Have you ever built a basic circuit from scratch? What about a small microgrid with multiple energy sources, such as a battery and solar panels?
These are the types of hands-on learning experiences designed and implemented by Dr. Phuong Truong, Community Education Specialist and Lead at DERConnect Outreach at UC San Diego, to support community college students interested in taking the next steps in engineering. Truong works alongside the DERConnect Outreach Team and is advised by Professor Jan Kleissl, a faculty member in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and the Principal Investigator of DERConnect.
The DERConnect Regional Undergraduate and Community Outreach Program provides students with meaningful opportunities to engage in training, experiential learning, and impactful projects, while raising awareness of the challenges in energy, sustainability, and renewable resources. This outreach effort is part of a larger $42 million NSF-funded initiative to convert UC San Diego’s microgrid into a national testbed for research on distributed energy resources (DER).
Equipping Future Engineers
At its core, DERConnect Outreach aims to empower and support the next generation of engineers toward sustainability and energy, particularly those from Hispanic-Serving Institutions, women, and first-generation prospective STEM students.
Launched in November 2024, the program places learning opportunities directly into students' hands in a simplified, easy-to-understand format. The hands-on projects are developed by a team of undergraduate students in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Engineers for a Sustainable World—Tahseen Hussain, Belma Bajramovic, Anthony Sanchez, Tommy Truong, and Nikita Valajev—under the mentorship of Dr. Truong.
“Making energy education both accessible and digestible, while having a direct impact on student career trajectories, is at the heart of DERConnect Outreach. We are equipping the next generation of engineers in the field of renewable energy,” said Truong.
Broad Outreach Efforts
On a broad scale, DERConnect Outreach aims to inspire students in the field of energy by providing exposure to facilities and engineering spaces they might not otherwise encounter.
For students from Mesa College, Miramar College, City College, and Southwestern College, this included tours of research facilities with DERConnect faculty, project engineers, and programmers, where students got a deeper look at distributed energy resources and how they work.
Students also had access to seminars, including the EMPOWER Program Seminar and the ENGE 101 Course Seminar, where they explored topics such as optimization and grid demand response. These seminars started with foundational questions, such as “What is energy?” and “What is power?” before connecting the concepts to students’ daily lives by asking, “Where does my energy come from?”
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Hands-On Experience in DERs
For students interested in a richer immersion experience, DERConnect Outreach offers practical, hands-on experiences in high-level energy topics, such as understanding how engineers use algorithms to optimize energy usage, improve grid stability, and replicate grid responses. Through workshops, students are introduced to both the hardware and software for distributed energy resources in a clear, easy-to-digest format.
In a recent EMPOWER Program DER Workshop, which included students from Imperial Valley College, Southwestern College, and UC San Diego, students were challenged to build a solar battery charger and connect their own distributed energy resources, including photovoltaics and battery energy storage systems. These “project in a box” activities sparked interest, curiosity, and excitement as students powered an LED light by wirelessly modulating the energy input of a solar panel.
“One of our goals at DERConnect Outreach is to help students establish their technical confidence and their identity as an engineer. Providing practical experience with engineering components builds both,” said Truong.
At a similar workshop at Mesa College, student presenters were joined by Mesa College President Ashanti T. Hands.
“This is an example of how student learning experiences can create a ripple effect. The students discussed their knowledge gained in microgrids and shared it with our faculty and campus leadership in a way that articulated its importance, role, and impact on the future of our energy landscape,” said Truong.
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Growing Through Internships and Assistantships
The final high-touch component of DERConnect Outreach focuses on sustained interaction with small groups of students, with opportunities ranging from team projects to year-long internships focused on building practical experience in renewable energy and research. Interns and research assistants had the opportunity to develop and test DER systems for education, using tools like MATLAB and Simulink to conduct simulations and implement real-time control strategies with microcontrollers.
“This role has strengthened my ability to approach engineering problems from both technical and systems-level perspectives. By simulating real-world energy systems, troubleshooting design challenges, and collaborating with bright, like-minded peers, I've gained practical experience that closely mirrors the kind of engineering work I hope to pursue in the future,” said Belma Bajramovic, a DERConnect Research Assistant and a UC San Diego undergraduate student in computer engineering.
More importantly, the DERConnect interns and research assistants are active champions and mentors for the community college students.
“I've most enjoyed seeing the direct impact of our outreach, especially guiding community college students through hands-on projects and watching how my contributions have helped ignite their curiosity in engineering and sustainability,” said Bajramovic.
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A Year of Achievement
As a culmination of all the efforts for this academic year, the DERConnect NextGen Forum was held at UC San Diego on May 23, where students, industry partners, faculty, and student interns gathered for conversations on advancing renewable energy and the future of sustainability. Faculty and industry leaders gave insight on shaping the regional energy landscape, while student interns shared their experiences and contributions from the year.
"The DERConnect Outreach Team bridged the gaps from community colleges to 4-year universities and research. Everyone was working together as a team, differences in preparation became unnoticeable, and we all benefited greatly from the experience,” said Kleissl.
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The Future of Sustainable Engineering
Looking forward, the DERConnect Outreach team hopes that the newly crafted open-source modules and project-in-a-box frameworks can be carried into classrooms, organizational workshops, and other learning spaces to continually train and inspire future engineers and bring innovations home to uplift underserved communities.
“The engineers we train now are foundational to the next generation of technologies and innovations that will help us solve the most pressing problems of our time. The best way to help serve our communities is to empower students from these underserved groups to pursue engineering and bring the innovation home. With every student we teach, mentor, and coach, I know we are closer to making that future possible,” said Truong.