Jane Zhang is an Assistant Professor in Civil & Environmental Engineering. Her research interests lie in green engineering, sustainability, life cycle assessment, water-energy nexus, coupled nature-human system modeling, environmental fate and transport modeling, and water supply and treatment. Her current research projects include embodied energy modeling, water-energy system dynamic modeling, life cycle assessment of bio-energy systems, and sustainability engineering education. Her current sources of funding include national science foundation, state agencies and USF.

Project 1. Sustainability Analysis of Solar Assisted Biomass Conversion
The overall objective is to conduct a theoretical analysis of solar assisted thermo chemical conversion of biomass from the point of view of energy efficiency, economic feasibility, environmental impact, and long term sustainability of renewable energy production. REU students will assist a MS student with the life cycle assessment of solar assisted thermo chemical conversion. The project will conduct sustainability studies taking into account land and water usage, waste production and disposal issues, and carbon footprint produced and conduct life cycle analysis using the output from the overall process model and existing life cycle inventory database to evaluate the environmental impact of conversion processes and identify the opportunities for technology improvement from environmental perspective. REU students will help compile a life cycle inventory based on process analysis from National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Aspen simulation and databases from GaBi software. REU students will also use GaBi software to conduct impact assessment and potentially carbon footprint analysis. 

Project 2. System Approach to Optimize Regional Water and Energy Management
The overall goal of this project is to understand the interrelationship of water and energy, quantify the joint impact on environment from both water and energy systems, and improve the efficiency of resource use and reduce environmental impact through optimizing their design, planning and operations using the state of Florida as the study site. This will be achieved through an integrated approach which incorporates system dynamics modeling, optimization models, and the solution algorithms for the aggregated system. In order to achieve this goal, the first step is to build a system dynamic model to illustrate the interactions among water, energy, agriculture, industry, municipality, transportation, water pollution, and greenhouse gases emission. REU students will assist a PhD student with the development of water demand and supply sub-model and energy demand and supply sub-model. REU students will help collect the historical data from various sources and conduct data analysis. REU students will also visit Florida Water Management District to research existing water conservation and water reuse policies and strategies.