In partnership with the DS Council, game night is offered once a month and open to all DS affiliated students- including NRT CEDAR Trainees. 

In partnership with the DS Council at WPI, the “Coffee Klatch” is offered weekly on Fridays and open to all DS affiliated students. These informal meetings are a way for the data science community to get together and socialize over a “Bring Your Own” (BYO) lunch. They’re a great opportunity for students and faculty to get to know each other better, and to even get guidance from colleagues about course scheduling, research, etc. Best of all – free coffee for everyone. 

Hosted by Graduate Studies, the Graduate Student and Training Readiness Sessions – STARS – is an annual series of workshops organized by the Office of Graduate Studies that provides overviews on important career and professional development topics. 

Registration is required for each session. 

The 2022 Fall STARS Sessions include:

• September 16, 2022 – Navigating a career fair
• October 7, 2022 – Developing Cultural Competencies
• October 28, 2022 – Business Development Skills
• November 11, 2022 – Finding and Securing Internships

Graduate Researcher Education and Training (GREAT) Series 

The Graduate Researcher Education and Training (GREAT) series features sessions on topics of importance to graduate student researchers that will help them build the skill set they need to be successful in their research endeavors. The series does not focus on technical research skills, but rather communication and management skills.

The 2022-23 GREAT Series will be held on the last Monday monthly in the academic year 12-1 PM.

Click here for more information and to register. 

WPI IDP series is an annual workshop series for WPI graduate students to learn how to effectively manage their careers through the development of an IDP. The program is intended for PhD students and postdocs, however masters students are welcome to participate as well. The program will focus on self-assessment, career exploration, networking, and goal setting. 

Dates and times for the 2022 Fall IDP program are: 

• 10/25/2022 Workshop 1: Career management, self-assessment, and IDPs 
• 11/1/2022 Workshop 2: Career exploration, informational interviewing, and networking
• 11/8/2021 Workshop 3: Goal setting, self-advocacy/promotion, and obtaining mentoring needed 

 Click here for more information and to register. 

“Climate Resilience and Conflict: Is Regional Cooperation a Way Forward?”

• Date/Time: Tuesday, October 11th, 11:00AM – Noon
• Overview: Invited speaker Tareq Abu Hamed serves as the Director of the Arava Institute and a researcher at the Dead Sea and Arava Science Center. The title of his talk is “Climate Resilience and Conflict: Is Regional Cooperation a Way Forward?”

“Circular Economy & Safety Implications”

• Date/Time: Thursday, October 13th, 10:00AM – 11:00AM
• Overview: CEDAR PhD Student Zhuowen Chen from the WPI Business School focuses her research on the lithium-ion battery supply chain, especially the end-of-life management of these batteries.In this talk, she explores safety concerns for the management of End-of Life Lithium-Ion Batteries.

The Graduate Research Innovation Exchange is a marketplace where students across disciplines get to know each other and share discoveries and new ideas. It is also a great way to get feedback on research in-progress—input that can help students prepare for sharing their work down the line through papers and presentations.

• GRIE is open to all WPI PhD candidates, MS students engaged in thesis or similar research, or MS candidates completing a course- or program-related capstone project.
• The Student Training and Readiness Sessions (STARS) program (as listed above) developed by the Office of Graduate Studies offers sessions specifically designed to help graduate students prepare for participation in GRIE.

Wednesday, October 19^th, 2022: Feat. Cell Press Publishing

Sent on behalf of Mike Timko, Chemical Engineering and Co-PI on the NRT CEDAR

• Do you want to learn more about publishing papers?
• Do you want to learn about alternative science and engineering careers?

Attend next week’s visit from Cell Press editors to demystify the publishing process and learn about career opportunities in academic publishing.

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Publishing papers and navigating career opportunities are two of the big challenges of a graduate career. We’re happy to host three editors from Cell Press – a prestigious scientific publisher – at WPI to answer questions about their careers in publishing and to demystify the publishing process. The event will be held over term break, Wednesday, Oct. 19 at 11am, in Higgins Lab #102. See below for an abstract.

Title: Editorial Insight into Scientific Publishing

Abstract: Editors from Matter, iScience and One Earth will give a short talk about the scientific publishing industry and then open the floor up to questions. We plan to include:

• A brief overview of the publishing ecosystem at Cell Press, including Matter, iScience and One Earth journals.
• Scientific editing as a career path. What’s a typical day like? How do you go from a research Ph.D. to a scientific editor?
• The “black box” of the publishing. We’ll try to demystify the process and go over determining journal scope, the editorial process, and what happens after you hit submit. Get answers to your questions about how your manuscript is assessed, how reviewers are selected, and the best way to respond to reviewer #2.

Monday, December 12^th, 2022: Feat. Ph.D. Candidate David Kenney

On behalf of NRT CEDAR, we would like to invite you to an upcoming event as part of the NRT CEDAR Convergence Seminar Series: Student Showcase featuring PhD Chemical Engineering Student, David Kenney. The goal of the student showcase series is to provide the opportunity for students to present their research and receive feedback from a broader audience.

Title: Developing a Defeatured Atom-Additive Model to Predict Single Component Partition Coefficients with Elemental Data

Description:

Octanol-water partition coefficients (K­ow­) are a useful tool for determining solute-solvent partitioning behavior as it provides insights towards the lipophilic or hydrophilic nature of compounds. Single component values can be identified experimentally, from first principle ab initio thermodynamics or, more commonly, approximated by regressive algorithms. However, current methods fall short in understanding complex systems with thousands of unique compounds such as those present in oil spills and bio-oil production. Fourier Transformation Ion Cyclotron Resonance Mass Spectroscopy (FT-ICR MS) is a powerful analytical tool that identifies molecular formulas and relative abundances of ions based on their excitement in a magnetic field.

In this work, we developed a number of machine-learned models (linear regression, random forest, gradient boosted, etc.) that predict single component partition coefficients based on the data available through FT-ICR MS. By using web scraping methods, a database of 18,091 data points, with 7,098 unique molecular formulas, were collected along with their experimental partition coefficient value. The data was regressed using multiple techniques and found that partition coefficients could be determined on minimal information. Using an independent validation set of nearly 3,000 compounds, our model can produce a mean absolute error of 0.52. Combining this new regression algorithm with FT-ICR MS of complex oil-water systems provides insights into the molecular makeup and partitioning signatures of complex oils.

Details:

• Host:David Kenney, PhD Student, Chemical Engineering
• Room Reservation:Unity Hall 471
• Date:Monday, December 12^th from Noon – 1:00PM

Friday, January 13th, 2022: Fairness in Energy Transitions

Feat. Dr. Nathan Wood is a visiting scholar in DIGS, from Utrecht University. 

Tuesday, February 21st, 2023: ChatGPT, A Solution or a Problem?

Wednesday, Aug. 30th, 2023
12:00PM – 12:50PM
Atwater Kent 233

Qi Wu
Associate Professor
Faculty of Economics and Business Administration
Kyoto University of Advanced Science

Profile:
Currently, my work is focused on establishing an environmental management control system towards the circular economy. I previously worked on the research project of Environment Research and Technology Development Fund, which has been led by Japan’s Ministry of the Environment since 2016 to research “Policy Design and Evaluation to Ensure Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns in Asian Region”. This project investigated and compared the development of effective environmental management control systems in companies in Thailand and Vietnam. It also examined environmental management control systems’ positive impact on promoting sustainable consumption and production policies within organizations. Since 2019, my main areas of expertise have included environmental management control systems, sustainability accounting, natural capital accounting, circular economy, and SDGs.

Abstract
The purpose of this study is to address the question of whether Material Flow Cost Accounting (MFCA) can contribute to the circular economy. MFCA is an environmental management accounting tool that simultaneously assesses a company’s material and financial flows. It is expected to contribute to the circular economy by helping companies achieve environmental and economic goals through resource efficiency. In short, the anticipated linkages between MFCA, companies’ environmental and financial goals, and the circular economy are inputs, outputs, and outcomes. However, there is a lack of consensus on their potential, perhaps due to the scarcity of studies, most of which are models and case studies without readily generalizable results. To address this gap, we analyze the triadic relationship between MFCA, environmental, and economic performance using a two-stage regression of data from Japanese listed companies. Based on the estimation results, we find that since MFCA can improve several aspects of environmental performance by saving resources, it can enhance productivity by improving a range of environmental performance indicators. In particular, MFCA can improve firm productivity and profits by reducing the waste produced. This supports the view that MFCA is an effective tool for contributing to the circular economy.

October 11, 2023

Register for this FREE event here (for headcount purposes): https://wpi.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_06c69eyaorSGl14