Seminar Objectives

• Understand technologies for sustainable energy production, conversion and utilization.
• Understand limitations and opportunities.
• Gain experience in challenges and opportunities in designing sustainable energy systems.
• Develop your own vision for a future sustainable energy scenario.

View the 2025 schedule of presentations.

2025 Location

• The University of Maryland was honored to welcome 21 international students to our campus, where they joined seven UMD students.
• All seminars were held in the Edward St. John Learning & Teaching Center, 4131 Campus Dr., College Park, Maryland.
• Housing was in a residential facility at the University of Maryland campus.

International Partnership

The seminar location rotates among the participating universities:

2026 - Hamburg University of Technology, Germany

2025 - University of Maryland, USA (Read more about the 2025 seminar.)

2023 - Waseda University, Japan

2019 - Korea University, South Korea

Participants work together on group projects and relax together on the evenings and weekends. 

Seminar speakers

Presenters are experts from each of the five participating universities. The 2025 presenters included: 

Dr. Niccolò Giannetti is an associate professor at the Institute for Energy and Environmental System at Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan. His research spans a broad range of thermal and energy systems, including heat pump dynamics, solar cooling, absorption systems, natural refrigerants, and the application of machine learning for modeling and optimization.

Dr. Yunho Hwang is a research professor of Mechanical Engineering and director of the EEHP Consortium at the Center for Environmental Energy Engineering at the University of Maryland, USA. He is a world-renowned expert in energy efficiency and innovative energy systems research in the field of refrigeration and air-conditioning.

Dr. Cheng-Yi Lee is a postdoctoral associate at the Center for Environmental Energy Engineering at the University of Maryland, where he contributes to and helps lead research on advanced heat pump systems and high-efficiency compression technologies.
 

Dr. Hoseong Lee is in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Korea University. His research spans a broad range of energy systems, including heat pump technologies, thermal management for electric vehicles and data centers, and the optimization of plus-energy buildings.

Dr. Gerhard Schmitz is professor emeritus for thermodynamics in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH). His research focuses on modeling and analyzing of complex energy systems.

Dr. Zhenyuan Xu is in the School of Mechanical Engineering at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. His research focuses on the efficient utilization of solar thermal energy and waste heat with desalination, thermal storage and heat pumps.

Dr. Baowen Zhou is in the School of Mechanical Engineering at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. His research is focused on developing the new-generation Carbon-neutral Energy Device, System and Solution for green hydrogen and renewable fuels, metal-air batteries, and waste valorization.