About the MIT Energy Initiative

Professor Robert C. Armstrong directs the MIT Energy Initiative, an Institute-wide effort at MIT linking science, technology, and policy to transform the world’s energy systems. A member of the MIT faculty since 1973, Armstrong served as head of the Department of Chemical Engineering from 1996 to 2007. He was appointed as director of MITEI in 2013, after serving as the organization’s deputy director from 2007-2013 with founding director Ernest Moniz. His research is focused on pathways to a low-carbon energy future.

Armstrong has been elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2020) and the National Academy of Engineering (2008). He received the 2006 Bingham Medal from the Society of Rheology, which is devoted to the study of the science of deformation and flow of matter, as well as the Founders Award (2020), Warren K. Lewis Award (2006), and the Professional Progress Award (1992) from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.

Armstrong chaired MIT’s The Future of Energy Storage (2022) study and was a member of MIT’s Future of Solar Energy (2015) and Future of Natural Gas (2011) study groups. He advised the teams that developed MITEI’s reports, Insights into Future Mobility (2019) and The Future of Nuclear Energy in a Carbon-Constrained World (2018). He co-edited Game Changers: Energy on the Move (2014) with former U.S. Secretary of State George P. Shultz.

Martha Broad is MITEI’s executive director. As part of the leadership team, she works to link science, innovation and policy to transform the world’s energy systems. She has a track record of successfully partnering with business, government and nonprofit stakeholders to support the clean energy transition. At MITEI, she works closely with member companies who collaborate with MIT researchers on a spectrum of topics, including the Future Energy Systems Center.

In addition, she spearheads MITEI’s collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy to design, manage, and host the annual Clean Energy Education and Empowerment (C3E) Women in Clean Energy Symposium and serves as a C3E Ambassador.

Previously, as part of the senior management team of the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC), Broad led programs and studies that focused on the commercialization of clean energy technologies. By collaborating with universities and public and private partners, she helped facilitate the state’s successful installation of hundreds of megawatts of wind and solar systems.

Christopher Knittel is the George P. Shultz Professor of Energy Economics in the Sloan School of Management MIT. He is also the director of MIT’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, which has served as the hub for social science research on energy and the environmental since the late 1970s. Knittel is also the deputy director for policy at MITEI and a co-director of The E2e Project, a research initiative between MIT, UC Berkeley, and the University of Chicago, to undertake rigorous evaluation of energy efficiency investments. He joined the faculty at MIT in 2011, having taught previously at UC Davis and Boston University. At MIT, he teaches Energy Economics and Policy to undergraduates, MBA students, and graduate students from outside of the Sloan School of Management.

Antje Danielson is the Director of Education at the MIT Energy Initiative, where she directs existing energy programs—such as the MIT Energy Studies Minor and the Energy Fellows Program—conceives and oversees the development of new programs—such as the Future of Energy Systems online MicroMasters—and engages in interdisciplinary research related to transformation systems. She co-teaches energy- and climate-related classes, and leverages her extensive international network of like-minded academic and professional colleagues to accelerate climate change related capacity building.

Prior to her position at MIT, she directed the Institute of the Environment at Tufts University, where she was also an assistant professor in the Department of Public Health. From 2005 to 2008, she was the Deputy Director for Sustainability at the Centre for Research into Earth Energy Systems at Durham University in the UK, where she initiated a carbon capture and storage working group.

Danielson’s approach to finding climate solutions is systemic, interdisciplinary, collaborative, and entrepreneurial. She advances her goals through research, education, and implementation of solutions. In 1999/2000, she co-founded the car-sharing company Zipcar.

Danielson is a member of the Board of Directors of the Global Council for Science and the Environment and has also served as President of the U.S. Council for Environmental Deans and Directors. She received teaching awards from Harvard University and an Exceptional Contribution Award from Durham University.

Tom Melville joined MITEI as communications director in April, 2021. Before joining MITEI, he spent nine years at Boston’s NPR news station, WBUR, leading the largest public radio station newsroom in the United States. He directed reporting teams covering politics, the environment, healthcare, education, the arts, business/innovation/technology and investigations. He joined WBUR as executive editor of content in 2011, was promoted to news director in 2013 and to executive news director in 2015. Before joining WBUR, he was news director at the nation’s largest regional news channel, New England Cable News (NECN). At NECN, Melville rose through the ranks from reporter to executive producer and to assistant news director before being named news director in 2008. He was executive producer and co-writer of an NECN documentary film on hospice care, “Look for Me Here: 299 days in the life of Nora Lenihan,” which won more than a dozen regional, national and international awards, including the George Foster Peabody Award.

He began reporting the news at a radio station in his native Newton, Massachusetts when he was 16 years old. He covered sports at the Boston Herald-American while an undergraduate at Boston University. He served in the United States Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic, teaching vegetable gardening in the public schools in the town of El Valle. He is a graduate of Boston College Law School and holds a law license in Massachusetts.

Early in his career, Melville was a news reporter covering small town government at radio stations in New Hampshire. He covered agriculture and was weekend anchor at the ABC television station in Sioux City, Iowa. He was an anchor, reporter, producer and news director at the NBC television station in White River Junction, Vermont. He covered consumer news and the courts for the NBC television station in West Palm Beach, Florida. He then moved home to Boston to become chief political reporter for NECN.

Melville was also a consultant with the Boston-area media relations firm eMedia Junction, advising nonprofit and for-profit organizations on communications strategy, media training, content creation, storytelling, and crisis communications.

Robert Stoner is the deputy director for science and technology at MITEI and founding director of the MIT Tata Center for Technology and Design. He is currently a member of the MIT Energy Council, the Science and Technology Committee of the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), and the Technical Advisory Board of the Center for the Study of Science, Technology, and Energy Policy. He is also a member of the Rockefeller Foundation-funded Global Commission to End Energy Poverty, and serves as its secretary.

Stoner is the inventor of numerous computational and ultrafast optical measurement techniques, and has built and managed successful technology firms in the semiconductor, IT, and optics industries. From 2007 through 2009, he lived and worked in Africa and India while serving in a variety of senior roles within the Clinton Foundation, including as the CEO of the Clinton Development Initiative, and director of the Clinton Climate Initiative for Africa. His present research at MIT focuses on energy storage technology and policy, and the design and optimization of energy systems and business models in the developing world. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in engineering physics from Queen’s University and PhD from Brown University in condensed matter physics.

Robert Tolu has worked for 17 years in finance and previously sponsored award administration for Harvard University and Education Development Center. At MITEI, he serves as senior fiscal officer and is responsible for overseeing all financial matters, pre- and post-award, to ensure smooth operations and minimal surprises. Robert’s extensive experience includes work with the federal government, industry, and foundation funders.