Luciano Castillo. PhD
Kenninger Professor in Renewable Energy and Power Systems in Mechanical Engineering
Purdue University- College of Engineering
Dr. Castillo received his B.S. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from State University of New York at Buffalo. Prior to coming to Purdue, he was the Don-Kay-Clay Cash Distinguished Engineering Chair in Wind Energy and Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Texas Tech University. Before he joined Texas Tech University in 2011, he was Professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the Mechanical & Aerospace Department.
Dr. Castillo has published over 100 publications, edited several books on renewable energy and co-authored several patents (e.g., energy, health care, etc.). Some of his awards include: Fellow ASME, the NASA Faculty Fellowship, the Martin Luther King Faculty Award, the Robert T. Knapp Award on complex flows from the ASME, the Best Paper Award from the Journal of Renewable Energy, the Best Paper Award from IEEE for his innovative approaches on engineering education (by bringing active learning, design and innovation in the classroom), and the Rensselaer Faculty Award (twice). He is passionate about inclusiveness and mentoring students and young faculty, and founded and organized two summer research institutes on renewable energy & medicine, which included students, faculty and K-12 teachers. For his contributions and impacts on inclusiveness he received in 2016 the McDonald Mentoring Award from ASME, and was nominated for a Presidential Award given by the President of the USA.
His areas of research interest include: turbulence, renewable energy and bioengineering. .
Kenninger Professor in Renewable Energy and Power Systems in Mechanical Engineering
Purdue University- College of Engineering
Dr. Castillo received his B.S. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from State University of New York at Buffalo. Prior to coming to Purdue, he was the Don-Kay-Clay Cash Distinguished Engineering Chair in Wind Energy and Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Texas Tech University. Before he joined Texas Tech University in 2011, he was Professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the Mechanical & Aerospace Department.
Dr. Castillo has published over 100 publications, edited several books on renewable energy and co-authored several patents (e.g., energy, health care, etc.). Some of his awards include: Fellow ASME, the NASA Faculty Fellowship, the Martin Luther King Faculty Award, the Robert T. Knapp Award on complex flows from the ASME, the Best Paper Award from the Journal of Renewable Energy, the Best Paper Award from IEEE for his innovative approaches on engineering education (by bringing active learning, design and innovation in the classroom), and the Rensselaer Faculty Award (twice). He is passionate about inclusiveness and mentoring students and young faculty, and founded and organized two summer research institutes on renewable energy & medicine, which included students, faculty and K-12 teachers. For his contributions and impacts on inclusiveness he received in 2016 the McDonald Mentoring Award from ASME, and was nominated for a Presidential Award given by the President of the USA.
His areas of research interest include: turbulence, renewable energy and bioengineering. .
Recent Article:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/renewable-energy-saves-water-and-creates-jobs/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/renewable-energy-saves-water-and-creates-jobs/
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
- Don-Kay-Clay Cash Distinguished Engineering Chair in Wind Energy,
- (Cluster Strategic Hire). Professor of Mechanical Engineering Department, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX (11 - present).
- President/Executive Director, National Wind Resource Center, Lubbock, TX (11 -14).
- Professor, Mechanical, Aerospace & Nuclear Engineering Department, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY (11).
- Associate Professor, Mechanical, Aerospace & Nuclear Engineering Department, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY (04 - 11).
- Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical, Aerospace & Nuclear Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY (99 - 04).
- Adjunct Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering,
- Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD (09 - present).
- Post-Doctoral Fellow, Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering,
- State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY (98 - 99).
- Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering,
- Indiana Institute of Technology, Fort Wayne, IN (97- 98).
RELEVANT LEADERSHIP EXPERIENCE
Center Director/President and Endowed Chair
1. Symposium Chair: ”Whither Turbulence and Big Data In the 21st Century”. Role: Conference Chairman.
The symposium was held in Corsica, France, April 20-24, 2015, dedicating 5 days for in depth discussions on turbulence and big data. It represents a follow-up to the 1989 symposium organized by Prof. J. Lumley to address key fundamental questions in turbulence. Lumleys volume provided a compendium of the state of the art in our understanding of turbulence as at 1989. Conse-quently, we built on that success to focus on big data in turbulence and the key problems in turbulence for the next 25 years.
2. Campus Wide Leadership.
Established the vision and financial model for integration of all wind efforts on campus at Texas Tech. Resulted in a new Institute (2011-2012). Met several times with a group of about eighty faculty from Engineering, Arts & Sciences, and the Business School; Deans of Engineering, Arts & Sciences, and the Graduate School; the Provost; the VP for Research; and Department Chairs as well as supporting personnel to build and support our vision for the Wind efforts on campus. The idea was to leverage resources and expertise, and lead a world-class team to make TTU a world-class Institution on wind energy. In addition, Castillo met with several members of the Economic Development from West Texas and built partnerships with Industry and National Labs (e.g., NREL, Sandia National Lab, NCAR) as well as the local community to find unique ways that we can assist the Wind Energy Industry to become more successful. Developed an agreement with upper administration to devote a building for this new Center.
3. Established Marketing Plan and Strategic Hires for Center.
Including NAE faculty, endowed chairs, junior faculty, and scientists from industry.
4. The Cash Family Distinguished Lecture in Engineering.
With funds from the Cash Family endowment Castillo created a Distinguished Lecture Series in engineering. Distinguished scientists included members of the NAE, and NAS such as: Ron Adrian, Parviz Moin, Fazle Hussain, and Richard Tapia. The major outcome of the lectures was that we were able to hire Prof. Hussain in the WCOE as a Presidential Distinguished Professor.
5. Partnerships.
Established more than 25 MOU with academia, national labs and industry from USA, Europe and Australia. Key partnership with GEM Consortium in order to attract 20-30 underrepresented graduate students per year at TTU.
6. Leadership and Vision.
Significant experience in dealing with multi-disciplinary teams, personnel and local community. (i) Established vision and team for an Engineering Research Center on Wind Energy and Water. (ii) Built team for IGERT Proposal on Wind Energy and Entrepreneurship. (iii) Currently, developing the partnerships and agreements with upper administration in order to establish an Incubator. This project will engage industries, faculty and students in the development of new technologies for wind energy performance.
7. NSF Workshop to Build Industrial Partnerships.
In May 2012, Castillo hosted an Industry Consortium Planning Meeting that was attended by 12 industry, academia, economic development and small business development professionals where Dr. Karlene Hoo of the National Science Foundation was the guest speaker. The seminar focused on the funding opportunities available through the National Science Foundation, in particular the (1) Innovation programs of the IIP Partnerships for Innovation: Building Innovation Capacity, and Partnerships for Innovation: Accelerating Innovation Research, Innovation-Corps, Industrial/University Cooperative Research Centers; and (2) Small business programs – SBIR/STTR, and capacity building to utilize these funding sources to commercialize research and leverage expertise.
8. International Wind Energy Symposium (Role: Conference Chairman). Castillo was instrumental in bringing researchers from around the world (Den-mark, Germany, Belgium, Spain) as well as experts from DOE (including the program manager for all Wind Energy programs in USA) and National Labs (e.g., Sandia National Lab, NREL, NCAR) to Texas Tech University.
9. State Wind Energy Meeting.
Under the leadership of Castillo, a major meeting was held in the Dallas-Forth Worth area, which included all major institutions in the State of Texas with the purpose of promoting collaborations in wind energy. A major outcome of this event was that we established the first Texas Fluid Dynamics Conference held in December 2012.
10. Co-organizer of the iTi Conference on Turbulence IV, Italy.
In collaboration with world-class scientists from Italy and Germany, Castillo was part of the organizing committee of the iTi Conference, The major outcome was that the team co-edited a book of the conference proceedings.
11. Symposium on Frontiers of Fluid Dynamics - A Legacy, Puerto Rico. Chairman of symposium (www.nwrcevents.com). This event will honor the 70th Birthday of Fazle Hussain, a world-class fluid dynamicist who has contributed in areas related to fluid dynamics in medicine, turbulence, and energy. The event was held in San Juan, Puerto Rico during November 1-3, 2013.
12. Chair and Co-founder: Texas Fluid Dynamics Conference.
Established with Dr. Charles Tinney the first Texas Fluid Dynamics Conference to bring graduate students and faculty from Texas into a relax atmosphere to promote research collaborations in the state of Texas, and focus on graduate students research in fluid dynamics. The first conference was held at the Canyon of the Eagles in 2013.
Leadership on Diversity
1. Promote STEM Fields in Hispanic Community.
Coordinated TV interviews with a local Hispanic Television channel (Telemu-ndo) and the English program for world-class speakers including National Medal of Science, NAE Members and NASA Senior Executive.
2. Summer Research Institute on Energy, and Medicine, (Founder and Director). During 2013, we created an 8-week Summer Research Institute consisting of 26 STEM students from various Institutions with a distribution of 85% minorities. Students (e.g., mainly undergraduate students) were instructed on the foundations of Math and Physics the first two weeks, and the last 6 weeks conducted research in energy, medicine and aerodynamics. Engaged Faculty, Deans, VP-Research, Provost and President of the University on event and future growth to ensure we increase diversity in graduate programs.
The Second Annual NWRC Summer Research Institute on Energy, Innovation and Medicine began on June 5. In 2014, we recruited 42 students to the program, 30 of which came from several various US universities, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Cuba, Argentina and the other 12 were TTU students, and 5 were High School students. An award ceremony was held during the symposium to honor the accomplishments of the students throughout the program. A major outcome of the Summer Research Institute are as follows: (i) 3 disclosures of new technologies, (ii) a team created a new startup, (iii) 7 PhD student enrolled TTU, (iv) a Proceeding of the papers will appear in the fall of 2014, (v) developed a curriculum for wind energy for High School teachers.
3. K-12 Teachers Research Experience.
During 2013 we invited 7 K-12 STEM teachers to engage in research activities as well as world-class scientists (e.g., Richard Tapia (The National Medal of Science and NAE Member), Carlos Castillo- Chavez (Presidential Awardee), and NASA Deputy Director for Education (Dr. Roosevelt Johnson) among oth-ers. For two weeks we engaged high school teachers on the fundamentals of wind energy, design, fabrication and performance (power output) testing of wind turbines with the goal of bringing this significant project-based activity to the classroom. A curriculum for K-12 on wind energy was developed for teachers.
4. Faculty Mentor and Leader of Diversity on Campus at RPI. Mentored the Soci-ety of Hispanic Professional Engineers student chapter at RPI for several years. Under my leadership and mentoring, the chapter grew to more than 200 active students and won The Best Chapter Award at the national level.
5. Founder and Leader of Diversity Program at RPI- The NSF AGEP.
Created and founded the Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) program, which was funded for an amount of $5M (including cost share) by the National Science Foundation including: Cornell University, Syracuse University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez (UPRM); later, Johns Hopkins University joined the alliance. The program demonstrated great success in recruiting students and mentoring minority and female graduate students. Some of the outcomes include: (i) more than 20 minority students graduated with PhDs.; (ii) 6 PhDs placed in academia including at Georgia Tech, Portland State University, University of Texas-San Antonio, Texas tech University, University of South Florida, Oakland University, University of Turabo and University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez; and (iii) mentoring of minority faculty resulted in 3 NSF-Career Awards.
6. Lead Diversity Initiative at Texas Tech.
Organized a Workshop at Texas Tech composed of multi-disciplinary Faculty, Deans, Provost, President and Staff to build a visionary road map on diversity and inclusiveness for a cultural trans- formation that will significantly increase the number of minorities including fe- males in STEM fields at Texas Tech (e.g., 100 minority graduate students in 3.5 years).
7. Partnership between Ecuador (ESPOL) and TTU/UIUC (2014).
Developed research partnership with Escuela Superior Politecnica del Litoral (ESPOL) in Ecuador to attract 12 graduate students to Texas Tech University and University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign. Visits among institutions and dual degrees will enable us to attract a large number of students to USA on wind energy. A proposal was submitted to Ecuador for the amount of $5M (USD).
Center Director/President and Endowed Chair
1. Symposium Chair: ”Whither Turbulence and Big Data In the 21st Century”. Role: Conference Chairman.
The symposium was held in Corsica, France, April 20-24, 2015, dedicating 5 days for in depth discussions on turbulence and big data. It represents a follow-up to the 1989 symposium organized by Prof. J. Lumley to address key fundamental questions in turbulence. Lumleys volume provided a compendium of the state of the art in our understanding of turbulence as at 1989. Conse-quently, we built on that success to focus on big data in turbulence and the key problems in turbulence for the next 25 years.
2. Campus Wide Leadership.
Established the vision and financial model for integration of all wind efforts on campus at Texas Tech. Resulted in a new Institute (2011-2012). Met several times with a group of about eighty faculty from Engineering, Arts & Sciences, and the Business School; Deans of Engineering, Arts & Sciences, and the Graduate School; the Provost; the VP for Research; and Department Chairs as well as supporting personnel to build and support our vision for the Wind efforts on campus. The idea was to leverage resources and expertise, and lead a world-class team to make TTU a world-class Institution on wind energy. In addition, Castillo met with several members of the Economic Development from West Texas and built partnerships with Industry and National Labs (e.g., NREL, Sandia National Lab, NCAR) as well as the local community to find unique ways that we can assist the Wind Energy Industry to become more successful. Developed an agreement with upper administration to devote a building for this new Center.
3. Established Marketing Plan and Strategic Hires for Center.
Including NAE faculty, endowed chairs, junior faculty, and scientists from industry.
4. The Cash Family Distinguished Lecture in Engineering.
With funds from the Cash Family endowment Castillo created a Distinguished Lecture Series in engineering. Distinguished scientists included members of the NAE, and NAS such as: Ron Adrian, Parviz Moin, Fazle Hussain, and Richard Tapia. The major outcome of the lectures was that we were able to hire Prof. Hussain in the WCOE as a Presidential Distinguished Professor.
5. Partnerships.
Established more than 25 MOU with academia, national labs and industry from USA, Europe and Australia. Key partnership with GEM Consortium in order to attract 20-30 underrepresented graduate students per year at TTU.
6. Leadership and Vision.
Significant experience in dealing with multi-disciplinary teams, personnel and local community. (i) Established vision and team for an Engineering Research Center on Wind Energy and Water. (ii) Built team for IGERT Proposal on Wind Energy and Entrepreneurship. (iii) Currently, developing the partnerships and agreements with upper administration in order to establish an Incubator. This project will engage industries, faculty and students in the development of new technologies for wind energy performance.
7. NSF Workshop to Build Industrial Partnerships.
In May 2012, Castillo hosted an Industry Consortium Planning Meeting that was attended by 12 industry, academia, economic development and small business development professionals where Dr. Karlene Hoo of the National Science Foundation was the guest speaker. The seminar focused on the funding opportunities available through the National Science Foundation, in particular the (1) Innovation programs of the IIP Partnerships for Innovation: Building Innovation Capacity, and Partnerships for Innovation: Accelerating Innovation Research, Innovation-Corps, Industrial/University Cooperative Research Centers; and (2) Small business programs – SBIR/STTR, and capacity building to utilize these funding sources to commercialize research and leverage expertise.
8. International Wind Energy Symposium (Role: Conference Chairman). Castillo was instrumental in bringing researchers from around the world (Den-mark, Germany, Belgium, Spain) as well as experts from DOE (including the program manager for all Wind Energy programs in USA) and National Labs (e.g., Sandia National Lab, NREL, NCAR) to Texas Tech University.
9. State Wind Energy Meeting.
Under the leadership of Castillo, a major meeting was held in the Dallas-Forth Worth area, which included all major institutions in the State of Texas with the purpose of promoting collaborations in wind energy. A major outcome of this event was that we established the first Texas Fluid Dynamics Conference held in December 2012.
10. Co-organizer of the iTi Conference on Turbulence IV, Italy.
In collaboration with world-class scientists from Italy and Germany, Castillo was part of the organizing committee of the iTi Conference, The major outcome was that the team co-edited a book of the conference proceedings.
11. Symposium on Frontiers of Fluid Dynamics - A Legacy, Puerto Rico. Chairman of symposium (www.nwrcevents.com). This event will honor the 70th Birthday of Fazle Hussain, a world-class fluid dynamicist who has contributed in areas related to fluid dynamics in medicine, turbulence, and energy. The event was held in San Juan, Puerto Rico during November 1-3, 2013.
12. Chair and Co-founder: Texas Fluid Dynamics Conference.
Established with Dr. Charles Tinney the first Texas Fluid Dynamics Conference to bring graduate students and faculty from Texas into a relax atmosphere to promote research collaborations in the state of Texas, and focus on graduate students research in fluid dynamics. The first conference was held at the Canyon of the Eagles in 2013.
Leadership on Diversity
1. Promote STEM Fields in Hispanic Community.
Coordinated TV interviews with a local Hispanic Television channel (Telemu-ndo) and the English program for world-class speakers including National Medal of Science, NAE Members and NASA Senior Executive.
2. Summer Research Institute on Energy, and Medicine, (Founder and Director). During 2013, we created an 8-week Summer Research Institute consisting of 26 STEM students from various Institutions with a distribution of 85% minorities. Students (e.g., mainly undergraduate students) were instructed on the foundations of Math and Physics the first two weeks, and the last 6 weeks conducted research in energy, medicine and aerodynamics. Engaged Faculty, Deans, VP-Research, Provost and President of the University on event and future growth to ensure we increase diversity in graduate programs.
The Second Annual NWRC Summer Research Institute on Energy, Innovation and Medicine began on June 5. In 2014, we recruited 42 students to the program, 30 of which came from several various US universities, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Cuba, Argentina and the other 12 were TTU students, and 5 were High School students. An award ceremony was held during the symposium to honor the accomplishments of the students throughout the program. A major outcome of the Summer Research Institute are as follows: (i) 3 disclosures of new technologies, (ii) a team created a new startup, (iii) 7 PhD student enrolled TTU, (iv) a Proceeding of the papers will appear in the fall of 2014, (v) developed a curriculum for wind energy for High School teachers.
3. K-12 Teachers Research Experience.
During 2013 we invited 7 K-12 STEM teachers to engage in research activities as well as world-class scientists (e.g., Richard Tapia (The National Medal of Science and NAE Member), Carlos Castillo- Chavez (Presidential Awardee), and NASA Deputy Director for Education (Dr. Roosevelt Johnson) among oth-ers. For two weeks we engaged high school teachers on the fundamentals of wind energy, design, fabrication and performance (power output) testing of wind turbines with the goal of bringing this significant project-based activity to the classroom. A curriculum for K-12 on wind energy was developed for teachers.
4. Faculty Mentor and Leader of Diversity on Campus at RPI. Mentored the Soci-ety of Hispanic Professional Engineers student chapter at RPI for several years. Under my leadership and mentoring, the chapter grew to more than 200 active students and won The Best Chapter Award at the national level.
5. Founder and Leader of Diversity Program at RPI- The NSF AGEP.
Created and founded the Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) program, which was funded for an amount of $5M (including cost share) by the National Science Foundation including: Cornell University, Syracuse University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez (UPRM); later, Johns Hopkins University joined the alliance. The program demonstrated great success in recruiting students and mentoring minority and female graduate students. Some of the outcomes include: (i) more than 20 minority students graduated with PhDs.; (ii) 6 PhDs placed in academia including at Georgia Tech, Portland State University, University of Texas-San Antonio, Texas tech University, University of South Florida, Oakland University, University of Turabo and University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez; and (iii) mentoring of minority faculty resulted in 3 NSF-Career Awards.
6. Lead Diversity Initiative at Texas Tech.
Organized a Workshop at Texas Tech composed of multi-disciplinary Faculty, Deans, Provost, President and Staff to build a visionary road map on diversity and inclusiveness for a cultural trans- formation that will significantly increase the number of minorities including fe- males in STEM fields at Texas Tech (e.g., 100 minority graduate students in 3.5 years).
7. Partnership between Ecuador (ESPOL) and TTU/UIUC (2014).
Developed research partnership with Escuela Superior Politecnica del Litoral (ESPOL) in Ecuador to attract 12 graduate students to Texas Tech University and University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign. Visits among institutions and dual degrees will enable us to attract a large number of students to USA on wind energy. A proposal was submitted to Ecuador for the amount of $5M (USD).
HONORS AND DISTINCTIONS
AWARDS:
AWARDS:
- Fellow ASME, (2013).
- Rensselaer Trustee Faculty Award, (2005, 2008).
- NASA Summer Faculty Fellowship, (2001, 2002).
- ASME: Robert T. Knapp Award, Best Paper Award, (2002).
- Martin Luther King Jr. Faculty Award, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (2002).
- NSF Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring. (2015) (nomination).
- Journal of Renewable Energy Best Paper Award, (2015).
- IEEE Best Paper Award, (2016).
- ASME McDonald Award, (2016).
HONORS:
- Plenary Lecture at the Latin American and Caribbean Consortium of Engineering Institutions (LACCEI). Dominican Republic, (2015).
- NSF Committee of Visitors (COV),
- Sub-Chair: Site Visit to NSF Program (HRD), (2013).
- Texas Academy of Medicine, Engineering & Science.
- Invited Speaker-Panelist, (2012).
- Invited Presentation: 1st International Symposium on Energy Challenges & Mechanics. Scotland, UK, July 8-10, (2014).
- Invited Paper: 37th AIAA Fluid Dynamics Conference & Exhibit, Miami, FL.(2007).
- Invited Paper: 36th AIAA Fluid Dynamics Conference & Exhibit, San Francisco, CA (2006).
- Advisory Board: Johns Hopkins University NSF-IGERT, (2009 - 2013).