Courses and Programs | Cal State LA

NSF CREST Center for Advancement toward Sustainable Urban Systems (CATSUS)

The Centers of Research Excellence in Science and Technology (CREST) program supports the enhancement of research capabilities of minority-serving institutions through the establishment of centers that effectively integrate education and research. CREST promotes the development of new knowledge, enhancements of the research productivity of individual faculty, and an expanded presence of students historically underrepresented in STEM.

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MORE Programs (Minority Opportunities in REsearch)

The mission of the Minority Opportunities in Research (MORE) Programs at Cal State LA is to make available to the American scientific research enterprise the creativity and intellectual talents of minority group members. To this end, the University has established several programs to enhance the development of minority students who wish to pursue research careers in basic science disciplines, mathematics and engineering.

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Sustainable Energy and Transportation Concentration

The Sustainable Energy and Transportation Concentration in the Engineering Technology program at Cal State LA ECST offers one introductory and five special topic courses preparing students for work in High-tech research and manufacturing in a variety of fields related to Carbon Management, such as alternative fuels, advanced transportation, and renewable energy. In parallel, graduates are prepared to take on jobs at all levels of government in sustainability and transportation areas.

Course number	Title	Description
TECH 3700	Sustainable Energy and Transportation	Comprehensive review of traditional and sustainable power technology: available energy forms; power conversion, coal, nuclear, wind power, photovoltaics, fuel cells; mobile applications, engines, clean transportation; energy management.
TECH 4700	Electric and Hybrid Vehicles	Technology and application of electric and hybridvehicles: power plant design, electric motor and heat engine characteristics, energy storage, system controls, fuel cells and solar powered vehicles.
TECH 4710	Engine Design and Performance	Theory of engine design and operation; requirements of modern gasoline power plants and performance factors analyzed under varying operating conditions.
TECH 4720	Photovoltaic Applications	Solar photovoltaic principles, wafer and module production, systems and applications. Component and system performance, site assessment, grid and stand-alone inverters, system design concepts. Associated electrical and control technologies.
TECH 4740	Fuel Cell Applications	Electro-physical processes in fuel cells, performance, components, various types of fuel cells, fuel cell vehicles, distributed power generation. Hydrogen economy, properties, production, storage, infrastructure, safety.
TECH 4760	Measurement, Instrumentation and Control	Theory and application of electronic and computer sensor operation, data collection and processing for controls for in power,sustainable energy and transportation systems. Includes circuits, sensors, signal conditioning, microprocessors, logic, programming, data acquisition and system development.
TECH 4780	Emerging Technologies in Power, Energy, and Transportation	Varying content and topics relating to emerging power, energy, and transportation technologies. Includes research methodologies, proposal preparation, and investigation in individual, team, and class explorations.

Battery Workforce Challenge

Cal State LA ECST was selected to be among 12 teams for the Battery Workforce Challenge, which is a new premier three-year Advance Vehicle Technology Competition series and will develop a diverse, domestic workforce for EV/Battery Manufacturing. Twelve North American university teams will partner with regional vocational partners to design, build, test and integrate an advanced battery pack into a production 2024 vehicle. For this competition, ECST highlighted courses that enable the team to learn Carbon Management by virtue of vehicle electrification.

Course number	Title	Description
EE 2450	Embedded Systems Programming I	Embedded system programming with the Python programming language; software design and testing; introduction to data structures and algorithms; introduction to microcontrollers and input/output interfacing.
ME 2030	Introduction to Mechanical Design	Fundamentals of engineering design, use of computer-aided design (CAD) software, 2D drafting and 3D solid modeling, selected design projects, and operation of hand and machine tools.
ME 4500	Introduction to Vehicle Design	Fundamentals of vehicle design. Design of the overall vehicle, suspension, steering, brakes, power sources, drivetrain, chassis, and aerodynamic elements through analytical, computational, and experimental approaches. Passenger, racing, and aerospace applications.
EE 5320	Vehicle Electrification	Features of components in the powertrain of an electrified vehicle; fundamental of conventional vehicles; powertrain hybridization; modeling and simulation of electrified vehicles; energy flow analysis in electrified vehicles.
EE 5450	Internet of Things and Cyber-Physical Systems	Advancements in embedded system design methodology, high-performance embedded platforms and computing, real-time operating systems, and sensordata processing within embedded systems applications.
ETEC 4700	Zero-Emissions Vehicles Technology	Technology and application of electric and hybrid vehicles: propulsion, power plant design, electric motor and combustion engine principles, energy storage, fuel cells, and solar powered vehicles.

Minor in Urban Sustainability

Another major effort of 2023 at Cal State LA is a minor in Urban Sustainability, which complements degree programs and disciplines across the academic spectrum. The minor, currently under review at the university level for final approval, helps students to engage their diverse backgrounds to develop sustainable and resilient solutions to pressing issues affecting society, organizations, the environment, and the world. The minor is open to students of all majors.

Minor Requirements:

**Lower division course: (11-12 units)**
Course number	Title
PHYS 2100 -or- PHYS 1560 AND PHYS 1570	General Physics I: Mechanics -or- Physics for the Twenty-first Century and Physics for the Twenty-first Century Laboratory
MATH 2110	Calculus I
CHEM 1040 -or- CHEM 1010	General Chemistry for Engineers -or- Fundamentals of Chemistry

**Upper Division Core Courses: (3 Units)**
Course number	Title
CE 4810	Pathways to Sustainability

**Other Required Upper Division Courses: (choose 6 units out of 9 units)**
Course number	Title	Description
CE 3520	Technological Aspects of Urban Environment	Current engineering practice in dealing with urban problems such as financial, transportation, pollution, communications, public utilities, land use planning and public health.
ETEC 3700	Sustainable Energy and Transportation	Comprehensive review of traditional and sustainable power technology: available energy forms; power conversion, coal, nuclear, wind power, photovoltaics, fuel cells; mobile applications, engines, clean transportation; energy management.
ME 3260	Thermodynamics I	Concepts of equilibrium and temperature; first and second laws of thermodynamics. Properties of pure substances; ideal gases; application of thermodynamic principles to closed and open systems.

**Electives: (6 units)**
Course number	Title	Description
ME 4180	Energy Systems and Sustainability	Existing and future energy-conversion systems with an emphasis on sustainability. Thermodynamics and transport processes applied to energy-conversion systems. Political, economic, and ethical complications associated with energy technologies. Systems using fossil fuels, nuclear, and renewable sources are discussed.
ETECH 4700	Zero Emission Vehicles	Technology and application of electric and hybrid vehicles: propulsion, power plant design, electric motor and combustion engine principles, energy storage, fuel cells, and solar powered vehicles.
ETECH 4720	Photovoltaic Applications	Solar photovoltaic principles, wafer and module production, systems and applications. Component and system performance, site assessment, grid and stand-alone inverters, system design concepts. Associated electrical and control technologies.
ETECH 4740	Fuel Cell Applications	Electro-physical processes in fuel cells, performance, components, various types of fuel cells, fuel cell vehicles, distributed power generation. Hydrogen economy, properties, production, storage, infrastructure, safety.
GEOG 3120 (GEOL 3120)	Global Climate Change and the Developing World	Investigates the causes and impacts of global climate change, as well as mitigation schemes. Students explore current climate change and its impact on the poor, and they gather evidence from the past and formulate scenarios of the future.
GEOG 3090	Global Climate Change and the Developing World	Investigates the major sources and effects of land, water and air pollution in cities of developed and developing countries. Best management practices and control methods will also be discussed.
SOC 4870	Environmental Policy, Law, and Society	Sociological aspects of environmental policy and law; relationship between societies and environmental problems regarding air and water quality, endangered species, toxic chemicals, energy, and natural resources; policy tools and analysis.

Other Relevant Academic Courses Offered by NSS and ECST:

Course number	Title	Description
CE 2840	Environmental Engineering I	This course provides an overview of natural environmental systems and processes with special emphasis placed on the interactions among environmental systems (e.g., air, water, and soil) and between humans and technology and the environment. Topics include occurrence and movement of surface water and groundwater, water and sewage treatment, air pollution, climate change, modeling, hazardous and solid waste management, green engineering, and nutrient and contaminant cycling.
CE 4800	Environmental Modeling	This course introduces basic tools and processes used to model complex environmental systems. The emphasis is on physical, chemical, and biological processes used in the development of environmental models. Topics include the development of mass-balance-based numerical models, capturing, storing, analyzing, and displaying geographically referenced data, application of environmental models to evaluate pollutant fate and transport in air and water, and model evaluation.
CE 4840	Environmental Engineering Design	This course focuses on the analysis and design of environmental systems including water and wastewater treatment plants, treatment lagoons, air pollution prevention equipment, industrial waste treatment facilities, groundwater remediation, and other pertinent engineered systems.
EE 5360	Renewable Energies in Power Systems	Features of renewable energy sources, issues of power systems with high penetration of renewables, power balance/frequency control, modeling and simulation of wind and photovoltaic units, Storage systems.
CE 5790	Environmental Mass Transfer	Study the fate of contaminants in the environment. Emphasis on the fundamentals of mass transfer including: sorption/desorption, contaminant retardation, vaporization and dissolution of Nonaqueous Phase Liquids (NAPL), and other phenomena.
EE 3310	Energy and Technology	This course focuses on the benefits and problems associated with energy dependence and generation. It will also study the effect of power generation on the environment with an emphasis on global warming and climate change.
ETEC 1000	Introduction to Automotive Systems	Introduction to major automotive systems, components operation and maintenance in modern vehicle. Vehicle coverage is expanded to include electric, gas, hybrid and fuel cell alternatives for greener transportation.
ETEC 4780	Emerging Sustainable Technologies	Special topics relating to emerging sustainable power, energy, and transportation technologies. Includes research methodologies, proposal preparation, and investigation in individual, team, and class explorations.
GEOL 2200	Environmental Geoscience	Current environmental issues concerning natural resources, water and soil use, energy resources, alternative energy, air and water pollution. Environmental laws, reclamation, and the human impact on global climate change.
ME 4180	Energy Systems and Sustainability	Existing and future energy-conversion systems with an emphasis on sustainability. Thermodynamics and transport processes applied to energy-conversion systems. Political, economic, and ethical complications associated with energy technologies. Systems using fossil fuels, nuclear, and renewable sources are discussed.
PHYS 4440	Nuclear Physics	Nuclear phenomenology; alpha, beta, and gamma decays; nuclear reactions, nuclear energy, radiation detectors; radioactivity.
POLS 3580	Environmental Policy and Management	Evaluate the social cost of environmental damage from multiple perspectives and government efforts to ameliorate those costs; equity, efficiency, and effectiveness of various public policies designed to address environmental damage.
TECH 5710	LEED Green and Energy Audit	Topics in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) addressing design, construction, operations and maintenance of buildings and communities toward sustainability. Includes principles and practices of energy monitoring and audit.

Additional needs for student training

A wide variety of engineering courses relevant to decarbonization are offered by the ECST at Cal State LA. However, only very few relevant courses are being offered by the NSS (natural and social sciences). New courses with topics on decarbonization need to be developed by faculty in the NSS.

The current research and education programs at Cal State LA are excellent resources for student training. These programs provide financial support and faculty mentorship to many students who are interested in research, especially those from underserved communities. Nevertheless, most of the current programs at Cal State LA have a broader focus than decarbonization, and the number of students who receive training in decarbonization research is still limited due to limited resources/funding and lab openings.

In order to increase the number of students trained in research directly related to decarbonization, new programs funded by DOE FECM need to be established. FECM could provide funding opportunities to develop such programs at minority-serving institutions. These programs will allow more students from underserved communities to gain hands-on experience in decarbonization research with faculty mentorship and prepare them to be the next-generation workforce in this area. FECM could also offer paid internships to Cal State LA students, allowing them to conduct cutting-edge decarbonization research at DOE national laboratories with top scientists in the field. These internships could also develop into long-term collaborations between the DOE laboratories and Cal State LA, enhancing students' research experience at Cal State LA.