Dr. Nancy Michael

Nancy Michael is the Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Neuroscience and Behavior major in the College of Science, Notre Dame University. She received her B.S. degree in Biomedical Science from Western Michigan University in 2001. After spending many years in the workforce, she returned to graduate study in 2008 and earned Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of Minnesota in 2012. Professor Michael uses her disciplinary expertise to develop and implement NEAR (neuroscience, epigenetics, adverse childhood experiences, resilience) science approaches that aim to mitigate the impact of toxic stress on individuals and communities. Her research uses a community-based change theory model to work with community organizations in developing population specific NEAR-based strategies to support organizational and community efforts in becoming trauma-informed.

Dr. Michael extended Getting All The Work Out (GATWO) from power systems to refrigeration by recognizing that Carnot efficiency covers the entire Pressure vs. Volume Product Space. Most importantly, her distinctive contribution to the new paradigm is recognizing that Carnot’s definition of efficiency for refrigeration is the inverse of power systems. Rather than conventional expectations driving efficiency to higher temperatures and larger temperature differentials, refrigeration efficiency skyrockets as temperatures are reduced and temperature differentials can be minimized. This critical arithmetic redefines the refrigeration product space in favor of the new paradigm. By using dramatically reducing pressure ratios, the new paradigm (pressure ratio 1.1) favors ambient air as refrigerant, categorically obsoleting the environmentally harmful two phase refrigerants favored by the conventional paradigm (pressure ratio 4.0)! See Figure 1.