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N.C. A&T receives $10M for clean energy research

N.C. A&T College of Engineering Professor Dhananjay Kumar will lead a new center focusing on clean energy research. Photo courtesy of N.C. A&T.

North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University has received a $10 million grant to open a clean energy research center. 

The center will be funded by a four-year grant from the federal Department of Energy (DOE). 

It's part of an interdisciplinary effort focused on creating affordable, net-zero emission energy sources.

The research will be led by College of Engineering Professor Dhananjay Kumar. He says the primary focus will be on splitting hydrogen and oxygen from water, with the goal of producing clean hydrogen for energy use.

Kumar believes this work has the potential to provide breakthroughs in the field of clean energy. 

He will lead a team including not only N.C. A&T researchers but faculty from other universities including Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Cornell. 

He says the funding is a “crown jewel award from DOE” with N.C. A&T being the first historically Black college or university to receive funding of this nature. 

Neal Charnoff joined 88.5 WFDD as Morning Edition host in 2014. Raised in the Catskill region of upstate New York, he graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1983. Armed with a liberal arts degree, Neal was fully equipped to be a waiter. So he prolonged his arrested development bouncing around New York and L.A. until discovering that people enjoyed listening to his voice on the radio. After a few years doing overnight shifts at a local rock station, Neal spent most of his career at Vermont Public Radio. He began as host of a nightly jazz program, where he was proud to interview many of his idols, including Dave Brubeck and Sonny Rollins. Neal graduated to the news department, where he was the local host for NPR's All Things Considered for 14 years. In addition to news interviews and features, he originated and produced the Weekly Conversation On The Arts, as well as VPR Backstage, which profiled theater productions around the state. He contributed several stories to NPR, including coverage of a devastating ice storm. Neal now sees the value of that liberal arts degree, and approaches life with the knowledge that all subjects and all art forms are connected to each other. Neal and his wife Judy are enjoying exploring North Carolina and points south. They would both be happy to never experience a Vermont winter again.

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