UH Helps Bring Wind Turbine Research Center to Texas

The University of Houston-led Lone Star Wind Alliance has succeeded in bringing one of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) large turbine-testing facilities to the Texas Gulf Coast, a major step forward in developing the future of clean, renewable wind energy.

“We are very excited about this opportunity and announcement,” said Raymond Flumerfelt, dean of the Cullen College of Engineering at UH. “It will directly result in a University of Houston-directed $24 million world-class research and test facility in Texas to test large wind turbine blades and wind system components. It is also an important first step in establishing Texas as a global leader in wind energy technology and providing an important support base for a projected half trillion dollar global industry.”

Groups from both Texas and Massachusetts will receive $2 million from DOE to design, construct and operate a research facility capable of testing offshore wind blades up to 330 feet in length. Including the DOE investment, project costs of each test facility will total approximately $20 million. The Lone Star Wind Alliance has pledged approximately $18 million from state and private sources for initial capital and startup costs.

Texas’ facility will be in Ingleside, just north of Corpus Christi.

In addition to the University of Houston’s Cullen College of Engineering, the Lone Star Wind Alliance includes the University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M University, Texas Tech University, West Texas A&M University, the Houston Advanced Research Center, Stanford University, Montana State University, New Mexico State University, Old Dominion University, the Texas General Land Office, the State Energy Conservation Office, the Texas Workforce Commission, Gov. Perry, Dow Chemical Co., Huntsman and Good Company Associates.

Regents Set New Tuition & Fee Rates

The University of Houston System Board of Regents approved rates for fiscal year 2008 in a special meeting held last month.

There will be a 6.9 percent increase in tuition and fees at UH for a typical resident undergraduate student taking 12 credit hours. That would amount to a $202 increase, to $3,144 per semester compared with $2,942 for fiscal year 2007.

• At UH-Clear Lake, there will be a 6.2 percent increase ($128)
• At UH-Downtown, the increase will be 9.9 percent ($183)
• At UH-Victoria, there will be a 5.9 percent increase ($114)

These increases are based on a “sliding scale” adopted by the board in April that pegged the rates to the specific amount of funding received from the Texas Legislature. With the legislative session concluded and final appropriation levels determined, the board voted to approve the rates for the UH System within the scale that it had previously announced.

“We’re grateful Gov. Perry and the Legislature increased funding for higher education in Texas,” said Leroy Hermes, Board of Regents chairman. “We are working to ensure that our tuition and fees are as reasonable as possible while continuing to make strides toward achieving flagship status.”

At UH, the rate increase will help fund the hiring of 28 new faculty members and instructional personnel.

UH Joins Methodist and Cornell to Advance Biomedial Science

The Methodist Hospital, the University of Houston, and Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University are combining their expertise in biomedical imaging to advance discoveries in the growing field of biomedical science and its clinical applications.

The three institutions have jointly founded the Institute for Biomedical Imaging Science (IBIS). This Institute will create interdisciplinary programs in the sciences of biomedical imaging and will foster joint training programs to produce the next generation of basic and applied scientists. Biomedical imaging includes magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), CAT scans and other high technologies ranging from molecular imaging to nanotechnology to computer science.

These techniques are used to observe the activities of organs, cells and molecules with the aim of better diagnosis and treatment of many disorders, including those caused by cancer, cardiac malfunction and neurological conditions.

IBIS will bring together a critical mass of scientists from the three partner institutions to work toward developing new technologies and toward improving and extending existing ones. The combined expertise is expected to speed such advances and to increase the likelihood of receiving major grants for research and training.

“We are establishing a unique research environment, with as many as 50 scientists working together from the three institutions that already are aligned through academic affiliations,” said Ioannis Kakadiaris, chair of the IBIS steering committee, professor of computer science and electrical engineering, and director of the Computational Biomedicine Lab at the University of Houston. “We are thus positioning ourselves to be on the forefront of discoveries in biomedical imaging.”

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