September 10
@
4:00 PM
–
5:00 PM
The ME 903: Graduate Student Lecture Series features campus and visiting speakers who present on a variety of research topics in the field of mechanical engineering. Professor Margaret Busse is an Assistant Professor at Penn State.
Presentation Title: Assessing Critical Infrastructure and Driving Sustainable Solutions Across Scales
Abstract: Much of our critical infrastructure is reaching the end of its useful life or struggling to keep pace with increasingly dynamic environments. As we repair and rebuild these systems, long-term sustainability and adaptability must be central to how we design them. In this talk, I will draw on my research across water and energy to explore these challenges. I will describe my work on ultraviolet (UV) disinfection and small-system water treatment design, considering how fundamental optics and fluid dynamics inform practical, low-resource solutions for safe drinking water. I will then widen the lens to the intersections of water and energy, focusing on the environmental trade-offs of emerging technologies such as geothermal lithium extraction. This work uses multi-method analysis to evaluate not just whether a technology works, but whether it works forthe people and places it’s meant to serve.
Bio: Dr. Margaret Busse is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Penn State University. She earned her B.S. in Biological Engineering and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Civil Engineering all from Purdue University. She completed postdoctoral research in energy and environmental analysis at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. In 2024, she was part of a team that received the Director’s Award for Societal Impact from Berkeley Lab for her work characterizing the impact of geothermal lithium resources.