March 17, 2008
Energy symposium caps KEY students’ year of
promoting sustainability research
sharon.dickman@rochester.edu
Three University undergraduates working on a Kauffman
Foundation-funded year of entrepreneurial thinking and activities have
lined up a dozen speakers with state and national reputations for a
sustainable energy symposium on the River Campus Friday and Saturday, April
4 and 5.
Seniors Kenneth Lotito ’08 of Bayside, N.Y.;
Mario Dal Col ’08 of Heidelberg, Germany; and Patrick McLaughlin
’08 of Lodi, Calif., applied for a Kauffman Entrepreneurial
Year (KEY) project because of personal concerns about climate change.
“We feel that the University has the resources to contribute to the
energy challenge, and we wanted to bring people together to get them
excited about it,” says McLaughlin.
Once the students were selected for the
tuition-free, 2007-08 KEY program, they started planning a lecture
series, symposium, 10-week summer program, fundraising, and Web-based
biographies of faculty who research environmental issues.
For the symposium, the group of physics, mathematics,
and chemistry majors scoured the Web and their network of contacts to match
topics and speakers. They welcomed social scientists and humanists, too.
The official list of headliners includes a representative from the National
Center of Excellence on SMART Innovations for Urban Climate and Energy at
Arizona State University; Paul Tonko, president and CEO of the New York
State Energy Research and Development Authority; and Joseph Tainter, chair
of the Department of Environment and Society at Utah State University.
Additional experts will travel to Rochester for panel
discussions on the nation’s energy dilemma. Sessions will deal with
renewable technology and economic development, global energy challenges,
technical solutions, funding for new energy sources, and other themes.
With six weeks before the end of classes, the seniors
are pressured to leave behind a self-sustaining project. Can they make a
difference? “We believe the symposium and summer program could
continue,” says McLaughlin. They may also recommend a faculty energy
cluster to create a research community on campus.
“As we continue to keep bringing up these topics
and fresh ideas . . . people on campus will think they actually can affect
change,” McLaughlin adds.
The sponsors for the free Sustainable Energy Symposium
are the University’s Center for Entrepreneurship; the College of
Arts, Sciences and Engineering; the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation; the
Warner School; and the Simon School. Details about the speakers and the
schedule are available at www.rochester.edu/entrepreneurship/events.html.
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