that demonstrate consumption up to 70% lower than code was that, "Owners provide the main motivation for low-energy buildings". Consequently, if dramatic gains in building efficiency are to be made, while improving productivity, it is critical to empower occupants to make low-power operating points through their natural interactions with the building environment. Building energy efficiency and environmental quality is a critical area where the US lags both technologically and from a policy standpoint across almost all industry sectors. In 2005, building construction/renovation contributed 9.5% to US GDP and employed approximately 8 million people. Building' utility bills totaled $370 billion. Hence, the quality of our buildings impacts the productivity of many sectors of the economy.

The fellowship is being made possible thanks to an Agreement between ISSNAF and the Ministero dell'Ambiente e della Tutela del Territorio e del Mare, Direzione Generale per la Ricerca Ambientale e lo Sviluppo.

In view of the great scientific interest in the technology for energy efficiency research, projects should have particular focus on minimizing building energy usage and lifecycle costs within strict safety, security, privacy, health and comfort constraints, while maximizing operational productivity, i.e., the engineering of adaptively optimal buildings.

Program

In view of the great scientific interest in the technology for energy efficiency research, projects should have particular focus on minimizing building energy usage and lifecycle costs within strict safety, security, privacy, health and comfort constraints, while maximizing operational productivity, i.e., the engineering of adaptively optimal buildings.

The fellowship recipient is expected to work in the context of ongoing Italy - Berkeley projects, under the supervision of one American and one Italian advisor. The University of California at Berkeley has exchange programs involving research programs in close collaboration with the following Italian Universities: Politecnico di Torino, Universita' di Trento, Universita' di Padova, Universita' di Bologna, Universita' di Pisa, Scuola di Sant'Anna, e Universita' dell'Aquila. There are close working relationships in the area of energy efficiency with Politecnico di Torino, Universita' di Trento and Universita' dell'Aquila. While not restricted to these institutions, the fellowship recipient will have an existing framework to collaborate and thus he/she will be able to start working on the joint projects in a short span of time.

• ELIGIBILITY: Only graduate students or PhD graduates in engineering are eligible for the Fellowship*.
• STIPEND: 55,000 USD per year (50,000 + 5,000 for medical insurance). * The fellowship can be renewed on a yearly basis, up to a maximum of 3 years.
• REVIEW BOARD: The applications will be evaluated by the Scientific Advisory Board for Environmental sciences.
• REPORTING AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF SUPPORT: At the end of the fellowship, candidates have to submit to ISSNAF a summary of their research and publications, and a plan for the future. Any publication arising from work supported by the grant should acknowledge the ITALIAN SCIENTISTS AND SCHOLARS OF NORTH AMERICA FOUNDATION (ISSNAF) and the Ministero dell'Ambiente e della Tutela del Territorio e del Mare, Direzione Generale per la Ricerca Ambientale e lo Sviluppo.
• APPLICATION SUBMISSIONS: All applications have to be submitted before September 15, 2009. The Scientific Advisory Board will select a winner bySeptember 30, 2009. Starting Date of Fellowship: December 2009.

DOWNLOAD THE APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS (PDF)