About the MIT Energy Initiative

Mission

The MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI), MIT’s hub for energy research, education, and outreach, is advancing zero- and low-carbon solutions to combat climate change and expand energy access. MITEI is a crucial rallying point for MIT researchers and educators who share our vision and commitment to dramatically reduce emissions through the development of novel technologies and delivery of science-based analysis. Together we are dedicated to decarbonizing global energy systems and building upon MIT’s long tradition of working collaboratively and transparently with industry, government, and civil society.

Collaboration

The MIT Energy Initiative leads MIT’s collaborative engagement with companies of all kinds from around the world to decarbonize our economy as rapidly as possible. Learning from one another, and working together, we seek to identify high impact opportunities, develop solutions, and bring them to global scale.

How we achieve our mission

RESEARCH: MITEI connects researchers from across MIT and facilitates collaborations with industry, nonprofits, and government to speed and scale commercialization of no- and low-carbon technologies from lab to market. MITEI and its members support hundreds of research projects, including innovative early-stage energy projects awarded through the MITEI Seed Fund Program.

Through MITEI’s Future Energy Systems Center, faculty, students, industry, and government advance R&D in key technology areas and energy subsector systems. Center researchers conduct integrated analysis of the energy system to transform power systems, transportation, industry, and the built environment.

MITEI also delivers comprehensive analyses for thought leaders, policy makers, and regulators, such as the “Future of” report series. The most recent, The Future of Energy Storage, was published in 2022.

 

EDUCATION: MITEI’s education role is central to its mission to decarbonize the world’s energy systems. MITEI provides a robust educational toolkit to thousands of MIT graduate and undergraduate students and global online learners who want to contribute to the energy transition.

Our programs—in the classroom, in the field, and online—allow students to study and conduct energy research in diverse fields, from energy science and social science to technology and engineering. Students hone their skills and collaborate with peers and professionals.

Opportunities include the Energy Studies Minor, the Energy Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, short modules during the Independent Activities Period, an energy-focused first-year orientation program, the graduate Society of Energy Fellows, and a series of online energy classes open to the world.

 

OUTREACH: MITEI provides fact-based analysis of current energy topics to inform public policy, foster dialogue within the academic research community, and provide the public with context on vital issues. Our conferences and symposia give industry, government, and nonprofits data and insights to help drive energy system change. We continue that conversation online and off through news articles, our social channels, podcasts, and our experts’ presence in the media.

What We Do

Our history

MIT’s legacy of tackling societal challenges with science and technology stretches back to the first classes it offered in 1865. Some of MIT’s greatest innovations have been multidisciplinary—from collaborations across MIT departments and among industry, academia, and government. Throughout its history MIT has engaged with industry and government to help solve the world’s most vexing problems.

This history makes MIT and MITEI uniquely suited to the task of decarbonizing the energy sector and addressing the climate crisis. This multidisciplinary effort draws from many fields, including physics, chemistry, economics, engineering, social science, and public policy.

In 2006, MIT President Susan Hockfield—along with a diverse team of MIT faculty and senior staff—established the MIT Energy Initiative. MITEI’s founding director was Ernest J. Moniz, now the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics and Engineering Systems emeritus and special advisor to the MIT president. Moniz also served as the U.S. Secretary of Energy. Subsequent directors have been:

• Robert C. Armstrong, the Chevron Professor of Chemical Engineering, 2013-2023
• Robert Stoner, interim director, 2023-2024
• William H. Green, the Hoyt C. Hottel Professor, 2024-Present

MITEI has mobilized thousands of students and experts, hundreds of millions of dollars in research, and key players from throughout the energy world around a core mission: deploying the research and educational strengths of MIT to decarbonize our economy and to address the world’s energy challenges.

More Information

Executive Leadership

Energy Council

The Energy Council helps shape MITEI’s research, education, and outreach directions.

Energy Education Task Force

MITEI’s Energy Education Task Force guides the development of energy education at MIT. The task force meets regularly throughout the academic year and includes faculty from all five schools at MIT, as well as graduate and undergraduate student representatives. MITEI’s education team members support the task force by implementing energy education programs.

External Advisory Board

An External Advisory Board composed of industry, academic, nonprofit, and public sector leaders provides oversight to the Initiative. The views and guidance of the board greatly assist MITEI in maximizing its impact in helping to meet the world’s energy needs, reduce the environmental impacts of energy production and consumption, and inform public discourse on energy and the environment. The board meets annually each fall.

Governing Board

The Governing Board provides input to MITEI leadership on overall direction and member activities and serves as the Program Committee for the Energy Research Seed Fund. The Board meets twice a year—in the spring to review seed fund progress and proposals and in the fall at the time of the annual MITEI Research Conference. Founding and Sustaining members each have a seat on the MITEI Governing Board with the directors of MITEI and the MIT Energy Council.

MITEI is affiliated with faculty members in a number of MIT centers, departments, and laboratories pursuing interdisciplinary energy and environmental activities. MITEI supports the financial administration of certain projects and collaborates on research and education activities with these organizations.

Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research

Established in 1977, the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEPR) promotes research on energy and environmental policy to support improved decision making by government and industry. It is directed by Professor Christopher Knittel (MIT Sloan) and jointly sponsored by MITEI, the Department of Economics, and the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Affiliated faculty and research staff as well as international research associates contribute to empirical research on policy issues related to coal, oil, gas, and electricity markets; nuclear power; mobility; energy infrastructure; investment finance and risk management; and environmental and carbon constraints. CEEPR cooperates closely with associates in government and industry across the globe to enhance the relevance of its research.

CEEPR produces working papers, policy briefs, and research input to larger, interdisciplinary studies; hosts two annual research workshops in Cambridge, Massachusetts; and hosts an international energy policy conference organized jointly with the Energy Policy Research Group at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. CEEPR is also involved in a number of collaborative research projects.

The E2e Project is a joint initiative founded by Professor Christopher Knittel, Professor Michael Greenstone (formerly at MIT, now at the University of Chicago), and Professor Catherine Wolfram of the University of California, Berkeley, to leverage cutting-edge scientific and economic insights on the causes of the persistent energy-efficiency gap. E2e focuses these talents on solving one of the most perplexing energy questions today and communicating those findings to policy makers and the public. E2e’s research generates rigorous and accurate evaluations of energy-efficiency technologies and programs using state-of-the-art empirical methodologies.

The Roosevelt Project takes a multidisciplinary approach to examine the transitional challenges associated with progress toward a deeply decarbonized U.S. economy. The project aims to chart a path forward through the transition that minimizes worker and community dislocations and enables at-risk communities to sustain employment levels by taking advantage of the economic opportunities present for regional economic development. The first phase of the project involves an assessment of cross-cutting topics related to the transition. The second phase of the project involves developing regional action plans for individual case studies, working with local partners on the ground in specific transition contexts. The project was initiated by former U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest J. Moniz and engages a breadth of MIT and Harvard faculty and researchers across academic domains including economics, engineering, sociology, urban studies and planning, and political science.

Climate and Sustainability Consortium

The MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium aims to vastly accelerate large-scale, real-world implementation of solutions to the looming threat of climate change. The MCSC unites similarly motivated, highly creative and influential companies to work with MIT to build a comprehensive process, market, and ambitious implementation strategy for environmental innovation.

Climate CoLab

The goal of the Climate CoLab is to harness the collective intelligence of thousands of people from all around the world to address global climate change. Inspired by systems like Wikipedia and Linux, the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence has developed this crowdsourcing platform where citizens work with experts and each other to create, analyze, and select detailed proposals for what to do about climate change.

Energy Club

The MIT Energy Club is focused on the creation of a tight-knit energy community at MIT. The club holds signature events such as the annual MIT Energy Night and the MIT Energy Conference. The club’s emphasis is on building a community at MIT with a deeper understanding of global energy trends and challenges through open, fact-based discussion.

Environmental Solutions Initiative

The Environmental Solutions Initiative (ESI) advances science, engineering, policy and social science, design, the humanities, and the arts towards a people-centric and planet-positive future. MITEI and ESI faculty collaborate on numerous initiatives.

Global Commission to End Energy Poverty

The Global Commission to End Energy Poverty (GCEEP) was conceived to convene and help forge an actionable consensus among the many public and private actors who have a stake in bringing about universal access to modern energy services. GCEEP’s ultimate objective as project developers, agency heads, regulators, leaders of development finance institutions, and private and public utilities is to present a compelling vision that can help attract investment into the energy sector of low-access countries and dramatically accelerate change. The Commission’s research team is led by MITEI’s Robert Stoner and MIT visiting professor Ignacio Pérez-Arriaga.

Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change

The pace and complexity of global environmental change is unprecedented. Nations, regions, cities, and the public and private sectors face increasing pressures to confront critical challenges in future food, water, energy, climate, and other areas. Led by director Professor Ronald G. Prinn (Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences), the Joint Program’s integrated team of natural and social scientists produces comprehensive global and regional change projections under different environmental, economic, and policy scenarios. These projections enable decision makers to better assess impacts and the associated costs and benefits of potential courses of action.

To achieve its mission—advancing a sustainable, prosperous world through scientific analysis of the complex interactions among co-evolving, interconnected global systems—the Joint Program:

• Combines scientific research with risk and policy analyses to project the impacts of—and evaluate possible responses to—the many interwoven challenges of global socioeconomic, technological, and environmental change.
• Communicates research findings through its website, publications, workshops, and presentations around the world, as well as frequent interactions with decision makers, media outlets, government and nongovernmental organizations, schools, and communities.
• Cultivates and educates the next generation of interdisciplinary researchers with the skills to tackle ongoing and emerging complex global challenges. ​

Building on the twin pillars of science and policy, the Joint Program was founded in 1991 as a joint effort of two distinct groups: the MIT Center for Global Change Science and the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research.

MultiScale Material Science for Energy and Environment

MITEI continues to host the MultiScale Materials Science for Energy and Environment Laboratory, an international joint unit (UMI) between France’s National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and MIT at the center of a strategic association covering research, training, and education in partnership with industry. The UMI aims at “bottom up” simulation and experimental verification of properties of complex multiscale materials—from atomic-scale to microns, and from nanoseconds to years. Materials with important technological, economic, energy, and environmental applications are addressed, including cement, ceramics, nuclear fuels, steels, and geo-materials. The UMI hosts French researchers at MIT, each for multiple years, and is seen as a gateway to further collaboration between CNRS and MIT. The UMI, which is housed at MIT under the auspices of MITEI, has been designated by the CNRS as the lead unit of an international research network consisting of multiple institutions engaged in materials science in the United States as well as in Europe. In July 2019, MIT, CNRS, and Aix Marseille Université held a symposium in Marseille to highlight past accomplishments of this collaboration; we are working on a renewal for another five years.

Office of Sustainability

The mission of the Office of Sustainability (MITOS) is to transform MIT into a powerful model that generates new and proven ways of responding to the unprecedented challenges of a changing planet via operational excellence, education, research, and innovation on campus. Established in 2013 under the Executive Vice President and Treasurer’s Office, MITOS works to integrate sustainability across all levels of campus by engaging the collective brainpower of students, staff, faculty, alumni, and partners. MITOS has set out to have an impact across scales, from the individual to the global.

MITEI staff and faculty affiliates collaborate with the Office of Sustainability through initiatives such as the Campus Sustainability Task Force, living lab projects, and the MIT Climate Action Advisory Committee.

Sustainability Initiative

The MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative was founded with the goal to create a world where humans and nature can thrive for generations to come. Since inception, the Sustainability Initiative has tried to drive a fundamental shift in how the world defines and solves sustainability problems.

Tata Center for Technology and Design

MITEI hosts the Tata Center for Technology and Design. Founded in 2012 with support from the Tata Trusts, the Center’s research and education mission is to develop solutions to challenges facing resource-constrained communities globally, with an initial focus on India.

U.S. C3E Initiative

The U.S. C3E Initiative aims to advance clean energy by closing the gender gap and enabling the full participation of women in the clean energy sector. MITEI and the Department of Energy began their collaboration to launch C3E in 2012. The Stanford Precourt Institute for Energy and Texas A&M Energy Institute has joined the collaboration—each university now hosts the annual awards and symposium on a rotating basis. The U.S. C3E Initiative has increasingly focused on elevating the voices and experiences of women from diverse backgrounds throughout the U.S.

MIT Human Resources maintains a list of open positions at the Energy Initiative, and is the primary contact for all applications and questions.

View open positions

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is committed to the principle of equal opportunity in education and employment. Read the full nondiscrimination policy.

I’m a journalist. How can I get in touch with an MIT energy researcher?
Contact MITEI Communications.

How can I learn about becoming a member?
Contact MITEI Member Services.

How can I learn about energy education?
Contact MITEI Education.

Where can I view recordings of MITEI events, seminars and other talks online?
If a MITEI event, seminar, or other talk is being recorded, you can find the video by visiting the MITEI YouTube channel. Please note that not all MITEI events, seminars and talks are recorded, but that the YouTube channel is the most up-to-date source of MITEI video recordings.

I’m a non-MIT student/researcher who would like to work with MIT faculty on energy issues. Are there opportunities available for internships and jobs?
MIT faculty work on a very wide range of energy research topics, and the best way to figure out whether there could be opportunities is to research specific departments and faculty members, and inquire through those channels. You can learn more about faculty members affiliated with MITEI here. MIT Human Resources maintains a list of open positions at the Energy Initiative, and is the primary contact for all applications and questions. Please note, MITEI does not offer internships to international students.

I’m a researcher at another academic institution. How can I get in contact with MITEI about an energy-related topic?
If you would like to reach MITEI regarding an energy-related topic such as an invention or research project, please send us more information about your proposal.

I’m an inventor. How do I get in touch with someone at MITEI about my energy-related invention?
We receive many inquiries about inventions, and unfortunately MITEI researchers are unable to review these proposals.

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