“Sustainability” will be the topic of the second Creative, Artistic, Research Symposium (CARS), a new series designed to bring together faculty from different areas working on broadly related themes.

The new symposium series is sponsored by the Faculty Senate and the Office of the Provost. Its goal is to spark conversation across disciplines and to highlight the creative, artistic, and research work being done by colleagues all across the University.

The first symposium in the series took place on Oct. 30 and focused on civic engagement.

The second symposium will take place on Friday, Nov. 13, from 3:30 to 5 p.m., in the Henry Roberts Room on the third floor of the Computer Center.

The sustainability-themed session will feature presentations by:

– Jeffrey Cohen on “Airport Noise in Atlanta: Economic Consequences and Determinants”

– Andrew Craft on “Safe Storage of Hydrogen”

– Cy Yavuzturk on “Net Zero Energy Buildings”

Come join us and find out the interesting work being done down the hall and across the quad. Space is limited. Please contact the Faculty Senate at mmarques@hartford.edu to reserve a seat. Wine and cheese will be provided.

If you have suggestions for future symposia themes and presenters, you are invited to send those ideas to Ingrid Russell at irussell@hartford.edu.


The Speakers and Their Presentations

Jeffrey Cohen, an associate professor of economics in the Barney School of Business, is an applied microeconomist with specific interests in urban and regional economics; transportation, land use and housing; environmental economics; and health economics. He has published in several of the top-tier journals in his field. Cohen has served as a Visiting Scholar with the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis many times since joining the University of Hartford, where he continues to collaborate on issues related to airport noise and airport congestion. He was awarded a Research Associateship from the National Research Council of the National Academies in 2008, which enabled him to visit and collaborate with scientists at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on the costs of "green" storm water infrastructure.

Airport noise is considered by environmental economists to be an environmental disamenity. Such detrimental environmental effects can be reflected in lower housing prices. This presentation will examine the impact of noise on 2003 housing prices near the Atlanta airport, after controlling for other housing price determinants. Since the various neighborhood demographics surrounding the airport can be heterogeneous, and the noise exposure is not necessarily correlated with distance in certain neighborhoods, we postulate that the impacts of each of our explanatory variables on the probability of greater noise vary across space. Cohen will explore these possibilities of spatial heterogeneity in the context of the determinants of airport noise.


Andrew Craft is an associate professor of chemistry in the College of Arts and Sciences. He has been a researcher in the field of hydrogen storage in metals for over 20 years. Craft has published over three dozen articles in peer-reviewed science and engineering journals and has procured over $200,000 in external support of his research.

Hydrogen holds great promise as an alternative to fossil fuels (coal, petroleum, natural gas). Unlike fossil fuels, hydrogen is clean and abundant. So why isn’t hydrogen being used on a large scale? Because there are problems associated with hydrogen. One of these problems is how to safely store hydrogen. Craft will give an overview of the use of metals as a safe storage medium for hydrogen. The interesting research going on right here at the University of Hartford also will be discussed.


Cy Yavuzturk is an assistant professor of mechanical engineering in the College of Engineering, Technology, and Architecture (CETA). Prior to joining the University of Hartford in 2008, he was an associate professor in the Civil and Architectural Engineering Department at the University of Wyoming, a research engineer at the Oklahoma State University, and also held various engineering positions in the U.S. defense industry. His research interests include thermodynamics; heat, mass and momentum transfer; thermal systems modeling and simulation; energy efficient systems design and renewable energy technologies; energy analysis and management; thermal energy storage; numerical modeling and inverse methods; HVAC-R equipment; geothermal and solar energy utilization; and net zero energy dwellings and processes.

A net zero energy building is a building that on an annual basis consumes as much energy as it produces, effectively yielding a net zero energy and carbon emission conditions. As the operation of buildings requires a significant portion of all the energy consumed (about 40%) in the United States annually, engineering design for net zero conditions has been gaining considerable attention with rising energy prices. Yavuzturk will present and discuss a series of design methodologies and design alternatives, along with case studies for the incorporation of passive and active renewable energy technologies, building elements and components into building systems design.