Abstract
The Prairie Research Institute (PRI) conducts transformative research that provides innovative, at-scale solutions for a society undergoing climate and energy transitions. PRI unites scientific expertise in geology, ecology and biodiversity, archaeology, hydrology and water, weather and climate, pollution prevention, and sustainable energy. PRI leads applied research in carbon capture and storage, geothermal energy, and biofuels, helping to advance Illinois, and the world, toward a more sustainable future.
This talk will give an overview of the PRI and will provide some examples of case studies around the applied research that the PRI conducts into the safe, effective, and economical capture, use, and storage of CO2 from power plants and industrial operations. Praveen’s talk will also include the innovative ways that PRI scientists investigate to transform waste, such as municipal waste and CO2 captured from power plants, into biofuel and the PRI efforts to leverage Illinois’ favourable groundwater conditions to develop reliable, sustainable, cost-effective geothermal power.
Biography
Praveen Kumar is the Executive Director for Prairie Research Institute, Urbana-Champaign, and the Colonel Harry F. and Frankie M. Lovell Endowed Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering. Kumar, an expert in hydrology and a seasoned research leader, studies the complex interactions between the water cycle, climate change, vegetation, and surface and sub-surface transport of water and chemicals in human-dominated and natural systems. He has affiliate appointments in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences; the National Center for Supercomputing Applications; the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology; and the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment.
Professor Praveen Kumar holds a B.Tech. (Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India 1987), M.S. (Iowa State University 1989), and Ph.D. (University of Minnesota 1993), all in civil engineering. Kumar joined as a faculty at Univ. of Illinois in 1995 where he has been since. Prior to joining University of Illinois, he was a research scientist (January 1993 to July 1995) at the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) and Hydrologic Sciences Branch, NASA- Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA.Dr. His research deals with Hydrocomplexity, the quantitative understanding and prediction of emergent patterns of form and function that arise from complex non-linear multi-scale interactions between soil, water, climate, vegetation and human systems; and how this understanding can be used for innovative solutions to water and sustainability challenges. He has made extensive, deep and signature contributions pertaining to Critical Zone science for intensively managed landscapes, biosphere-hydrosphere interactions, multi-scale variability of hydrologic processes, hydro-geomorphology, hydroinformatics, and information theory in geosciences. His research has been funded by federal agencies such as NSF, NASA, and NOAA.
