2019 Department of Energy Vehicle Technologies Office Annual Merit Review
My current research project is funded by the Department of Energy Vehicle Technologies Office, who annually holds a multi-day conference at which the principal investigators of their funded projects present about the past, present, and future of their work. This is entitled the Annual Merit Review, and mercifully the entire thing is abbreviated to the DoE VTO AMR. Recently, I attended this event to support my research professor as he presented our work, as well as to meet and talk with the members of our team not located in Charlottesville, VA.
Conference Structure
The conference was held at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City just outside of Reagan International Airport in Alexandria, VA. The 2019 AMR ran from Monday, June 10th, to Thursday, June 13th. Opening remarks were made in the afternoon on day 1 and each succeeding day was filled with researchers’ presentations from 8am to 5:30pm followed immediately by a poster session that lasted until 7:30pm. Needless to say, this was one packed week. Each day began with a continental breakfast that opened at 7am. Fortunately, two 30-minute snack breaks broke up the morning and afternoon sessions, and an hour and a half lunch break broke the day into two halves. All of these breaks were catered, which very much exceeded my expectations.
On each day, several presentations were given in parallel. The VTO has several research “thrusts”, so separate rooms were set up host each individual thrust. The thrusts included Advanced Combustion Engines, Technology Integration, Electrification Technologies, Battery Research and Development, Energy Efficient Mobility Systems, and Advanced Materials, which is the thrust of my project. Not all thrusts are the same; Some had more presentations than others and some were held in much bigger rooms. As could be expected, the battery thrust seemed to garner the most attention. I would say the Advanced Materials thrust had a modest room and solid turnout.
Day 1
The 2019 Department of Energy Vehicle Technologies Office Annual Merit Review had all the trappings of a large conference, check out the opening remarks layout (This shows a quarter of the room).
Our team drove from Charlottesville on Monday morning, checked-into our accommodations (an AirBnB for the students and the hotel for our senior members), and attended the opening remarks of the conference. I was struck by the size of the event. Nearly 1000 attendees makes for a big group, and the hotel’s conference center was decked out for the occasion. We heard from the leaders of the DoE Vehicle Technologies Office as well as leaders from tangentially related offices such as the Office of Electricity, Advanced Manufacturing Office, and Bioenergy Technologies Office. It was exciting to see the breadth of research conducted in just one segment of the government’s agencies, and I got a sense that although the project I’m on is big to me, it is a very small piece of this entire DoE research puzzle. The opening remarks concluded at 5:30pm, and we went on our way to find food and supplies for the remainder of the trip.
Daily Routine
Our AirBnB was a very short drive from the hotel, but parking was exorbitantly expensive due to its proximity to the airport; we opted to ride-share our way instead. Also fortunately, our team’s presentation was scheduled as the first presentation of the first day of presentations. Once it was over we were free to view the presentations that sparked our interest and were encouraged to seek out potential projects and partnerships that we could bring to the lab.
The Presentation
My research advisor, Dr. Chris Li, is the “principal investigator” (PI) of my project, so he presented our team’s research. The presentation was a great compilation of everything we had accomplished in the past year and each slide was jam packed with information. Our team consists of graduate students, post-docs, and professors from UVA and Penn State, as well as researchers from Oak Ridge National Lab and Solvay, so you can imagine that there was a lot to talk about. Dr. Li was allotted 20 minutes to present and 10 minutes to answer questions, and I’m glad to say that both went very well. The presentation seemed to come across clearly and the questions were thoughtful and engaged. We were all glad to see our work represented well! You can see the presentation slides online on the DoE website!
Afterwards, we watched a parallel project with a goal similar to ours and then convened with our team to discuss the presentation. We agreed on the next steps of our project and reflected on the reviewers questions before parting ways to see what other projects were going on.
Research Galore
After our presentation and for the remainder of the AMR I attended the Advanced Materials presentations. I had anticipated bouncing between different thrusts but ultimately I stuck with materials the entire time. I saw research on composites integration into automotive component design, magnesium, steel, and aluminum alloy development, and novel manufacturing techniques for the like. Some research projects had just begun, some had just wrapped up, and the rest were in between. Much of the research was conducted by national labs, such as Oak Ridge National Lab, or by corporations like Ford and General Motors with a few headed by universities. It was interesting to see the variance in research and presentation quality throughout the week, and I gained a better appreciation for the level of our work compared to others funded by the Department of Energy.
By the end of the AMR, I was exhausted from the hours of taking in the presentations. I enjoyed attending my first conference and felt like I learned a lot despite the feeling like I was drinking from a fire hose. In the coming weeks I hope to detail some of my favorite presentations if I can get caught up on writing about my latest efforts in the lab. I’ve been hard at work developing new components for our melt-spinning line that I’m eager to share!