REU Site: Computing for an Equitable Energy Transition

该项目在马萨诸塞大学阿姆赫斯特分校建立了本科生研究经验（REU）站点。气候变化是对人类和自然界的重大威胁。计算促进公平能源转型（CEET） REU网站的目标是让本科生了解计算在向可持续能源过渡中发挥的重要作用，无论是作为日益重要的能源消费者，还是在优化社会的能源和碳效率方面。该项目将强调确保公平的能源转型的重要性，以免对边缘化群体产生不公平的影响。CEET的活动将侧重于三个不同的计算子学科，这对实现公平的能源转型至关重要，包括i)设计节能、可靠和低成本的传感器，即传感，ii)设计节能和碳高效的云平台和应用，即计算，以及iii)分析收集的数据，以确定和利用公平的机会来提高社会的可持续性，即分析。CEET将强调招聘传统上在计算机领域代表性不足的群体。预期的影响是培养学生在计算，可持续性和公平的交叉点工作。CEET的范围很广，因为它的方法和方法来自多个相互关联的计算子学科，这些学科对实现公平的能源转型至关重要。以传感为中心的项目将专注于从粗糙、间接和不可靠的传感器中推断有用的信息，从而实现环境监测，而无需昂贵的大规模传感器部署。以计算为中心的项目将专注于优化能源和碳效率，以减少大规模云平台和应用程序对环境的影响。以数据为中心的项目将开发分析收集的传感器数据的方法，以自动识别和利用现实世界的能源和碳节约机会。在每种情况下，项目都将通过公平的视角来考虑问题，以更好地理解效率低下的原因和后果。最终，CEET的目标是为学生提供与能源转换相关的许多计算研究领域的广泛背景。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project establishes a Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) site at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Climate change is a significant threat to humanity and the natural world. The objective for the Computing for an Equitable Energy Transition (CEET) REU site is to expose undergraduate students to the important and significant role that computing will play in the transition to sustainable energy, both as an increasingly significant energy consumer and in optimizing society’s energy- and carbon-efficiency. The project will emphasize the importance of ensuring an equitable energy transition that does not unfairly impact marginalized groups. CEET's activities will focus on three distinct computing sub-disciplines that are important for enabling an equitable energy transition, including i) designing energy-efficient, reliable, and low-cost sensors, i.e., sensing, ii) designing energy- and carbon-efficient cloud platforms and applications, i.e., computing, and iii) analyzing collected data to identify and exploit opportunities for improving society’s sustainability that are equitable, i.e., analysis. CEET will emphasize the recruitment of groups traditionally under-represented in computing. The intended impact is to train students to work at the intersection of computing, sustainability, and equity.CEET's scope is broad, as its methods and approaches draw from multiple inter-related sub-disciplines of computing that are critical to achieving an equitable energy transition. Sensing-centric projects will focus on inferring useful information from coarse, indirect, and unreliable sensors that enable environmental monitoring without expensive large-scale sensor deployments. Computing-centric projects will focus on optimizing energy- and carbon-efficiency to reduce the environmental impact of large-scale cloud platforms and applications. Data-centric projects will develop methods for analyzing collected sensor data to automatically identify and exploit real-world opportunities for energy and carbon savings. In each case, projects will consider problems through an equity lens to better understand the reasons and consequences of inefficiency. Ultimately, CEET's goal is to provide students a broad background in the many areas of computing research that intersect the energy transition.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.