Leach Named Endowed Progress Energy Faculty Fellow
September 1, 2005
By Dr. N. Ma, NCSU

Dr. James W. Leach was named the Endowed Progress Energy Faculty Fellow on August 16, 2005. The Progress Energy Faculty Fellowship was established in 2002 through a generous annual investment by Progress Energy into an endowment fund. The Progress Energy Faculty Fellow is to work closely with Progress Energy to identify market-driven power generation problems of mutual interest between the MAE department, its student body, and Progress Energy.

As director of the Industrial Assessment Center , Dr. Leach has worked since 1993 with more than 300 industrial facilities in NC, SC, and VA. The center is funded by the DOE to take students into industrial settings to investigate measures to conserve energy, reduce waste, and improve productivity. About 20 graduate students have written M.S. theses based on work in this center, and about 40 undergraduate students have participated in site visits and have conducted undergraduate research documented in reports to the manufacturers. Earlier Dr. Leach worked for three summers at the Solar Energy Research Center and for one summer each at Sandia National Laboratory and at Vought Aerospace Corporation. He also served as a consultant to several manufacturers in NC.