Clemson researchers to present at S.C. automotive summit

Published: February 14, 2012

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GREENVILLE — Three Clemson University faculty members will discuss the role of a research university in workforce development Thursday and Friday during the 2012 S.C. Automotive Council Manufacturing Summit.

The two-day summit at the Embassy Suites Golf Resort and Conference Center features addresses by S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley, state Commerce Secretary Bobby Hitt and U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham.

Attendees also will tour the Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research (CU-ICAR) campus, including the Carroll A. Campbell Jr. Graduate Engineering Center.

Click here to view the full summit agenda.

Thursday afternoon, three CU-ICAR researchers will discuss supporting the state’s automotive industry through research and workforce development. 

In September last year, Clemson announced it received a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to create a center for research and education in sustainable vehicle systems at CU-ICAR. Established by the DOE’s Graduate Automotive Technology Education, or GATE division, the center will help overcome technology barriers in the design and development of high energy-efficiency and low environmental-impact vehicle propulsion systems by integrating graduate education and research.

The three Clemson panelists are:

• Imtiaz Haque, executive director of the Campbell Graduate Engineering Center;
• Paul Venhovens, associate professor and BMW Chair in Systems Integration; and
• Joachim Taiber, research professor in the automotive engineering department.

On Friday, industrial engineering professor Bill Ferrell will discuss supply chain and logistics, and Anand Gramopadhye, director of the Clemson University Center for Workforce Development and associate vice president for workforce development, will speak on a panel titled “Designing tomorrow’s automotive workforce.

In October last year, led by Gramopadhye, Clemson and its partner technical colleges were awarded a $2.3 million competitive grant by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to create the Center for Workforce Development for aviation and automotive technology. The partnership created NSF Advanced Technological Education satellite resource centers at Florence-Darlington Technical College, Greenville Technical College and Trident Technical College in the Charleston area.

Other summit speakers include ZF chief executive officer Ludger Reckmann; Peter Brown, publisher and editorial director of Automotive News; and William Strauss, senior economist and economic adviser at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

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