IIT’s Wanger Institute for Sustainable Energy Research (WISER) has announced the 2013 Interdisciplinary Seed Funding Grants (ISFG) program award winners. Initiated in 2009, the ISFG program is designed to provide funding for a one-year period to support and enhance new and innovative multidisciplinary research concepts that are expected to attract major external funding in areas of national interest related to energy and sustainability. The following proposal topics and researchers were selected for funding from among nine total proposals received in response to the WISER ISFG request for proposals:

–Fouad Teymour (ChBE) [PI], Satish Parulekar (ChBE), Omar Khalil (ChBE) and Philip Laible, Argonne National Laboratory: “Exploration of the Feasibility of Development of Symbiotic Photosynthetic Ecologies for Direct Production of Biofuels”

–Lulu Kang (AM) [PI] and Dietmar Rempfer (MMAE): “Optimal Placement of Wind Turbines for Wind Farm”

–Mehdi Modares (CAEE) [PI] and Erdal Oruklu (ECE): “Structural Condition Assessment and Health Monitoring for Wind Turbine Systems with Sensor Fusion”

The addition of these new projects brings the total number of awards conducted under the auspices of the WISER ISFG program to 13. The 2013 projects are funded at a level of $25,000 each and will be completed by May 31, 2014.