This study investigates the energy saving potential of high albedo roof coatings which are designed to reflect a large proportion of solar radiation compared to traditional roofing materials. Using EnergyPlus simulations, the efficacy of silicone, acrylic, and aluminum roof coatings is assessed across two prototype commercial buildings—a standalone retail (2,294 m2 or 24,692 ft2) and a strip-mall (2,090 m2 or 22,500 ft2)—located in four cities: Phoenix, Houston, Los Angeles, and Miami. The performance of reflective coatings was compared with respect to a black roof having a solar reflectance of 5% and a thermal emittance of 90%. A sensitivity analysis was done to assess the impact of solar reflectance and thermal emittance on the ability of roof coatings to reduce surface temperatures, a key factor behind energy savings. This factor plays a crucial role in all three heat transfer mechanisms: conduction, convection, and radiation. The rooftop surface temperature exhibits considerable variation depending on the solar reflectance and thermal emittance attributes of the roof. A contour plot between these properties reveals that high values of both result in reduced cooling needs and a heating penalty which is insignificant when compared with cooling savings for cooling-dominant climates like Phoenix where the cooling demand significantly outweighs the heating demand, yielding significant energy savings. Furthermore, the study also investigates the effects of reflective coatings on buildings that have photovoltaic solar panels installed on them. This includes exploring their impact on building HVAC loads, as well as the performance improvement due to the reduced temperatures beneath them.

This dissertation explores the design, testing, and implementation of cutting-edge spaceborne instrumentation through the investigation of three distinct projects: SPARCS, STRUVE, and EXCITE. The SPARCS astrophysics project focuses on the development of a thermal vacuum chamber for testing contamination-sensitive hardware, alongside the design of ground support equipment (GSE) tailored to SPARCS' performance requirements. STRUVE, a heliophysics CubeSat mission concept, is examined for its mechanical and thermal design strategies, as well as thermal sensitivity studies crucial for mission success. The EXCITE project, an infrared spectrometer balloon-based astrophysics mission, is analyzed for its opto-mechanical design and comprehensive coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) stress analysis. Throughout the dissertation, each project's challenges, innovations, and solutions are meticulously documented, providing insights into the intricacies and demands of space instrumentation design and testing. The introduction sets the stage by contextualizing the significance of spaceborne instrumentation projects and outlining the scope of the dissertation. The chapters present detailed examinations of SPARCS, STRUVE, and EXCITE, and discuss the engineering complexities and advancements achieved in each project. In conclusion, the dissertation reflects on the lessons learned, implications for future space missions, and the broader impact of SPARCS, STRUVE, and EXCITE on the field of spaceborne instrumentation. This research contributes to the ongoing discourse surrounding space technology innovation and underscores the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration in pushing the boundaries of space exploration.

Hydrological modeling has been widely used to predict the response of a hydrologic system to changing drivers in short to long terms, thus providing quantitative decision-making support for strategic planning and adaptation policies development. Despite advancements in hydrological modeling, challenges remain for improving the quality and realism of hydrologic predictions. Machine Learning (ML), known for its proficiency in extracting patterns from large datasets, has attracted interest within the hydrology community and has been applied to tackle various challenges in predicting the hydrologic cycle over the past few years. This dissertation focuses on the enhancement of hydrologic models through ML and evolving datasets, with the goal of improving their accuracy and utility. The first part addresses the issue of missing or inadequately represented components in the existing large-scale hydrologic models. Taking the simulation of regulated flow conditions as an example, the study presents a hierarchical temporal scale framework for all data-driven reservoir release models, enabling more effective use of limited data sources and ensuring that practical significance aligns with model configuration. The second part addresses the computational challenges associated with model parameterization. The development of an ML-based surrogate model expedites the parameter estimation and calibration, particularly for those properties that may vary over time and require the adoption of dynamic parameterization. Satellite-derived vegetation interannual variability serves as a case study in this dissertation, illustrating how the dynamic nature of vegetation can influence hydrologic responses. From the perspective of hydrologic modelers, these two parts of work enhance the hydrologic model’s realism by improving both its representation and parameterization, respectively. For water managers, a combination of surrogate model and the reservoir operation module enables integrated reservoir management modeling under different climate projection scenarios. Building upon the insights gained from the first two parts, the last part shows such application to translate hydrologic and climatic data into actionable strategies for water management. Utilizing 21 federal reservoirs in Texas as a case study, this part offers a framework for stakeholders to assess the effectiveness of current reservoir operation policies under future climate scenarios through the interactions among hydroclimatology, reservoir infrastructure, and operation policy.

Engineering careers are in high demand due to the increasingly technology-based society. However, the rates at which individuals pursue and obtain engineering careers is not keeping up with societal demands. Research has recently aimed at understanding how engineering-related motivational beliefs are developed in children and how important socializers, such as parents, play a role in the development of these beliefs. The parent socialization model of situated expectancy-task value theory (SEVT) suggests that parents hold expectancies and task-value beliefs about their children and that these beliefs are communicated through the messages they use and the behaviors they engage in with their children. Although the influence of parents has been examined for STEM broadly, studies have not explored these motivational beliefs in the engineering domain with elementary school students. The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the role of parents’ engineering beliefs about their child and parents’ engineering socialization behaviors on elementary school children’s engineering expectancy/task-value beliefs and their engineering-related career aspirations. Parents (N = 193; 75% mothers) completed questionnaires on engineering-related expectancy and task-value beliefs about their child and on their engineering socialization behaviors. First through sixth grade students (N = 255; 55% female) completed questionnaires on their engineering-related expectancy/task value beliefs and career aspirations. Findings revealed that parents’ beliefs about their child were associated with changes in children’s engineering-related competency beliefs. In addition, parental provision of engineering opportunities was associated with changes in children’s engineering-related importance beliefs. Results also revealed that parental engineering career support was higher for the low socioeconomic status (SES)/less parental education group compared to the high SES/more parental education group. Lastly, there were no associations found between parents’ beliefs with parents’ engineering socialization behaviors and there were no indirect associations between parents’ beliefs and children’s beliefs as mediated by parent socialization behaviors. These findings highlight the role of parents in children’s engineering motivational belief development and provide important implications for future engineering intervention efforts with parents and children.

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia is one of the world’s coldest capital cities with roughly 1.5 million residents. About fifty percent of the city’s residents are off the electrical grid and millions continue to live nomadic lifestyles, raising livestock for food. Problematically, residents often turn to raw coal - Mongolia’s largest export - as a means to cook food and stay warm. Project Koyash is a philanthropic engineering initiative that was founded in the Arizona State University Program Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) to combat the air quality crisis plaguing the ger districts of Ulaanbaatar. Koyash has already deployed 13 fully functional and autonomous units consisting of a solar powered air filtration system in Ulaanbaatar. Koyash innovated a solution of solar panels, air filters, batteries, inverters, PCB Arduinos, and other necessary components for providing crucial humanitarian services. The team is working to send more units and develop a local supply chain for the systems. This thesis project explores the development of Koyash, assesses the human health implications of air pollution, and reflects on the entire process.

Our Idea: As a team of engineers, two in the engineering field and one in computer science and software development, we wanted to find a way to put these skills to use in our company. As we did not have a revolutionary idea to build our own product, we wanted to base our company on the assumption that people have great ideas and lack the ability to execute on these ideas. Our mission is to enable these people and companies to make their ideas a reality, and allow them to go to market with a clean and user friendly product. We are using our skills and experience in hardware and device prototyping and testing, as well as software design and development to make this happen. Implementation: To this point, we have been working with a client building a human diagnostic and enhancement AI device. We have been consulting on mostly the design and creation of their first proof of concept, working on hardware and sensor interaction as well as developing the software allowing their platform to come to life. We have been working closely with the leaders of the company, who have the ideas and business knowledge, while we focus on the technology side. As for the scalability and market potential of our business, we believe that the potential market is not the limiting factor. Instead, the limiting factor to the growth of our business is the time we have to devote. We are currently only working with one client, and not looking to expand into new clients. We believe this would require the addition of new team members, but instead we are happy with the progress we are making at the moment. We believe we are not only building equity in business we believe in, but also building a product that could help the safety and wellness of our users.

The mission of EZ-Sit is to alleviate pain and increase comfort by creating a product that allows users to put their feet up when sitting for long periods of time. This product will connect to any single-stem office chair with ease and will provide users with the ability to put their feet up whenever and wherever they work. Our goal is to empower individuals to pursue their goals without the hindrance of discomfort that comes with sitting for extended periods of time. At EZ-Sit we believe that no one’s productivity should be impeded due to the pain caused by a sedentary work life. We hope that this product will bring about physical well-being in the workplace so individuals can focus on the day ahead of them.

Mechanical design can be intimidating, especially for someone new to the discipline because of the complexity and the limited number of resources available. The overarching goal of this project is to help mechanically curious individuals by creating an open-source 3D printed clock with detailed information and explanations for how the systems work and are designed. This increase in available knowledge will allow people to educate themselves by following or recreating the design process and, perhaps, inspire others to continue the learning process and study STEM.

Mechanical design can be intimidating, especially for someone new to the discipline because of the complexity and the limited number of resources available. The overarching goal of this project is to help mechanically curious individuals by creating an open-source 3D printed clock with detailed information and explanations for how the systems work and are designed. This increase in available knowledge will allow people to educate themselves by following or recreating the design process and, perhaps, inspire others to continue the learning process and study STEM.

With the demand growing for more sustainable forms of energy in replacement of fossil fuels, a major obstacle arises in the end-of life solar modules that are disposed of in landfills. Aside from the hazardous materials, silicon solar modules contain valuable and scarce materials such as silver. Silver is used in many industries and many applications therefore the recycling and recovering of it is financially beneficial. The purpose of this research was to achieve high purity and recovery of silver using hydrofluoric acid. The following work presents the feasibility of silver recovery through the process of leaching and electrowinning by examining the percent recovery and cathodic coulombic efficiency, followed by a chemical analysis to determine the purity. Varying conditions in leaching and electrowinning parameters are conducted in a synthetic solution to determine the effect on silver recovery and cathodic coulombic efficiency. It was determined that the silver recovery was dependent on the applied potential, system configuration and time. The system is capable of recovery rates of over 95% at -1 V. The system is further tested on solar cells to prove that silver can be recovered. There was over 99% purity from the experiments conducted in synthetic solution and from solar cells. Additionally, a circular chemistry is proposed that allows the reuse of hydrofluoric acid for leaching and electrowinning.