Anuradha Annaswamy
Anuradha Annaswamy is a senior research scientist and the director of the Active Adaptive Control Lab (AAC Lab). As the director of the AAC Lab, Annaswamy oversees projects such as energy distribution in smart grids and adaptive flight control systems.
Frances Beinecke
Frances Beinecke served as the president for the Natural Resources Defense Council from 2006 to 2015. In this role, she focused on finding solutions to pressing environmental issues such as climate change and defending endangered species. Currently she serves as an advisor of numerous boards, including the MIT Energy Initiative External Advisory Board.
Angela Belcher
Specializing in biomedical engineering and energy research and with 40 patents to her name, Belcher was recently named the new head of the Department of Biological Engineering—starting a new and exciting chapter in her career at MIT.
→Angela Belcher named head of the Department of Biological Engineering
Martha Broad
Martha Broad is the executive director of the MIT Energy Initiative and an ambassador of the Clean Energy Education & Empowerment (C3E) Initiative, which promotes gender diversity in the clean energy sector. At MIT, Broad helps manage the Low-Carbon Energy Centers and serves on the Climate Action Advisory Committee.
Sylvia Ceyer
Sylvia Teresse Ceyer is the John C. Sheehan Professor of Chemistry and the current head of the Department of Chemistry at MIT. Ceyer is a previous MITEI Seed Grant recipient, where her research focused on speeding the development of hydrogen fuel cells.
Carolyn Coyle
PhD candidate Carolyn Coyle ’13 SM ’16 came to MIT as an undergrad where she worked in the Reactor Hydraulics Lab with Professor Jacopo Buongiorno. That experience sold Coyle on nuclear engineering and she’s been working on it ever since. She is currently part of the Baglietto CFD Research Group, where she continues research into nuclear.
Shreya Dave
During her time at MIT, Shreya Dave PhD ’16, researched molecular filtration systems. While she initially believed that her research had no practical applications, she eventually found that her technology could be used to separate chemicals for food, beverages, drugs, and fuel. With this revelation, she started Via Separations and has gone on to receive critical acclaim.
Elisabeth Drake
Elisabeth Drake ’58 ScD ’66 is the former associate director of the MIT Energy Lab, co-author of the textbook Sustainable Energy, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. Drake was among the MIT professors that developed MIT’s first sustainable energy course.
Mildred Dresselhaus
Mildred Dresselhaus’s research made fundamental discoveries in the electronic structure of semi-metals. In addition to her teaching and research, Dresselhaus served in numerous scientific leadership roles, including as the director of the Office of Science at the U.S. Department of Energy.
→Institute Professor Emerita Mildred Dresselhaus, a pioneer in the electronic properties of materials
Aurora Edington
Aurora Edington is a graduate student in the Technology and Policy Program. Previously, she has worked for the Department of Energy where she participated in a study of the U.S. electricity system. Currently she is interested in finding a way for energy storage to be better integrated into the electricity grid.
Colette Heald
Colette Heald is a professor of civil and environmental engineering and a professor of earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences. As the director of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Heald is interested in studying atmospheric composition, and how it affects the biosphere and climate system.
Jenny Hu
During her time at MIT, Jenny Hu ’14 studied economics and energy. The merging of those two fields proved to play well into her career at Advanced Microgrid Solutions, where she is part of the solution design team.
Kathleen Kennedy
Kathleen Kennedy is the executive director of the MIT Climate CoLab, an open problem-solving platform where the public connects with thousands of researchers and experts to work toward reaching global climate change goals.
→3Q: Kathleen Kennedy on community-level climate resilience at COP24
Lourdes Melgar
Lourdes Melgar SM ’88 PhD ’92 is Mexico’s former deputy secretary of energy for hydrocarbons. In this position, Melgar helped orchestrate the country’s historic energy reform. In 2017, she gave a talk at MIT about the reform and other issues surrounding energy in Mexico.
Ashley Morishige
Ashley Morishige MS ’13, PhD ’16 is a postdoc researcher in the MIT Photovoltaics Research Laboratory. She specifically focuses on the engineering impurities in crystalline silicon during the processing of solar cells. Morishige was a recipient of the MIT School of Engineering SMA2 Fellowship.
Jennifer Morris
Jennifer Morris SM ’09, PhD ’13 is a research scientist for the MIT Energy Initiative and the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change. Morris created a modeling tool that helps power companies decide what kinds of new generating facilities to build based on the potential future limits of carbon emissions.
Marie Elimbi Moudio
Marie Elimbi Moudio ’16 found MIT to be a wonderfully unusual and quirky place. During her time here, she pursued research into converting biomass into an efficient fuel source—a technology that could provide support to her home country of Cameroon. Currently Moudio is in graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley, where she is pursuing her PhD.
Kanchana Nanduri
As an MIT Energy Fellow, Kanchana Nanduri SM ’13 connected her passion for transportation and sustainability by working with Professor Carolina Osorio on optimizing traffic signals to cut down emissions. Currently, Nanduri works with the transportation planning team at Amazon, where she ensures the efficiency of the company’s package-delivery system.
Jennifer Rupp
Jennifer Rupp is the Thomas Lord Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT. Currently she is conducting research on renewable energy and data storage. One of her more intriguing works is using ceramics to convert solar energy into fuel.
→Engineering ceramics for renewable energy and information applications
Carolena Ruprecht
Carolena Ruprecht ’16 majored in nuclear science and engineering with an Energy Studies Minor from the MIT Energy Initiative. She found that studying energy and engineering allowed her to “learn how connected things really are.” Ruprecht is currently serving as a U.S. Navy nuclear surface warfare officer where she operates nuclear reactors on aircraft carriers.
→MIT 2016 energy grads launch careers in research, engineering, and analysis
Gabriela Schlau-Cohen
Gabriela Schlau-Cohen is the Cabot Career Development Assistant Professor of Chemistry. One of her primary research objectives has been trying to find a way to make plants process sunlight more efficiently to produce more material for biofuel.
Yang Shao-Horn
Yang Shao-Horn is the W.M. Keck Professor of Energy, professor of materials science and engineering, and professor of mechanical engineering. Additionally, she serves as the co-director of the Energy Storage Research Center at the MIT Energy Initiative. Shao-Horn specializes in studying materials for electrochemical and photoelectrochemical storage and conversion.
Raspberry Simpson
Raspberry Simpson started her career as a 17 year old in the MIT Summer Research Program, working in the Lab for Nuclear Science. Nearly ten years later, Simpson is continuing her career at MIT, pursuing a PhD in Nuclear Science and developing novel diagnostics for inertial confinement fusion at some of the country’s most advanced research facilities.
Jessika Trancik
Jessika Trancik is the Atlantic Richfield Career Development Assistant Professor of Energy Studies in the Institute for Data, Systems and Society. In this role, she and her research group study the impact of energy technologies for the goal of informing policy.
→Reducing emissions, improving technology: A mutually reinforcing cycle
Anne White
Anne White is the Cecil and Ida Green Associate Professor in Nuclear Engineering at the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC). While working at the PSFC, White has made important progress in identifying how turbulence saps power away from fusion reactors, an issue that she has been working on since she was an undergrad.
Bilge Yildiz
Bilge Yildiz is a professor of nuclear science and engineering and of materials science and engineering. Additionally, she is the co-director of the Center for Materials in Energy and Extreme Environments at the MIT Energy Initiative. Yildiz’s research focuses on next-gen energy conversion and storage, and information processing technologies.
Nan Zhao
Nan Zhao PhD ’17 has always had a keen interest into the character of living spaces. While an MIT Energy Fellow and research assistant in the MIT Media Lab’s Responsive Environments Group, Zhao focused on the environmental and psychological aspects of physical spaces. In 2015, she co-founded Soofa, a company that makes solar powered smart furniture for public spaces.