Valerie Thomas and Suriya Arulselvan Win MIT Climate CoLab Aviation Award

Valerie Thomas, the Anderson Interface Professor of Natural Systems with a joint appointment in the School of Public and School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, and Suriya Arulselvan, MSCE 2015, have received the Judges’ Choice Award for the 2016 Aviation contest from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Climate CoLab. They recently presented their research at the MIT Climate CoLab's Crowds & Climate Conference, held on September 28-29.
Their policy proposal, “Strategic Investment to Scale-up Aviation Biofuel”. Aviation has recognized the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and biofuels are proposed to have an immediate, substantial impact. They focused their efforts on China as country that could benefit from this move to biofuel based on “its dependence on imported petroleum and its track record of work in new energy technologies.” says Arulselvan.

The next step in the research is to have a workshop in China, to bring together leaders of biofuel industry, aviation, and policy makers in China. They welcome any participation or ideas to assist in their research.

For details on their work and the Climate CoLab, click here: http://climatecolab.org/contests/2016/aviation/c/proposal/1331659