2024
Exploring water and energy in a changing environment, Impact Magazine
The research being done in Obringer Lab on the water-energy nexus was featured in the Penn State College of Earth and Mineral Science’s magazine: Impact. This piece includes a high-level overview of our work on water and energy systems under climate change.
Penn State student awarded Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scholarship, Penn State News
Joy Adul, a PhD student in our lab, was awarded a scholarship by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. She was one of 20 finalists to win the award, which is aimed at promoting climate science at the graduate-level. Joy’s research focused on investigating climate change impacts on renewable energy generation through machine learning. Results from this work are currently under review.
Changing water conservation attitudes positively impacts water availability, Penn State News
Dr. Obringer recently published a paper discussing a model built to estimate water availability in the City of Phoenix. The model leverages social science data on water conservation attitudes to estimate how different people may consume more or less water in the day-to-day lives. The study found that working to shift attitudes can lead to long-term behavioral changes that ultimately have a significant impact on Phoenix’s water supply. The study can be found here.
California’s Bay Area is Heating Up. Its Infrastructure Isn’t Designed For It, Inside Climate News
Dr. Obringer conducted a study that investigated the impact of climate change on household-level air conditioning use across the United States. The study was published in Earth’s Future. The study found that climate change is likely to lead to increased levels of air conditioning use in each state. Further, the study emphasized that it is important to limit warming as much as possible to avoid overburdening both our energy grid and communities. The study can be found here.
2023
Sister climate cities, utility data predict future water, electricity demands, Penn State News
Dr. Obringer led a multi-disciplinary team studying the use of climate analogs to project future changes to interdependent water and energy systems. The study was published in One Earth and demonstrated the capabilities of the climate analogs to act as proxies for future climate simulations. Moreover, the results showed strong regional differences across the US, highlighting a need for localized adaptation measures. The study can be found here.
Engineering graduate students named finalists at Microsoft Imagine Cup, PSU Graduate School News
Vijay Bhaskar Chiluveru, a master’s student in our lab, was recognized by the Graduate School recently for his success in regional hackathons. Vijay, along with a team of other PSU graduate students, participates in competitions to create state-of-the-art computational tools to solve real world problems. Most recently, Vijay and his team were announced as finalists in the Microsoft Imagine Cup for their proposed product: a wireless device that uses artificial intelligence to detect irregular heart and breathing rates and alert users. The team made it to the world championship round and made it to the top 24 before being eliminated. Read more about the 2023 Imagine Cup here.