Ah-Hyung “Alissa” Park has been named the Ronald and Valerie Sugar Dean of the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering. Park. One of the nation’s leading experts on carbon capture and conversion technology, Park is currently the Lenfest Earth Institute Professor of Climate Change and chair of the department of earth and environmental engineering at Columbia University, where she has been a faculty member since 2007. She also is director of the Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy, an executive committee member of The Earth Institute and Columbia Climate School and a member of Columbia’s department of chemical engineering.

“Chancellor Block and I are confident that under Alissa’s visionary leadership, UCLA Samueli will make even greater strides in advancing engineering education and research for the benefit of our society,” Darnell Hunt, UCLA’s executive vice chancellor and provost, wrote in a message to the campus.

Park’s research focuses on sustainable energy and materials conversion pathways with an emphasis on using integrated carbon capture, utilization and storage technologies to address climate change. Her research group also is investigating direct air capture of carbon dioxide and negative emission technologies, including bioenergy with carbon capture and storage and sustainable construction materials with low carbon intensity.

“I am deeply humbled and also excited to serve as the next dean of engineering at UCLA, a world-class public university,” Park said. “It is an exciting and critical time for engineering and computer science as we focus on addressing many grand challenges and opportunities with tremendous social impact such as climate change, pandemics and artificial intelligence.

Read more at UCLA Newsroom.

Image Source: Columbia University