NENY received a Regional Tech Hub designation from the Biden-Harris administration and the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA). The Tech Hubs program aims to drive regional innovation and job creation by strengthening a region’s capacity to manufacture, commercialize and deploy technology that will advance American competitiveness.

The announcement included a Zoom meeting with White House representatives and campus visit from U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer.

“For months, you could feel the electricity and excitement in Binghamton over the growing battery industry, but today lightning has struck, and I am proud to announce the region has officially won the prestigious federal designation as America’s next battery Tech Hub,” Schumer says. “Binghamton University, its partners, and I have worked hand-in-hand to bring this idea to life, and now the ultimate recognition of the Southern Tier as the home to the future of our nation’s battery innovation has become a reality.”

NENY, one of 31 Tech Hubs, is the only awardee in the battery industry.

“NENY’s designation as an EDA Tech Hub is a momentous day in the history of the University, the coalition, as well across the Southern Tier of New York,” President Harvey Stenger says. “With [this] designation, Binghamton and the region will only grow as global leaders in energy storage solutions and will continue to be a driving force working towards a sustainable and secure energy future.”

The Tech Hubs designation significantly expands the goals and geographical region originally laid out by NENY for the EDA’s Build Back Better Regional Challenge (BBBRC) last year. Project areas include broadening the scope from one of regional recovery to advancing the U.S. as a global competitor in the lithium-ion battery space, enlarging the focus from battery cell manufacturing to the entire battery lifecycle and supply chain, and expanding the supported region, core consortium members and external partnerships.

“New Energy New York’s designation as a Tech Hub by the Economic Development Administration (EDA) provides our consortium and wider team with the recognition we need to create a national battery epicenter in the region,” said Per Stromhaug, associate vice president for innovation and economic development. “As a federally designated Tech Hub, in addition to other prestigious acknowledgements, including being awarded the Build Back Better Regional Challenge (BBBRC) grant and becoming a finalist in the National Science Foundation’s (NSF’s) Innovation Engines competition, we will be able to build out the battery innovation and manufacturing ecosystem here in Upstate New York and help the nation secure a domestic battery supply chain.”

Standout challenges the NENY Tech Hub designation will address include:

• The speed of innovation and lack of available resources to support domestic battery technology commercialization and market launch
• The development of a prepared and robust workforce to meet the expected job demand
• Fortifying U.S. national and economic security against unstable global battery supply chains.

“The EDA Tech Hub designation will help amplify the current efforts and momentum under New Energy New York, propelling our region towards becoming a nation-leading energy storage innovation ecosystem,” says Olga Petrova, director of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Partnerships.

The NENY consortium includes the Office of the Broome County Executive, Broome-Tioga Workforce, C4V and iM3-NY, the Community Foundation for South Central New York, Cornell University, Electrovaya, FuzeHub, IncubatorWorks, Intertek, NY-BEST, Raymond Corp., Rochester Institute of Technology, the Southern Tier 8 Regional Board, SUNY Broome Community College, The Agency (Broome County IDA), the Research Foundation for SUNY and Three Rivers Development Corp. Additional Hub partners include organizations representing New York State, economic development, workforce development and equity, industry, trade, manufacturing, start-ups, and more.

“I am so heartened to see how our University’s and region’s focus on batteries and energy storage solutions – something I’ve dedicated my entire professional life to – has achieved this level of attention and support from our federal government,” says Stan Whittingham, distinguished professor and Nobel laureate. “Thank you, Senator Schumer, for your vision and unwavering advocacy. This Tech Hub designation is just what is needed to take our coalition’s work to the next level and beyond. I am confident we will become the clean energy hub for the United States.”

The U.S. battery manufacturing industry relies on often-unstable global supply chains. NENY is focused on strengthening the domestic supply chain and lessening innovation losses. One way to bring manufacturing back to the United States is to expand prototyping and pilot testing infrastructure, which will be available at NENY’s Battery-NY Technology and Manufacturing Development Center. The planned Battery-NY facility is a stand-out initiative of NENY’s overall goal to establish the U.S. as a global leader in battery innovation and manufacturing, with the Tech Hub designation supporting further key infrastructure expansions.

“I created the Tech Hubs program in my CHIPS & Science Bill, always with Upstate New York in mind, because I knew with federal investment we could write a new chapter for Upstate New York,” Schumer says. “With Tech Hubs, we can breathe new life into our cities with the industries of the future. And nowhere is that more true than in Binghamton.”

In conjunction with the announcement, the Department of Commerce is launching a second Tech Hubs Notice of Funding Opportunity, which allows NENY and other designated Tech Hubs to apply to receive between $40-$70 million each for implementation funding, totaling around $500 million.

“The designation of an EDA Tech Hub will ignite synergies sparked under New Energy New York between technology and industry and cast a transformative light on workforce development by cultivating an ecosystem where skills flourish, careers thrive and the future of the battery industry gleams with unprecedented potential,” says Stacey Johnson, director of workforce development for NENY.

Eleonora Recio, a junior majoring in mechanical engineering with a minor in sustainability, focused on leachate runoff as part of the Summer Scholars and Artists program.

Leachate, water that has soaked through material and picked up particles in the process, is common in landfills. After it rains, water passes through garbage and absorbs chemicals, becoming toxic to the environment.

Recio tested the effects of different super-absorbent polymers on leachate. These everyday materials can absorb several times their own weight, and Recio saw an opportunity to combine her love for the environment and her passion for mechanical engineering.

Recio examined four different polymers to see how well they absorbed distilled water, tap water and leachate collected from the Broome County Landfill. A powder form of the polymer was mixed with the leachate and poured through a sieve, filtered through a vacuum, dipped in the leachate through a teabag or tested via the absorbency under load (AUL) method. The AUL method tested to see how much the polymer could absorb when under pressure.

After the tests, the samples were dried and weighed to measure how much leachate was absorbed. AUL provided the best results and most accurately mimicked the landfill environment.

“Science is a slow-moving process, but it has to be,” Recio says. “You really want to be as accurate as possible.”

Congrui Jin, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, advised Recio on the project. Recio originally approached her mentor when she was just a sophomore.

“It was the first time I’ve had a student who just finished [their] second year,” Jin says. “She was very reliable, and she scheduled her tasks so she could finish by the end [of the summer]. I think she’s very motivated, and we want to have younger students in our labs.”

Recio says applying to conduct research so early in her undergraduate career forced her to work better under pressure and taught her how to learn in a fast-paced environment.

Outside of the lab, the Long Island native is a member of Alpha Omega Epsilon, a social and professional sorority for women in engineering and the technical sciences. She also serves as secretary for the Society of Hispanic Technical Engineers and works at Information Technology Services on campus.

Recio said the sorority has been a crucial pillar of her support system. “It’s been a huge help to have so much female support around me at all times,” she says. “I go to my classes and it’s 85% guys so it’s really nice to see a familiar face.”

Through her older classmates, she saw a glimpse of what could be next in her academic career.

Recio said she also hopes further research can test biodegradable varieties of polymers to further promote sustainability, which has also become her minor. She plans to attend graduate school and continue doing research.

“Sustainability is very important,” she says. “You may not be in a science-related field, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing you can do about it, whether it’s in your professional life … or using your voice if you’re in a position of power.”

Junior Kelly Young spent last summer tracking algae blooms from 438 miles in the air, via NASA’s Landsat 8 satellite, to learn more about when and where they happen.

Algae blooms occur when run-off drags excess fertilizer into bodies of water, providing the aquatic plant with abundant nutrients. Their population grows exponentially, and they consume all or most of the oxygen in the water. This creates a detrimental effect on the local ecosystem, often called a dead zone, where no life can prosper.

NASA provides open access to Landsat data so scientists can use it. Young believes that with more data on algae blooms, she can help predict and restrain their overgrowth.

“Once the blooms form, it’s really hard to get rid of them or decrease the effect that they have on the environment,” says Young, a double major in environmental studies and geography. “The goal is to be able to create a model to predict where the blooms are going to form and when they are going to form, so we are able to alert local agencies to better prevent the blooms from becoming full blown.”

Every 16 days, a satellite passes over New York’s Chautauqua Lake and Seneca Lake, measuring several ranges of light frequencies, called bands. Landsat 8 measures 11 bands, with only four of them being visible to the naked human eye.

But algae blooms in some lakes are so dense it doesn’t take a high-tech satellite to find them.

“In the summer the algae concentrations are very high so you visibly see it,” Young says. “So on an average day in the summer, if someone is walking by one of these lakes, they will be able to see the algae in a thick green color.”

Young developed a data-processing algorithm, which found that in these lakes harmful algae blooms are mainly focused in the southern basins between May and August. Findings like this help her research group narrow down the timing and location of algae blooms so eventually they can use drones to pick up more detailed readings.

Young says while Landsat data is a necessary beginning for creating a predictive model, there are some major faults that drones could fix.

“When I processed [the Landsat data] for chlorophyll, I found that some months that shouldn’t have a high concentration have a high concentration,” Young says. “That’s because the clouds distort the satellite and the data.”

Young’s research, which was funded by Binghamton University’s Summer Scholars and Artists program, received recognition on campus and beyond.

During the University’s November Geographic Information System (GIS) Day celebration, Kelly’s work won first place in the undergraduate poster competition. She also was invited to present her findings at the 2019 American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting in San Francisco.

Timothy De Smet, director of Binghamton University’s Geophysics and Remote Sensing Laboratory, mentored Young throughout her summer research. He says her findings are vital in the continuation of algae bloom research, and that her inner drive is what led to the project’s success.

“She is extremely hardworking, whether it be as a campus tour guide, in class or on her research,” De Smet says. “She is smart, obviously, but also resilient — you need that grit to make it in research.”

This is not Young’s first experience researching algae; in her Brooklyn high school, she experimented using barley straw to decrease toxicity in algae. She also participated in the First-year Research Immersion program, where her group used drones.

Matthew Wersebe studies the effect of antibiotics on wetland ecosystems. “I realized no one was really looking at the effects of antibiotics as a contaminant, so that’s where we started,” says Wersebe, a biology major.

Antibiotics kill or inhibit the growth of microorganisms. Agricultural companies treat animals with antibiotics for a variety of reasons, such as the reduction of pain or suffering, or to ensure their health or survival.

Wersebe studies sulfadimethoxine (SDM), an antibiotic used to treat dairy cows, chickens and other animals.

Antibiotics, which are present at low levels in the environment, are considered “practically non-toxic” by the EPA. However, Wersebe found low levels of antibiotics do have an environmental impact. SDM, for instance, had a negative effect on zooplankton, which is an important or “keystone” consumer for the proper functioning of an aquatic ecosystem. Green algae is a main source of energy for zooplankton, whereas blue-green algae (BGA) is toxic or unpalatable to zooplankton. Blue-green algae populations increase in the presence of SDM.

“We should expand the assessment of chemical toxicity to include community interactions, so that we can better determine the impacts of antibiotic pollution on natural systems,” Wersebe says.

According to a report from the Union of Concerned Scientists, U.S. livestock producers use an estimated 24.6 million pounds of antibiotics annually. Considering the variety of antibiotics in use, as well as their varying methods of disrupting the growth of microorganisms, it is important to consider their effect on the environment even at low levels, Wersebe says.

SDM is just one antibiotic chemical used by agricultural companies; there are many more. “That’s what makes the research complicated,” Wersebe says. “Antibiotics are a diverse group of chemicals with different modes of action.”

Wersebe began his research after receiving a 2016 Summer Scholars and Artists grant. He works in the lab of Jessica Hua, an assistant professor of biological sciences at Binghamton.

“One clear example of his leadership is his work with the Friends of Recreation, Conservation and Environmental Stewardship (FORCES),” Hua says. “This organization aims to develop relationships between faculty and students that lead to a mutually beneficial relation with state park units. Matt has been working to develop a FORCES chapter here on campus and has taken the initiative to involve my lab in his efforts.”

While many undergraduates put in a lot of time and effort in the lab, Wersebe extends beyond that and is very independent, says Vanessa Wuerthner, a doctoral student in Hua’s lab. “He spends much of his time in the lab and is continuously coming up with new research ideas that he carries through from start to finish,” she says. “He is currently working closely with another graduate student in the lab to publish his first manuscript.”

Next, Wersebe wants to see how zooplankton affected by antibiotics interact with other chemicals in agricultural runoff, such as insecticides that get sprayed on crops. He wants to know if antibiotics make zooplankton more or less resistant to insecticides, using antibiotics and algae that will be cultured in the lab. Wersebe’s work this summer is funded by the Garden Club of America.

“As consumers, we vote with our dollars,” Wersebe says. “Seeing firsthand how antibiotics have an environmental impact, I’ve become more conscious of what I consume and where it is sourced from. I try to have the smallest impact on the environment.”