Alessandro F. Rotta Loria, Curriculum Innovation Award Recipient

Curriculum Innovation Award Recipient, 2022

Alessandro F. Rotta Loria is an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering in the McCormick School of Engineering. Rotta Loria will deploy a wireless temperature sensing network in underground environments across the Chicago Loop district that will become a living laboratory for his class “Energy Geostructures and Geosystems” (EGG – CIV_ENV_353). 

This network will provide a large set of real-world data that students in the EGG course will use to design innovative projects that can harvest renewable geothermal energy and waste thermal energy through the subsurface to meet buildings’ heating, cooling and hot water needs. These projects will be developed virtually but could be realizable immediately, with significant implications for the decarbonization of cities and the building sector at large. In support of this undertaking, Rotta Loria will provide students with cross-disciplinary competence in mechanics, energy and data science.

Rotta Loria’s research is at the intersection of geomechanics, energy and environmental sustainability. His goal is to understand the properties and behavior of soils, rocks, concrete and system thereof in the context of geological energy production and storage.

 

Northwestern Now, January 31, 2022 | By Lila Reynolds