Josephine Elumeze ’25 — the URECA Researcher of the Month for August — is an electrical engineering major and a member of CSTEP and LSAMP. She will join 90 undergraduates at URECA’s Summer Symposium on Friday, August 4, to present the work she has been doing this summer under the mentorship of Empire Innovation Associate Professor Fang Luo, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Elumeze’s participation in research this summer was supported through the PSEG- and AmFam-funded Explorations in STEM program co-administered by URECA and the Career Center (PI: Professor Monica Bugallo).
Reflecting on her research interests and goals, Elumeze admits that her connection to her research topic is personal: “While growing up, I was affected by power instability and the related impacts on Nigeria’s environment caused by the excessive use of generators. So, I have had a long personal interest in the use of clean energy such as solar and wind energy systems for household power production. The reason for my focus on the field of electrical engineering is that I intend to combine my experiences to identify the best renewable energy solutions for developing societies and use my engineering skills to facilitate their efficient operation. In particular, I would like to investigate and design efficient renewable power systems in places that could benefit from them, including my homeland of Lagos, Nigeria.”
On campus, Elumeze has been engaged in the Career Center’s Diversity Professional Leadership Network program, where she will be paired with a professional mentor in National Grid. Prior to coming to Stony Brook in Fall 2022, Elumeze completed an associate’s degree in electrical engineering at LaGuardia Community College, where she was a member of the CUNY Research Scholars Program in 2020-21, and won a “best presentation award” for her project on characterizing aerosol in the atmosphere to investigate patterns leading to the June 2020 dust plume over the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean.
In Summer 2022, Elumeze gained valuable experience in computing models that help predict atmospheric occurrences through an internship at the Cooperative Institute for Modeling Earth Systems (a collaboration of Princeton University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Lab). Long term, Elumeze plans to pursue a PhD in electrical engineering.
Read the interview with URECA Director Karen Kernan.