Energizing@MIT: MITEI’s Annual Research Conference will be held on September 22 and 23, 2026. This year’s theme is “Transitioning energy at a pivotal moment.” Topics include robotics for energy and materials, AI and energy infrastructure, fission, quantum computing and sensing, and social acceptance of energy advances. We will also hear from MITEI Seed Innovation Fund project teams and present posters from Energy Scholars, Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program students, and Future Energy Systems Center project teams. MITEI’s Annual Research Conference frames the key technology, policy, and economic drivers that are shaping today’s energy system and its future.
AGENDA
| Tuesday, September 22 | |
| 8:00-9:00 am | Breakfast and registration |
| 9:00-9:15 am |
Welcome and opening remarks
William H. Green, Director, MIT Energy Initiative; Hoyt C. Hottel Professor of Chemical Engineering |
| 9:15-10:00 am |
Keynote address Eric Toone, Chief Technical Officer and Managing Partner, Breakthrough Energy Moderated by William H. Green, Director, MIT Energy Initiative; Hoyt C. Hottel Professor of Chemical Engineering |
| 10:00-11:15 am |
AI and energy infrastructure Faez Ahmed, Associate Professor, MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering Moderated by Deepyjoti Deka, Research Scientist, MIT Energy Initiative |
| 11:15-11:30 am | Break |
| 11:30 am-12:45 pm |
Carbon utilization Highlighting advances and challenges in carbon utilization, which remains the most vexing part of CCUS Nicola Ferralis, Research Scientist, MIT Department of Materials Science and Engineering Moderated by Carolyn Ruppel, Deputy Director for Science and Technology, MIT Energy Initiative |
| 12:45-2:00 pm | Lunch with MIT Energy Scholars poster presentations |
| 2:00-3:15 pm | MITEI Seed Innovation Fund project updates Reporting on outcomes of low TRL energy transition projects selected for sponsorship by MITEI’s Seed Innovation Fund Martin Z. Bazant,Chevron Professor of Chemical Engineering and Mathematics, MIT Departments of Chemical Engineering and Mathematics Moderated by: Martha Broad, Executive Director, MIT Energy Initiative |
| 3:15-3:45 pm | Break |
| 3:45-5:00 pm |
Robotics for energy and materials Presenting cutting-edge MIT swarm robotics (aerial and marine) for energy applications and laboratory robotics for energy materials Brian Anthony, Principal Research Scientist, MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering Moderated by Jonathan P. How, Ford Professor of Engineering, MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics |
| 5:00-5:05 pm |
Closing remarks
Carolyn Ruppel, Deputy Director for Science and Technology, MIT Energy Initiative |
| 5:00-7:00 pm | Reception with MIT Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program poster presentations |
| Wednesday, September 23 | |
| 8:00-9:00 am | Breakfast and registration |
| 9:00-10:15 am |
The revival of fission Discussing the renewed focus on fission (and the restart of legacy fission plants) as one clean energy solution David Burnette, Senior Program Manager, GE Vernova Moderated by John Parsons, Deputy Director for Research, MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research |
| 10:15-10:30 am | Break |
| 10:30-11:45 am |
Social license and data centers Considering issues related to community acceptance of development associated with data centers Steve Clemmer, Director of Energy Research, Climate & Energy Program, Union of Concerned Scientists Moderated by Caitlin Mueller, Associate Professor, MIT Department of Architecture |
| 11:45 am-1:00 pm |
Lunch featuring Future Energy Systems Center project posters
Katrin Daehn, Research Scientist, MIT Materials Research Laboratory
Abhijatmedhi Chotrattanapituk, MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Nathan Engelman Lado, MIT Institute for Data, Systems & Society
Yifan Gao, Postdoctoral Associate, MIT Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Federica lannucci, Visiting Student, MIT Energy Initiative
Yurim Kim, Postdoctoral Associate, MIT Department of Chemical Engineering
Candy Martinez, Postdoctoral Associate, MIT Center for Real Estate
Wendy Weng, Postdoctoral Associate, MIT Energy Initiative |
| 1:00-1:45 pm |
Keynote address
Danna Freedman, F. G. Keyes Professor of Chemistry, MIT Department of Chemistry; Director, Quantum@MIT Moderated by Paola Cappellaro, Ford Professor of Engineering, MIT Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering |
| 1:45-3:00 pm |
Quantum sensing for energy applications Emphasizing innovative applications of quantum sensing in energy-related sectors Mingda Li, Associate Professor, MIT Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering Moderated by Paola Cappellaro, Ford Professor of Engineering, MIT Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering |
| 3:00-3:15 pm | Break |
| 3:15-4:30 pm |
Startup: Path to commercialization for new energy technologies Introducing startup companies linked to MITEI, MITEI partners, or MITEI member companies and serving the broad energy sector Michele Guarnieri, Co-Founder and CEO, HiBot Corporation Moderated by Morgan Andreae, Executive Director, Future Energy Systems Center, MIT Energy Initiative |
| 4:30-4:45 pm |
Summary Carolyn Ruppel, Deputy Director for Science and Technology, MIT Energy Initiative |
| 4:45-6:30 pm |
Reception celebrating MITEI’s 20th Anniversary |
About the speakers
Faez Ahmed
Associate Professor, MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering
Faez Ahmed is an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT, where he directs the Design Computation and Digital Engineering Lab. His research interests lie at the intersection of Artificial Intelligence and engineering design, focusing particularly on first‑principle generative AI and optimization algorithms, multi‑modal representation learning, and engineering design methodology with human–AI design co‑pilots. Before joining MIT, Ahmed was a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University and earned his PhD in mechanical engineering from the University of Maryland. He also spent several years in Australia’s railway and mining sector, leading data‑driven predictive‑maintenance initiatives. Ahmed has received the NSF CAREER Award, the AFOSR Young Investigator Award, the ASME DAC and DTM Young Investigator Awards, the Google Research Scholar and Amazon Research Awards, and MIT’s Keenan Award for Innovation in Undergraduate Education. He holds the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Career Development Professorship, having previously held the Doherty, ABS, and d’Arbeloff chairs, and serves as associate editor of Design Science and on the editorial boards of Computer-Aided Design and Machine Learning: Engineering.
Morgan Andreae
Executive Director, Future Energy Systems Center, MIT Energy Initiative
Morgan Andreae is the executive director of MITEI’s Future Energy Systems Center. Prior to joining MITEI, Andreae was the executive director of technology and innovation at Cummins where he led teams in the development of new battery, fuel cell, electrolyzer, and electric traction technologies. Over the course of his career Andreae has held a variety of roles in technology development, strategy, and product development, with a consistent focus on bringing more sustainable technology to market. Andreae holds over 25 patents on diesel, hybrid-electric, and electric powertrain technology. He has a PhD in mechanical engineering from MIT, a Masters and Bachelors in engineering from Dartmouth College, and a Bachelors in history from Haverford College.
Brian Anthony
Principal Research Scientist, MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering
Martin Z. Bazant
Chevron Professor of Chemical Engineering and Mathematics, MIT Department of Chemical Engineering
Martin Z. Bazant is the Chevron Professor of Chemical Engineering and Mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. After a PhD in physics at Harvard (1997), he joined the MIT faculty in Mathematics (1998) and then Chemical Engineering (2008), where he served as executive officer of the department from 2016 to 2020. His awards include the Alexander Kuznetsov Prize in Theoretical Electrochemistry (ISE), the Andreas Acrivos Award in Chemical Engineering (AIChE), the ECS Battery Division Research Award, and the MITx Prize for Teaching in MOOCs. He is a fellow of the Electrochemical Society, the International Society of Electrochemistry, the Royal Society of Chemistry, and the American Physical Society. He serves as president of the International Electrokinetics Society, director of the D3BATT Center for Data-Driven Design of Batteries (Toyota Research Institute), director of the Center for Battery Sustainability (MIT-Northeastern), and chief scientific advisor for Saint-Gobain Research North America. He is also the chief scientist and co-founder of Lithios, Inc. commercializing advanced lithium extraction (ALE) from brines.
Martha Broad
Executive Director, MIT Energy Initiative
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.
David Burnette
Senior Program Manager, GE Vernova
David Burnette is a senior program leader within the chief engineer’s office at GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy. In this role, he leads technical risk and technological readiness programs for GE Vernova’s nuclear business. He also facilitates and supports external research collaborations, knowledge transfer and retention initiatives, and engineering process improvements. Prior to this, he held engineering leadership positions supporting BWRX-300, Global Nuclear Fuels, and Gen IV Engineering projects.
Burnette has a PhD in mechanical engineering from The Ohio State University with a focus on low temperature plasma processes. He began his career at Bettis Laboratory supporting the nuclear navy, has worked as a product development engineer in multiple industries, and is a former college professor. His past projects span numerous energy technologies and advanced nuclear architectures. He currently lives in Ohio with his wife and three children.
Paola Cappellaro
Ford Professor of Engineering, MIT Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering
Paola Cappellaro is a professor in the Departments of Nuclear Science and Engineering and Physics at MIT, where she leads the Quantum Engineering Group. Her research combines theory and experiment to answer one question: how can we control quantum systems precisely enough to make them useful, and what applications in computation, sensing and simulation does this control enables?
Cappellaro contributed to the foundational work on magnetic field sensing with nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond that helped establish NV spins as practical quantum sensors. She further extended the platform’s reach to applications such as atomic-scale MRI, vector magnetometry, and spin gyroscopes. The “Quantum Sensing” review she co-authored has become the standard in the field, teaching a generation of students how quantum sensors work.
Beyond single-qubit sensors, she tackles many-body physics, using interacting spin ensembles as quantum simulators to study prethermalization in spin chains, information scrambling, and the emergence of robust phases of matter such as time crystals. Recent work reaches into quantum networks, algorithms, and hybrid spin systems.
The unifying thread in Cappellaro’s research is quantum engineering: designing control protocols that reshape how a quantum system evolves. The same conceptual toolkit that lets a single qubit measure a magnetic field a billion times weaker than the Earth’s also lets a crystal of nuclear spins simulate exotic non-equilibrium phases, and lets an engineer suppress the noise that limits a quantum device. Her work is notable for spanning both the abstract (control theory, metrological bounds, many-body physics) and the concrete (a working magnetometer, a gyroscope, a wide-field imager).
Sylvia T. Ceyer
J.C. Sheehan Professor of Chemistry, MIT Department of Chemistry
Sylvia T. Ceyer is the J. C. Sheehan Professor of Chemistry at MIT and a former head of the Department of Chemistry. She previously held the first W. M. Keck Foundation Professorship in Energy. She is a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Physical Society. Her numerous honors include the Gibbs Medal of the American Chemical Society (ACS), ACS Nobel Laureate Signature Award, MacVicar Faculty Fellow, School of Science Teaching Prize, Baker Memorial Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, Undergraduate Advising Excellence Award, Edgerton Prize, Smith Award for Meaningful Contributions to Undergraduate Students, and the Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award.
She has served on the NAS council, as chair of its Physical and Mathematical Sciences Class and its Chemistry Section and as chair of the Ford Foundation Fellowships Panel, on the Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee for the Department of Energy, and as associate editor of Physical Review Letters.
A physical chemist, Ceyer studies the atomic-level interaction of molecules with surfaces of materials critical to heterogeneous catalysis, plasma fusion, quantum materials and semiconductor devices, knowledge critical to the development of less expensive and cleaner energy sources. For example, the discovery of a transiently excited hydrogen atom emerging from beneath a metal surface changed the picture for the mechanism for catalytic hydrogenation. Her fundamental research also paved the way for development of a novel, low temperature catalyst for oxidation reactions and of a low temperature synthesis for graphene
Steve Clemmer
Director of Energy Research, Climate & Energy Program, Union of Concerned Scientists
As director of energy research for the Union of Concerned Scientists, Steve Clemmer conducts research on the economic and environmental benefits of implementing renewable energy technologies and policies at the state and national levels. He also directs UCS research on coal, natural gas, and nuclear power, and on solutions to reduce carbon emissions, health impacts, and water use in the electricity sector. His most recent research has focused on the impacts of data centers’ growing electricity demand on the U.S. power grid and how decisionmakers can mitigate harmful impacts through clean energy development, strong ratepayer protections, and other safeguards. In addition, he is actively involved in advancing strong clean energy policies and regulations in Maine through legislation, the Public Utilities Commission, and as a member of the Maine Climate Council’s Energy Working Group.
Before joining UCS, Clemmer was energy analyst and policy coordinator for the Wisconsin Energy Office. Clemmer holds an M.S. in energy analysis and policy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a B.A. in political science and history from Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota. Clemmer has written numerous reports and journal articles on clean energy, has testified on climate and clean energy policies at the state and federal levels, and has been quoted widely in the press.
Deepjyoti Deka
Research Scientist, MIT Energy Initiative
Deepjyoti Deka is a research scientist at the MIT Energy Initiative. His research interests lie at the intersection of AI and optimization for secure estimation and operation in renewable-rich power grids. Currently, his focus also includes analyzing and mitigating issues related to connecting large loads such as datacenters to the grid. At the MIT Energy Initiative, Deka serves as the program manager for the Data Center Power Forum, an initiative supported by energy, infrastructure, and AI companies that aims to coalesce research in this domain.
From 2018-2024, Deka was a staff scientist in the Theoretical Division at Los Alamos National Laboratory and served as a PI/co-PI for the Department of Energy and internal projects on physics-informed machine learning in energy systems. He received his MS and PhD degrees in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Texas, Austin, TX, in 2011 and 2015, respectively. He completed his undergraduate degree in electronics and communication engineering from IIT Guwahati, India with an institute silver medal as the best outgoing student of the department in 2009. Deka is a senior member of IEEE and has served as an editor on IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid.
Nicola Ferralis
Research Scientist, MIT Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Nicola Ferralis is currently a research scientist in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT. His research interests include the utilization, chemical alterations, and bottom-up proxy-synthesis of complex yet low-value and waste carbon streams (from pitch to carbon black, from industrial to consumer carbon byproducts) to develop advanced carbon systems for electronics and energy storage, filtration, automotive and building materials. He applied his expertise to ancient natural carbonaceous materials in geobiology and their proxies for exo-biological exploration. More recently, he has been working on utilization of carbon systems for thermal energy management. He has led as PI research projects funded by either major U.S. governmental agencies (ARPA-E, DOE), or from corporate sponsored research in carbon upcycling. He recently co-founded a startup aiming at valorization of waste metal oxides. He holds a BS and MS degree in physics from the University of Padua and a PhD in experimental condensed matter physics from Penn State University. He was previously a post-doctoral fellow at the Center for Integrated Nanomechanical Systems at UC Berkeley.
Danna Freedman
F. G. Keyes Professor of Chemistry, MIT Department of Chemistry; Director, Quantum@MIT
Danna Freedman is the F. G. Keyes Professor of Chemistry at MIT and the inaugural director of Quantum@MIT. Her laboratory’s research focuses on applying inorganic chemistry to address challenges in physics. Key areas of research in her lab include a molecular approach to quantum information science, and pressure as a vector for chemical transformation. Freedman began her career at Northwestern University as an assistant professor. She moved to MIT in 2021 as the F. G. Keyes Professor of Chemistry. She received her undergraduate degree from Harvard University, and her PhD from University of California, Berkeley where she studied magnetic anisotropy in molecules. As a postdoc at MIT, she engendered spin frustration in kagom√© lattices to create quantum spin liquids. Freedman’s laboratory’s research has been recognized by a number of awards including the MacArthur Fellowship, the ACS award in Pure Chemistry, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, and an NSF CAREER award.
Michele Guarnieri
Co-Founder and CEO, hiBot
Michele Guarnieri is the co-founder and CEO of hibot Corp., serving in this role since 2020. Guarnieri earned his degree in computer science from the University of Verona, Italy, before going to Japan as a recipient of the MEXT scholarship from the Japanese government. He later obtained a Master’s degree and a PhD in mechanical and aerospace engineering from the Tokyo Institute of Technology.
His leadership has driven numerous award-winning projects, earning prestigious accolades such as the Japan METI Robot Award, Edison Gold Award, recognition as a World Economic Forum “Technology Pioneer”, and the IEEE Inaba Technical Award. In 2019, he was honored with the Rotary Galileo Galilei Award for outstanding contributions to the field of engineering.
Since 2019, Guarnieri has also served as the Asia-Pacific coordinator for Sprint Robotics, actively advancing robotics technology in industrial inspection and maintenance.
William H. Green
Director, MIT Energy Initiative; Hoyt. C Hottel Professor, MIT Department of Chemical Engineering
William H. Green is the director of the MIT Energy Initiative and the Hoyt C. Hottel Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT. Green’s energy research has focused on hydrogen carriers, ammonia production and use in co-firing power plants, sustainable fuels, decarbonization of long-haul transportation, and techno-economic analysis of energy systems. Green serves as director of MITEI’s in-progress study on the Future of Fuels: Pathways to Sustainable Transportation and as co-director of the Consistent Lifecycle and Economic Assessment Recommendations (CLEAR) being led by MIT for the international engineering community. Green is a world leader in chemical kinetics, reaction engineering, and prediction of chemical reactions and properties, and in development of related software. He has led many combined experimental/modeling research projects related to fuels, combustion, pyrolysis, and oxidative stability. His group has developed an AI expert system for reactive chemistry (Reaction Mechanism Generator; rmg.mit.edu) and other machine-learning methods and software, including the popular Github package Chemprop. Green also invents and analyzes technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and two of these inventions are now being commercialized. He earned his BA at Swarthmore College and his PhD in physical chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley. After postdocs at Cambridge University and University of Pennsylvania, Green worked at ExxonMobil for seven years before joining the MIT faculty in 1997. He is a Fellow of the AAAS and of the Combustion Institute. He has also been honored with the Jürgen Warnatz Gold Medal of the Combustion Institute, the American Chemical Society’s Glenn Award in Energy & Fuel Chemistry, and the AIChE’s Wilhelm Award in Reaction Engineering.
Paula T. Hammond
Dean of Engineering, MIT School of Engineering; Institute Professor
Paula T. Hammond is Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. She is the dean of the School of Engineering at MIT. Previously, she served as the executive vice provost and as vice provost for faculty from 2024 to January 2026, and as the department head of Chemical Engineering from 2015 to 2023. She investigates electrostatic polymer systems for the delivery of drugs to specific parts of the body, including thin film coatings to release proteins that regenerate bone, dressings that release RNA to assist in wound healing, and her current primary area of work on nanoparticles that can bind to tumors specifically to treat cancer. She has had a particular focus on the development of new therapies for ovarian cancer that arm the immune system to help address both primary and recurrent tumors. She received her SB at MIT, her MS at Georgia Institute of Technology, and her PhD at MIT, with all her degrees in chemical engineering, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship in Chemistry at Harvard University.
Hammond was elected to the National Academy of Science in 2019, the National Academy of Engineering in 2017, the National Academy of Medicine in 2016, and the 2013 Class of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In January 2025, she was awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. She is also a member of the National Academy of Inventors. She received the Margaret H. Rousseau Pioneer Award for Lifetime Achievement by a Woman Chemical Engineer, the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry from the Franklin Institute and the 2025 Othmer Gold Medal. She is a former member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Moderna Therapeutics and currently serves as a director on the Board of Alector Therapeutics, a public company, and Sail Biomedicines, a Flagship company. Hammond serves as a member of the Board at the MIT Engine. From 2021 to 2025, Hammond also served on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST).
Steve Hellman
Founder, Alliance
Alliance brings together global leaders in industry, technology, and services to capture the generational opportunities of artificial intelligence and other transformative technologies. Steve Hellman founded Alliance after building Energy Impact Partners into the leading private equity firm for the new energy economy. He also founded Mobility Impact Partners, Eos Energy Storage (NASDAQ: EOSE); Convergent Energy & Power, an energy storage asset developer; Enernet Global, a developer of microgrid solutions; as well as a global energy trading company, a tanker fleet, a SaaS platform managing energy transactions, and a commercial real estate business. In 2006-7 he acted as an advisor to the U.S. State Department working with Heads of State and Senior Ministers throughout Eurasia to resolve energy conflicts and to develop a strategy for oil and gas infrastructure. He speaks Russian and Chinese, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and holds an MA (Industrial Engineering) and a BS (Political Science, Slavic Languages) from Stanford University (Phi Beta Kappa, 1987).
Jonathan P. How
Ford Professor of Engineering, MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Jonathan P. How is the Ford Professor of Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received a BASc (Aerospace) from the University of Toronto in 1987, and his SM and PhD in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT in 1990 and 1993, respectively, and then studied for 1.5 years at MIT as a postdoctoral associate. Prior to joining MIT in 2000, he was an assistant professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University.
How was the editor-in-chief of the IEEE Control Systems Magazine (‘15-‘19), an associate editor for the AIAA Journal of Aerospace Information Systems (‘12-‘21), and IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems (‘18-‘21). He was the program vice-chair (tutorials) for the 2021 Conference on Decision and Control and is the program chair for the American Control Conference in 2025. He was a member of the IEEE CSS Board of Governors (‘20-’22), is a member of the IEEE CSS Executive Committee as the president-elect for 2026 and VP Finance (‘23-‘25), is on the IEEE CSS Long Range Planning Committee (2022 – ), is a member of the IEEE CSS Technical Committee on Aerospace Control and the Technical Committee on Intelligent Control, was a member of the IEEE Fellows Selection committee for CSS (‘21-‘22), and since 2021, he serves as the AIAA Director on the American Automatic Control Council. He was a member of the USAF Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) from 2014 to 2017.
His research focuses on robust planning and learning under uncertainty with an emphasis on multiagent systems, and he was the planning and control lead for the MIT DARPA Urban Challenge team. His work has been recognized with multiple awards, including receiving the IEEE Transactions on Robotics King-Sun Fu Memorial Best Paper Award for 2022 and 2024, being inducted into the University of Toronto Engineering Hall of Distinction (2022), receiving the 2020 IEEE CSS Distinguished Member Award, the 2020 AIAA Intelligent Systems Award, the 2015 AeroLion Technologies Outstanding Paper Award for Unmanned Systems, the 2015 IEEE CSS Video Clip Contest, the 2011 IFAC Automatica award for best applications paper, and the 2002 Institute of Navigation Burka Award. He also received the Air Force Commander’s Public Service Award in 2017. He is a fellow of IEEE (2018) and AIAA (2016) and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2021.
Kathryn Kline Tyndall
Associate Director of Energy, Bipartisan Policy Center
Kathryn Kline Tyndall is an associate director with the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Energy Program working on energy policy with a focus on load growth, state utility regulation, and advanced energy technologies.
Prior to joining BPC, Tyndall worked in the Center for Partnerships & Innovation at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) where her work focused on load growth, electricity markets, nuclear energy, and coal and carbon management. In this role, Tyndall worked closely with state-level decisionmakers across the country to provide technical support, plan workshops, webinars, and panels that connect experts with policymakers, and research and author reports on topics of interest to state utility regulators. Before joining NARUC, Tyndall worked for NARUC’s research arm—the National Regulatory Research Institute, where her work focused on infrastructure investment, small systems, consumers and the public interest, and carbon management.
Tyndall earned her BA in politics from Converse University and an MS in public policy from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Mingda Li
Associate Professor, MIT Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering
Mingda Li is an associate professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT. He received his BS from Tsinghua University in 2009 and his PhD from MIT in 2015. He continued at MIT as a postdoc before joining the faculty in 2018. His research focuses on quantum measurements of materials and artificial intelligence for physical science. He is the author of the monograph Quantum Probes of Matter, published by Oxford University Press, and has authored or co-authored more than 150 scientific publications and delivered more than 100 invited talks. He received the MIT Junior Bose Award and the Ruth and Joel Spira Award for Excellence in Teaching, as well as the U.S. Department of Energy Early Career Award for research. In 2025, he was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS).
Ruaridh Macdonald
Research Scientist, MIT Energy Initiative
Ruaridh Macdonald is the energy systems research lead at the MIT Energy Initiative. His research explores how best to decarbonize the electricity grid and other sectors, and which technologies and policies will reduce the cost of the energy transition while ensuring grid resilience and security. He is developing novel approaches to modelling infrastructure planning which allow for larger multi-sector energy systems to be optimized over long time periods. This allows for technologies to be modelled with greater fidelity and considering interannual variation in energy supply and demand. Macdonald is a co-lead developer of the GenX, DOLPHYN, and Macro infrastructure planning models. He completed his PhD in nuclear science and engineering at MIT.
Admir Masic
Associate Professor, MIT Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and MIT Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Admir Masic holds a joint appointment in MIT’s Departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering and co-directs the MIT ec3 Hub. His research focuses on the science-enabled engineering of sustainable construction materials for large-scale infrastructure innovation. His lab develops multifunctional cement-based materials, including self-healing concrete, carbon-absorbing concrete, and electron-conducting cement-based materials. He is a principal investigator in MIT’s Concrete Sustainability Hub, a faculty fellow in Archaeological Materials at MIT’s Center for Materials Research in Archaeology and Ethnology (CMRAE), and a faculty advisor to MIT Emerging Talent.
Jennifer Morris
Principal Research Scientist, MIT Center for Sustainability, Science, and Strategy and MIT Energy Initiative
Jennifer Morris is a principal research scientist at the MIT Center for Sustainability Science and Strategy and the MIT Energy Initiative. Her research focuses on energy-economic modeling and linkages between human and natural systems to explore multi-sector feedbacks and implications of different development, decarbonization and investment pathways. She also focuses on uncertainty, risk analysis, and decision-making in energy and environmental systems. This work involves quantifying key uncertainties (e.g. population growth, technology costs, resource availability, etc.), and applying different methodological approaches to models to formally represent such uncertainties and explore how they impact near-term decisions. Morris is a key contributor to the development of the MIT Integrated Global System Modeling (IGSM) framework, focusing on the human system component, the Economic Projection and Policy Analysis (EPPA) model. With this modeling framework, she develops integrated economic and climate scenarios, generates large ensembles, analyzes policy impacts, explores technology and mitigation pathways, and examines multi-sector dynamics. Morris holds a PhD in engineering systems and a MS in technology and policy from MIT.
Caitlin Mueller
Professor, MIT Department of Architecture
Caitlin Mueller is MIT faculty with appointments in Architecture and Civil and Environmental Engineering. She leads the Digital Structures research group, directs the Building Technology program, and serves as associate director of the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium. Trained in architecture, structural engineering, and computation at MIT and Stanford, she joined the MIT faculty in 2014.
Mueller’s research develops computational design and digital-fabrication methods for sustainable, high-performing buildings. Her group links structural efficiency, material circularity, affordability, and architectural expression, with projects spanning robotic assembly of optimized trusses, low-cost earthen and concrete systems, reuse of salvaged materials, and circular engineered-wood products for housing. She has published more than 150 peer-reviewed papers and is co-founder of Forma Systems and Pixelframe, startups advancing computational and circular approaches to structural design.
Aurélie Orcibal
Director of Foresight and External Relations, Électricité de France (EDF)
Aurélie Orcibal is director of foresight and external relations within EDF Group Strategy Division. She leads long-term studies on the evolution of energy systems, technological change, and the strategic implications of the energy transition. Her work contributes to EDF’s forward-looking analysis and supports the group’s long-term economic and strategic decision-making.
Since joining EDF Group Strategy Division in 2018, Orcibal has coordinated strategic initiatives related to low-carbon technologies and industrial decarbonization, including low-carbon hydrogen and carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS). Drawing on a career spanning innovation, energy economics, regulation, markets, and customer solutions, she brings a multidisciplinary perspective to the challenges facing the energy sector.
Her areas of interest include the future of electricity systems, the interaction between technology, policy and markets, and the role of innovation in delivering net-zero objectives while maintaining industrial competitiveness and security of supply. She regularly contributes to discussions on long-term energy scenarios and the transformations required to achieve deep decarbonization.
Orcibal holds an engineering degree from ENSTA Paris.
Tyler Paine
Research Scientist, MIT Marine Autonomy Lab
Tyler Paine is a research scientist in MIT’s Marine Autonomy Lab, where he develops intelligent marine robots that operate effectively in groups both above and below the surface.
His research focuses on fast and optimal decision-making in large teams with limited communication, pushing low-cost vehicles to the edge of their performance envelope, and validating both in real marine environments. Paine was an MIT Presidential Fellow and holds a PhD in mechanical and oceanographic engineering from the MIT-WHOI Joint Program (2025), an MS in mechanical engineering from Johns Hopkins (2018), and a BS in mechanical engineering from Montana State (2011). He is also a licensed professional engineer with several patents on marine robotic vehicles and seven years of experience in electro-mechanical design and manufacturing of robotic systems.
John Parsons
Deputy Director for Research, MIT Center for Energy & Environmental Policy Research
John Parsons is the deputy director for research of the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEPR). His research focuses on the valuation and financing of investments in energy markets, as well as the problems of risk in energy and environment markets. Recent publications have touched on interregional transmission investments, including the interaction with hydro assets and expanded penetration of renewables, the value of investments in life extensions of nuclear power plants, the economics of new microreactors, and the impact of decarbonization on generation assets in the U.S. midcontinent.
Parsons has served as an associate member of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Energy and Environmental Markets Advisory Committee and has been a visiting scholar at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Parsons served as the executive director at both CEEPR and the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, and also as head of Sloan’s MBA Finance Track. Before returning to MIT, Parsons spent ten years as a business consultant at Charles River Associates. He holds a PhD in economics from Northwestern University and an AB from Princeton University.
Alfredo Rivela
Founder and CEO, Adaion
Alfredo Rivela is a technology entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of Adaion, an AI-powered platform helping electric distribution utilities optimize grid planning. At Adaion, he leads the company’s mission to accelerate the energy transition by enabling utilities to make better, data-driven decisions. Adaion applies advanced analytics and artificial intelligence to utility data to identify grid constraints, assess risk, prioritize investments, and develop costed mitigation plans—supporting the integration of distributed energy resources, electrification, and growing electricity demand.
A serial entrepreneur with extensive experience in B2B and B2C technology businesses, Rivela has worked across software, data infrastructure, digital platforms, and company building. His previous entrepreneurial experience includes founding technology companies such as KABEL (acquired by Accenture in 2022) and Nomaders, as well as serving as an investor and board member at BuyVIP, which was acquired by Amazon in 2010.
Rivela is a telecommunications engineer and has completed executive education at IESE Business School. He combines deep technology experience with a strong focus on building scalable businesses that address complex, high-impact challenges.
Carolyn Ruppel
Deputy Director for Science and Technology, MIT Energy Initiative
Carolyn Ruppel returned to MIT to join the MIT Energy Initiative as deputy director in early 2025, following a decades-long career as a professor and federal research scientist. Ruppel spent nearly 19 years at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and by 2025 was acting senior science advisor to the USGS chief scientist and a ST-rank research geophysicist leading the DOE-supported USGS Gas Hydrates Project. In 2011, she wrote the gas hydrate appendix for MITEI’s Future of Natural Gas study. Over several decades, Ruppel led research expeditions in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic Oceans and on the Alaska North Slope and Southeastern U.S. barrier islands. Her research has focused on the dynamics of gas hydrate reservoirs, potential synergies between global warming and gas hydrate breakdown, methane seepage on deepwater continental slopes, subsea permafrost degradation, and active marine acoustics and marine life. Ruppel holds SB, SM, and PhD degrees from MIT and was a postdoctoral scholar at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. From 1994 to 2006, Ruppel was a geophysics professor at Georgia Tech and also served as a National Science Foundation program manager for nearly three years. She is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America, a past distinguished lecturer for the Ocean Drilling Program, and a recipient of U.S. Department of Interior’s Distinguished Service Award, the department’s highest honor.
Amin Shojaei
AI Research Scientist, Siemens Energy
Amin Shojaei is an AI research scientist at Siemens Energy, where he works on artificial intelligence and advanced analytics for power system operation and decision support. His research focuses on reinforcement learning, multi-agent systems, and optimization-based methods for reliable and efficient electric grid operation.
Shojaei received his PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Kansas, where his research focused on multi-agent reinforcement learning and intelligent decision-making for energy systems, with applications including energy networks, demand response, electricity pricing, and energy management. His broader research interests include trustworthy AI, grid resilience, power system optimization, and the integration of data-driven and physics-based methods for next-generation energy systems.
Larry Susskind
Ford Professor of Urban Studies and Planning, MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning
Larry Susskind is Ford Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT. He has been an MIT faculty member for more than 50 years and heads the interdisciplinary Science Impact Collaborative. He currently teaches undergraduate and graduate courses at MIT, including Cybersecurity for Critical Urban Infrastructure, Renewable Energy Facility Siting, Theory and Practice of Environmental Planning, Negotiation and Dispute Resolution in the Public Sector and Entrepreneurial Negotiation. He co-founded the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School with Roger Fisher 40 years ago and is vice-chair for pedagogy and head of the Teaching Negotiation Resource Center. He is founder of the Consensus Building Institute, a not-for-profit that provides mediation services in resource management disputes around the world. Susskind is the author of 18 books including Good for You, Great for Me; the Consensus Building Handbook, Judicial Dispute Resolution, Breaking Robert’s Rules and Dealing with an Angry Public. Most are available in multiple languages. He has supervised 75 PHD students at MIT and provided negotiation training around the world to more than 30,000 senior executives in 30 countries.
Sahil Tapiawala
Co-Founder and CEO, Atomionics
Sahil Tapiawala is the co-founder and CEO of Atomionics, a deep-tech company commercializing cold-atom quantum sensing to accelerate the global clean energy transition. Under his leadership, Atomionics has pioneered Gravio: a breakthrough platform that utilizes cold-atom quantum gravimetry and AI to build high-precision, 3D subsurface maps. By measuring minute variations in gravity, this quantum-driven technology allows operators to pinpoint geothermal fields, natural hydrogen deposits, and critical transition minerals with up to 10,000 times higher spatial resolution than legacy systems—significantly reducing capital risk, exploration timelines, and environmental footprints.
Before founding Atomionics, Tapiawala was a deep-tech researcher at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU), specialising in complex electronic systems and multi-material engineering. He holds a Master’s degree in chemistry and a Bachelor’s degree in electrical and electronics engineering from Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) Pilani.
Eric Toone
Chief Technology Officer, Breakthrough Energy
Eric Toone serves as the chief technical officer of Breakthrough Energy. As the CTO, Toone oversees the organization’s technological roadmap and evaluation. As part of his work at Breakthrough Energy, Toone also serves as a managing partner of Breakthrough Energy Ventures, the venture capital arm of Breakthrough Energy.
Previously, Toone was a chemistry professor at Duke University, where he authored nearly 300 publications. He also served as director of ARPA-E, where he advanced wide-bandgap semiconductors and grid innovations. An inventor on over 30 patents, Toone co-founded three pharmaceutical companies and led Duke’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Initiative from 2012 to 2016. Originally trained as a bioorganic/physical organic chemist, he has dedicated his career to bridging science and impactful applications.
Victoria VanderMeersch
Senior Manager of Operations, Crane Clean Energy Center, Constellation Energy
Tori VanderMeersch is the senior manager of operations at Crane Clean Energy Center, where she is helping lead one of the most significant nuclear energy projects in the United States: the restart of a previously retired nuclear generating unit.
A mechanical engineering graduate of Bucknell University, VanderMeersch began her commercial nuclear career at Three Mile Island Unit 1 in 2015. There, she advanced from engineer to an NRC-licensed senior reactor operator, gaining firsthand experience in plant operations and nuclear leadership. Following the station’s retirement in 2019, she joined Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant, where she held leadership positions across Maintenance, Engineering, Operations, and Organizational Effectiveness, building a broad perspective on what drives safe and reliable nuclear performance.
In 2025, VanderMeersch returned to Crane Clean Energy Center to help write the next chapter in the station’s history. Today, she leads the development of a new generation of nuclear operators, combining operational excellence, strong nuclear safety culture, and workforce development to prepare the station for a successful restart.
Passionate about developing future leaders, VanderMeersch believes people are the foundation of safe, reliable nuclear operations and is committed to building high-performing teams that will sustain the industry for decades to come.
Kripa Varanasi
Associate Professor, MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering
Michael Wang
Director of R&D, Lithios
Yu Yamashiro
Founder and CEO, JIJ, Inc.
Yu Yamashiro is the founder and CEO of JIJ, a technology company advancing quantum computing and mathematical optimization.
With a background in theoretical physics and quantum information science, he studied quantum annealing at the Nishimori Laboratory at Tokyo Institute of Technology (now Institute of Science Tokyo) and conducted research on quantum information processing at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST).
After working on the industrial applications of quantum annealing through a Japanese research commercialization program, he founded JIJ in 2018. Today, he leads the company’s research, technology development, and business strategy, applying advanced computing, and optimization technologies to real-world challenges across energy, telecommunications, manufacturing, and logistics.
Under his leadership, JIJ has expanded globally, establishing subsidiaries in the UK and Germany while growing its team and presence in the United States.
Yamashiro was named to Forbes Asia’s 30 Under 30 in 2021 and Forbes JAPAN’s 30 UNDER 30 in 2023. In 2025, he received the 30th Paper Award from the Physical Society of Japan as a co-author.
Lukasz Zielinski
Scientific Advisor, Integrated Sensing and Measurement Program, SLB
Lukasz Zielinski earned a PhD in condensed matter physics from Harvard University in 2003 and joined Schlumberger (now SLB) as a research scientist in the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) program at Schlumberger-Doll Research (SDR). Over the course of his career, he has held various technical and operational roles across SLB, including assignments in Mexico, Houston Formation Evaluation Engineering Center, and Schlumberger Cambridge Research, before returning to SDR. His work has spanned topics in NMR petrophysics and interpretation, downhole sensing technologies for wireline and logging-while-drilling applications, rheological characterization of complex particle-laden fluids, and fugitive methane detection. He currently serves as scientific advisor in the Integrated Sensing and Measurement Program at SDR.