Leading Research Facilities
A team of PTK faculty members leading several research centers in Science, Engineering, and other areas will discuss as a panel how research centers come to fruition by diverse means, how they are funded, how they interact with industry and government, and how the leadership evolves for them.
The group will discuss the positive, neutral, and some challenging aspects of leading the centers, cooperation, and interactions with TTK faculty, staff, administration, funding agencies, and students. The coverage will span undergraduate and graduate education, professional training, sponsored research, services, and inter-university and international cooperation.
Presenters
Diganta Das is an Associate Research Scientist at the Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering. He is the vice chair of the Standard Association in the IEEE Reliability Society and the working group chair on reliability prediction. He is the Founding Chair of the CALCE/SMTA Counterfeit Parts and Materials Symposium since 2007. He is with the university for 24 years, he is a member of the UMD Senate, member of the campus affairs committee and served in the PTK faculty working group.
Vikrant Aute is a Research Professor of mechanical engineering and co-directs the industry and government supported Center for Environmental Energy Engineering (CEEE) at UMD. He is an internationally recognized expert on modeling and optimization of heat pump systems. His research focuses on innovation in heat exchangers and multidisciplinary optimization for sustainable cooling, heating, and power systems. He is a Fellow of ASHRAE and ASME, and has held multiple leadership roles in various technical, standard, and standing committees within ASHRAE. He has been with UMD for 25 years, is a current PTK Senator and Member of Senate Executive Committee.
Michael Osterman is a Research Scientist and the director of the CALCE Electronic Products and System Consortium at the University of Maryland. He heads the development of simulation-assisted reliability assessment software for CALCE and simulation approaches for estimating the time to failure of electronic hardware under test and field conditions. He has consulted with automotive, medical, defense, and industrial electronic companies on the transition to lead-free materials.