Dr. Robert Braun joins the CSM faculty as Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering.  He received B.S. and M.S. degrees from Marquette University and a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin – Madison where he specialized in SOFC system design, analysis, and optimization.  He subsequently worked as a senior engineer at UTC Fuel Cells on both PEM- and PAFC-based power plant technologies.  In 2004, Dr. Braun joined the United Technologies Research Center where he most recently served as project leader for UTC’s mobile SOFC power system development program.  He has also led design studies on commercial-scale SOFC-CHP systems, hybrid SOFC-Gas Turbine systems operating on coal gas, and SOFCs for aircraft power applications.  While at UTRC, Dr. Braun co-led the successful development of a CO₂-based refrigeration system for bottle cooling applications and worked on residential HVAC system diagnostics.  He was a visiting researcher at the Technical University of Munich in Germany in 2001 and prior to his Ph.D. work, Dr. Braun worked in the commercial boiler industry as an R&D engineer at Cleaver-Brooks in Milwaukee.  He has multi-disciplinary background in mechanical and chemical engineering and his primary research interests are in SOFC systems modeling, simulation, and optimization including dynamic response and supervisory control; alternative fuels (e.g., biomass) and fuel processing; and techno-economic and life cycle analyses.  Dr. Braun is a Link Energy Foundation Fellow, a member of ASME and ASHRAE, has authored 8 journal and conference papers, and has 4 patent applications.

CFCC welcomes Dr. Robert Braun