Priyanka Bakaya
Founded by alum Priyanka Bakaya MBA ‘11 in 2009, Renewlogy has developed a system that converts plastic waste into fuel—creating approximately 60 barrels of fuel for every 10 tons of plastic processed.
→MIT alumna addresses the world’s mounting plastic waste problem
Hamsa Balakrishnan
Hamsa Balakrishnan is the associate head of the MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the director of Transportation@MIT, a group focused on transforming the transportation industry to meet the economic and environmental mobility needs of the present and future.
→3Q: Hamsa Balakrishnan on reimagining the future of transportation
Norhan Bayomi
Norhan Bayomi is currently a PhD student in the Department of Architecture’s Building Technology Program. Using drones and a computational tool, she is able to learn how low-income communities across the globe adapt to changing heat patterns and to understand what kind of adaptation strategies are necessary in combatting climate change.
Sallie Chisholm
MIT Institute Professor Sallie Chisholm was recently awarded the Crafoord Prize for the discovery and pioneering studies of the most abundant photosynthesizing organism on Earth, Prochlorococcus. Prochlorococcus is the smallest and simplest living organism that can convert solar energy and CO2 into fuel. Further studies of Prochlorococcus could lead to developments in clean energy technologies.
Jessica Cohen
Jessica Cohen is an Energy Studies Minor and serves on the MIT Climate Action Team, a committee of the MIT Energy Club that focuses on bringing attention to university and state officials on energy developments and policies. She has also worked in Professor Karthish Manthiram’s lab through the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program where she converted CO2 into valuable chemicals.
Antje Danielson
Antje Danielson is the Director of Education at the MIT Energy Initiative, overseeing MITEI’s education programs including the Energy Studies Minor, Energy Fellows Program, UROP, and online education. In 2019, Danielson led workshops on island decarbonization in Martha’s Vineyard and brought undergraduate students to explore energy facilities in Denmark and Germany.
→New intercontinental energy workshop sparks educational connections beyond the classroom
Sili Deng
Sili Deng, the Brit and Alex d’Arbeloff Career Development Professor and an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, is working to find out “how to make the combustion process more efficient, reliable, safe, and clean” in order to clean up energy conversion applications.
Catherine Drennan
As a professor of both biology and chemistry, Catherine Drennan takes a unique approach when addressing climate change. Her research has found that certain microbes use metal-containing enzymes to live on carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide (CO2), and methane. Since this discovery, there have been new developments with microbes that capture CO2 and convert it into ethanol.
→Catherine Drennan: Catalyzing new approaches in research and education to meet the climate challenge
Betar Gallant
Betar Gallant, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, is developing a new type of lithium battery that uses captured CO2 from power plants. If implemented at scale, this technology could dramatically reduce the price of current carbon technologies and revolutionize the industry.
Amy Glasmeier
Amy Glasmeier is a professor of economic geography and regional planning in the Department of Urban Planning. She serves as an advisor of the Energy Studies Minor and frequently brings MITEI UROPs to work in her lab. Currently, Glasmeier is writing a book called The Geography of the Global Energy Economy.
Danielle Gleason
Danielle Gleason, a senior mechanical engineering, is helping to streamline the manufacturing process employed by Appropriate Energy Saving Technologies, a Ugandan-based social enterprise focused on eliminating the risks of indoor air pollution from cooking. To accomplish this, they have developed a briquette for cooking that produces no soot and very little smoke.
Elise Harrington
PhD student Elise Harrington is researching the implementation and adoption of solar technologies in Kenya and India. She has found that social relationships are more critical than reliable warranty policies in the adoption of solar products.
Susan Hockfield
Even though President Emerita Susan Hockfield’s profession is neuroscience, she has been a champion and leading force for clean energy research at the Institute. As president of MIT, she founded the MIT Energy Initiative and helped to solidify MIT’s focus on clean energy by encouraging interdepartmental collaboration.
Valerie Karplus
Valerie Karplus, an assistant professor of global economics and management at the MIT Sloan School of Management, is an expert on China’s energy system as well as the resource and environmental management of multinational firms.
→Health effects of China’s climate policy extend across Pacific
→Karplus receives 2019 U.S. C3E Education Award in recognition of her teaching
Sheila Kennedy
As a professor of architecture and principal at Kennedy and Violich Architecture, Sheila Kennedy works at the forefront of sustainable building design. She and Michael Strano, professor of chemical engineering, are researching the architectural applications of groundbreaking light-emitting plants that are infused with energy-harvesting nanoparticles to make them glow.
→Ambient plant illumination could light the way for greener buildings
Miriam Kreher
Nuclear science PhD student Miriam Kreher is helping to develop software that simulates the physics phenomenon that occurs inside nuclear reactors. While she primarily engages in the technical side of nuclear science, she is also drawn to policy and advocacy issues surrounding the subject.
Heather Kulik
Heather Kulik, an associate professor of chemical engineering, is using machine learning to identify transition metal complexes that have potential applications for a wide range of energy and non-energy related uses, such as energy storage and acting as a catalyst for fuel conversion processes.
Laureen Meroueh
Laureen Meroueh is a graduate student pursuing a PhD in mechanical engineering and a current MIT Energy Fellow. Her research primarily focuses on the processes that allow scrap aluminum to be turned into hydrogen, which could negate issues surrounding hydrogen transportation, storage, and cost by allowing it to be produced onsite at industrial facilities on an as-needed basis.
Joanna Moody
Joanna Moody MS ’16 PhD ’19 is the Research Program Manager for the Mobility Systems Center, an MIT Energy Initiative Low Carbon Energy Center that studies current and future trends in global passenger and freight mobility. She is a co-principal investigator for the Center’s study on how mobility-as-a-service models are disrupting traditional private vehicle ownership.
→Podcast: Mobility of the Future
→MIT Energy Initiative report charts pathways for sustainable personal transportation
Sandhya Murali and
Stephanie Speirs
Sandhya Murali MBA ’15 and Stephanie Speirs MBA ’17 cofounded Solstice, a startup focused on expanding community solar programs while reducing costs and other barriers that stop many individuals from pursuing traditional rooftop solar panels.
→Helping lower-income households reap the benefits of solar energy
Julia Ortony
Julia Ortony is the Finmeccanica Career Development Assistant Professor of Engineering in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. She is currently researching the potential environmental and energy applications of nanofibers, including effective water filtration systems and the possible conversion of solar energy into chemical fuel.
→Julia Ortony: Concocting nanomaterials for energy and environmental applications
Reshma Rao
Reshma Rao PhD ’19 is currently a postdoc in the Electrochemical Energy Lab at MIT where she is developing energy conversion and storage technologies for renewable energy sources.
Erica Salazar
Erica Salazar, a Commonwealth Fusion Systems-MIT Energy Fellow, is pursuing a PhD in nuclear science and engineering. She is currently conducting research on the use of superconducting magnets for the SPARC fusion project, an experimental nuclear fusion reactor.
Noelle Selin
Noelle Selin is an associate professor in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences and the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society.
→Podcast: Energy economics and air pollution
→Health effects of China’s climate policy extend across Pacific
Caroline Sorensen
Caroline Sorensen is a PhD candidate using her experience in mechanical engineering to improve the liquid immersion blanket of the MIT Plasma and Science and Fusion center’s experimental reactor.
Katie Taylor
Khethworks, a startup founded by alum Katie Taylor SM ’15, has created a solar-powered water pump that allows farmers in India to grow crops year-round, instead of the short four-month window of the monsoon season. She co-founded the company in 2014 as an MIT Tata Fellow.
Evelyn Wang
Evelyn Wang is a professor and head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering. She has developed a new kind of aerogel that can generate heat faster and cheaper than most other collectors when used in solar thermal collectors. This aerogel can also be used as an affordable and effective insulator for windows, due to its transparent nature.