DeCarolis, Genzer receive Alcoa Foundation Engineering Research Awards

The 2016 Alcoa Foundation Engineering Research Awards were presented to Dr. Joseph DeCarolis, associate professor in the Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering, and Dr. Jan Genzer, Celanese Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, during the spring faculty meeting of the College of Engineering at North Carolina State University.

DeCarolis was awarded the Alcoa Foundation Engineering Research Achievement Award, which recognizes young faculty members who have accomplished outstanding research achievements during the preceding three years. Genzer received the Alcoa Foundation Distinguished Engineering Research Award, which is given to a senior faculty member for research achievements over a period of at least five years at NC State.

DeCarolis combines domain knowledge in energy systems with different methodological approaches, including numerical and mathematical modeling, life cycle assessment (LCA) and energy economics. He has developed an open-source energy modeling code, Temoa, which stands for Tools for Energy Model Optimization and Analysis, that was noted by external referees during his promotion and tenure review as a significant contribution to the field. He has also contributed to SWOLF, which is a life cycle assessment framework for optimizing solid waste management. In the past year, he has led a successful faculty cluster proposal on Sustainable Energy Systems and Policy and is coordinating this multi-disciplinary effort based on his strong desire to propel NC State to a leadership position in energy analysis.

Genzer has established an impressive and internationally recognized research program in the areas of soft materials and nanotechnology. Since beginning his independent academic career, and especially over the last five years, he has devised ingenious ways to modify and manipulate material surfaces leading to structure and functionality with various practical applications. Genzer stands out for his ability to blend competitive experimental work with state-of-the-art computation and simulation. Both individually and through synergistic collaborations, he has exploited the power of modern computation to better understand molecular processes inaccessible to experiments. During the past year alone, he has reviewed more than 21 manuscripts from around the world. He is highly regarded for his contributions to scientific literature and has published his work in prestigious scientific journals, including: Science, Nature Materials, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, Advanced Materials, Journal of the American Chemical Society, Langmuir and many others.