Susan Stewart, Ph.D.
Research Associate Aerospace Engineering and Architectural Engineering
230B Hammond Building
Penn State University
University Park, PA 16802
Phone: 814-863-0138 / Fax: 814-865-7092
E-mail: sstewart@psu.edu
Susan Stewart’s original undergraduate major was meteorology, but a freshman seminar on environmental problems sidetracked her -- permanently. Researching a paper for the Penn State class, she became interested in the link between fossil fuel combustion and climate change. “Before that, while I feel I was environmentally conscious, no one had made obvious to me the connection between power generation and air pollution,” she said. “Once I saw it, a light bulb turned on: I wanted to work in the area of energy.”
Stewart’s new passion sent her back to the course catalog in search of a major that would allow her to study energy conversion. Ultimately, she decided on mechanical engineering. Today, as a research associate in both aerospace and architectural engineering, she is doing exactly what she envisioned as a Penn State freshman, finding the best ways to use renewable resources, particularly wind resources, to meet energy needs. Among her current responsibilities are developing curricula in wind and solar energy for an online master’s degree program in renewable energy and sustainability systems (RESS), directing the Pennsylvania Wind for Schools program, and working with interdisciplinary groups on wind and solar energy research.
Stewart completed her undergraduate degree at Penn State in 1999, then went to Georgia Tech where she earned master’s and doctoral degrees in mechanical engineering. She wrote her dissertation on air-conditioning heat exchanger design optimization, and that focus on thermodynamics still defines her approach to solving problems. Thermodynamicists have a systems-based perspective, always mindful of the way the behavior of one component in a system affects the others and the whole. The perspective is valuable in Stewart’s current work on site-specific energy generation. Each site, she explained, can be seen as a defined system with its own unique combination of limitations and resources. “One of the challenges in each case is to select the technology best suited for the resources available, the technology that will produce the optimal economic result,” Stewart said.
Before her return to Penn State, Stewart helped start the Strategic Energy Institute (SEI) at Georgia Tech, an umbrella organization that brought together researchers from across the university to address energy-related issues. Among SEI’s missions was to assess the feasibility of various energy technologies to provide high-impact, near-term economic growth in the coastal part of the state, and to provide research support for promising projects. While Stewart was there, she and her colleagues studied wind data provided by offshore monitoring towers, which led to the first-time recognition that the wind resource in the Southeast might be sufficient to make power generation there practical someday. Another of her SEI projects looked at developing ethanol from yellow pine, the trees that traditionally had supplied the region’s paper mills.
In 2007, Stewart returned to Penn State to work at the Applied Research Laboratory (ARL) on renewable energy issues, a new business area for them. Stewart soon met people beyond ARL who shared her interest in wind energy, including Aerospace Department Head George Lesieutre, and joined with them to create a wind working group for the university. The following year, Stewart, Lesieutre and Professor Amy Glasmeier of the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences organized a Wind Energy Symposium to focus faculty, industry, and community decision makers on regional wind energy development issues.
Stewart took on her current research associate role in early 2011, but some of her previous responsibilities carried over. Since 2009, she has been part of an interdisciplinary group on building-integrated wind energy research. Her goal is to develop rules of thumb so that a building-integrated wind solution at any given site will produce the maximum power possible. She says architects place a high priority on a project’s aesthetic appeal, and as a result working with them has been an eye-opening experience for her. While Stewart still has what she calls an engineer’s bias toward the primacy of economic considerations, she has gained new appreciation for the architects’ point of view. “After all,” she notes, “no one asks what the payback period is for a work of art. In fact, the pleasure the viewer receives in looking at the project can be seen as part of the payback.”
Stewart’s wide-ranging Penn State responsibilities have also caused her to think about what’s most effective in education. With the state’s Wind for Schools program, she helps elementary, middle and high schools in Pennsylvania integrate wind energy activities into their curriculum. Among the program’s goals is to install three to five small turbines every year at schools throughout the state. Schools in State College, Hazleton, Johnstown and Albion are participating in 2011-2012, the first year of the program. More important than the turbines’ electricity contribution is their contribution to teaching students about wind energy and sparking their interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) areas. Stewart says her experience with education in many forms – K-12, the traditional residence-based university model at Penn State, and online education – has convinced her that inquiry-based learning is effective at all levels to sustain student interest and improve knowledge retention.
Born and raised in the State College area, Stewart is married to her high school sweetheart, Drew. The couple has two children, Will and Katie. Growing up, Stewart was a self-described “math geek” who enjoyed scrutinizing the universe via telescope and microscope as well as building with Construx and Robotix sets. She was also a competitive gymnast for 13 years. Stewart’s family has a generations-long Penn State tradition, and she herself enrolled in 1995. Her original interest in meteorology stemmed from a childhood fascination with the power of lightning and storms.
When Stewart left State College for Atlanta, she thought she would return only for visits. Today she is glad to be back home. She likes having family nearby, but the choice was also a good fit for her professionally. With its unusually collegial faculty, Penn State turns out to be an excellent place for Stewart to use the skills she has attained not only as an engineer but also as a team builder.