Wayne State and international collaborators form NSF-funded Advanced Studies Institute for industrial risk management for U.S. graduate students
A grant from the National Science Foundation’s International Research Experiences for Students (IRES) program will fund a new Advanced Studies Institute (ASI) for U.S. graduate students to engage in active learning and research-centered industrial risk management.
Wen Chen, Ph.D., associate professor of engineering technology at Wayne State University, is the principal investigator on a two-year, $269,210 project in collaboration with INSA Centre Val de Loire, a university in Bourges, France, and Inria Lille, a French national research institution. Co-PIs include Le Yi Wang, Ph.D., and Feng Lin, Ph.D., professors of electrical and computer engineering at Wayne State.
The project is an IRES Track II ASI, which consists of intensive short courses that aim to produce trained, skilled professionals with global vision and experience. This ASI will recruit 28 graduate students over the next two years and provide a comprehensive two-week training program built around experiential learning, industry engagement and international collaboration.
“The theme of this ASI is industrial risk management with a focus on advanced methodologies for active diagnosis, accurate characterization and reliable mitigation of various industrial risks and their applications to renewable energy systems, smart grids and autonomous systems,” said Chen.
Industrial risk management deals with such risks as quality degradation, contingency, human errors, and faults or failures of industrial systems that may bear immediate, severe and potentially catastrophic consequences on property, personnel, communities and the environment.
“Our trainees will become ambassadors to promote the critical importance of risk management, reliability, resilience and safety of industrial systems,” said Chen.
INSA CVL and Inria Lille will provide teaching and lab facilities for students. Two lecturers from each institution will conduct the ASI using a hybrid format.
“The National Industrial Risk Cluster at the INSA CVL at Bourges hosts the most comprehensive and best educational program, as well as pioneering research on industrial risk management over the world,” said Chen. “Their knowledge in industrial risk management is the most important resource for our ASI, and their experience with international training programs will be an asset for us to be successful.”
The grant number for this NSF award is 2153858.