From Molecules to Megawatts: Multiscale Thinking for Real-World Energy Applications

From Molecules to Megawatts: Multiscale Thinking for Real-World Energy Applications
Tuesday November 10th, 2026 09:00 AM to 12:00 PM
Lab 3 B715

Description

 

How can a discovery, mechanism, model, or measurement at one scientific scale be translated into meaningful behavior, system-level understanding, environmental relevance, or new research possibilities at another scale? OIST doctoral researchers investigate fundamental questions across biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, materials science, neuroscience, and computation. Although these fields differ substantially, they share a common challenge: understanding how mechanisms observed at one scale connect to behavior, function, and consequences at other scales.
 

This interdisciplinary course introduces engineering not primarily as a collection of technologies, but as a framework for connecting fundamental mechanisms, measurements, models, processes, systems, and societal outcomes. Research examples from bioenergy, thermochemical conversion, reaction kinetics, aerosol particle emission, pollution control, waste valorization, syngas upgrading, and heat recovery will provide concrete cases. Participants will then apply the underlying concepts directly to their own doctoral research.

The course does not require students to identify an immediate commercial application. Translation may instead lead to a new scientific hypothesis, experimental strategy, theoretical connection, measurement method, or interdisciplinary collaboration.

The course is intended to strengthen multiscale reasoning, scientific independence, responsible impact thinking, and communication across disciplinary boundaries. Its principal outcome is not mastery of a particular energy technology, but an expanded ability to recognize how fundamental research can connect to wider scientific and societal systems.

 

Tuesday November 10,   09:00 – 12:00

Friday November 13,       09:00 – 12:00

Tuesday November 17,   09:00 – 12:00

Friday November 20,       09:00 – 12:00

Tuesday November 24,   09:00 – 12:00

Friday November 27,       09:00 – 12:00

 

 

Students should enroll for Credit or as Auditor using the Service Catalog tile at the Student Database

Non-students should register here

 

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