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Preliminary Schedule

Wednesday, September 25
7:30-8:15 am	Breakfast and registration
8:15-8:30 am	Welcome and opening remarks William H. Green, Director, MIT Energy Initiative; Hoyt C. Hottel Professor, MIT Department of Chemical Engineering
8:30-9:00 am	MIT Climate project update The Climate Project at MIT represents an ambitious new model of accelerated, university-led innovation. Its three-part structure—consisting of the Climate Missions, the Climate Frontier projects, and the Climate HQ—is designed to marshal the Institute’s talent and resources to research, develop, deploy, and scale up serious solutions to help change the planet’s climate trajectory. This session will provide an update on the project. Sally Kornbluth, President, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
9:00-10:15 am	Energy storage and grid expansion Global demand for electricity is rising at its fastest rate in years, with great expectations for the grid to handle more renewable power. Energy storage is a key enabling technology for grids to handle greater degrees of renewable penetration, all while ensuring reliability and reasonable cost at the same time. What can be learned from energy storage implementation projects to date? And what MIT materials and systems research can help solve the grid’s energy storage needs? Elizabeth Endler, Chief Scientist for Energy Storage and Integration, Shell John Parsons, Deputy Director for Research, MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research
10:15-10:45 am	Break
10:45 am-12:00 pm	Social barriers to decarbonization Stephen Ansolabehere, Frank G. Thompson Professor of Government, Harvard University Larry Susskind, Ford Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning, MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning; Co-founder and Vice-Chair, Program on Negotiation, Harvard Law School Moderated by: Janelle Knox-Hayes, Lister Brothers Professor of Economic Geography and Planning, MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning
12:00-1:30 pm	Lunch and student poster viewing
1:30-2:45 pm	MITEI General Seed Fund Project annual check-up The MITEI Seed Fund Program supports innovative, early-stage research across the energy spectrum. To date, the program has supported more than 220 energy-focused projects with grants totaling more than $28.8 million. This session features projects from recent awardees. Sili Deng, Associate Professor, MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering presenting on Scalable fabrication of oxide-based all-solid-state batteries using flame-assisted spray pyrolysis Ruaridh Macdonald, Energy Systems Research Lead, MIT Energy Initiative presenting on Realistic, scalable, and security-constrained capacity planning for reliable low-carbon power systems Afreen Siddiqi, Research Scientist, MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics presenting on Energy and multi-sector project portfolios optimization for investment decisions Moderated by: Martha Broad, Executive Director, MIT Energy Initiative
2:45-3:15 pm	Break
3:15-4:30 pm	The extreme challenge of powering data centers in a decarbonized way Expectations are that data centers will consume 4% of global electricity and produce more than 1% of emissions by 2030. This is a multi-dimensional problem, requiring research and investment in non-fossil power generation, grid expansion, building design, computation, and regulatory policy. This panel will discuss the challenges faced by hyper scalers and industrial equipment providers–and MIT’s role in accelerating solutions. Moderated by: J.J. Laukaitis, Director of Member Services, MIT Energy Initiative
4:30-5:30 pm	Startup showcase This session will look at energy startups, seeing how the best companies are navigating the challenge of taking their technology from the lab to the market. We will feature companies at various stages of development and discuss the value of partners throughout each part of the process.
5:30-7:00 pm	Reception with startup companies
Thursday, September 26
7:30-8:15 am	Breakfast and registration
8:15-9:45 am	Enabling the hydrogen ecosystem Clean hydrogen, as a versatile energy carrier, holds great promise as a fuel to decarbonize, significantly, long haul transport and heavy industry. However, much work in generating, handling, and transporting hydrogen, at-scale, safely, and cost effectively needs to be done. MIT researchers share their latest ideas and advances in enabling a large scale hydrogen ecosystem. Prasanna Joshi, Vice President of Low-Carbon-Solutions, ExxonMobil Ernest J. Moniz, Professor of Physics & Special Advisor to the President, MIT Yogesh Surendranath, Professor, MIT Department of Chemistry Moderated by: William H. Green, Director, MIT Energy Initiative; Hoyt C. Hottel Professor, MIT Department of Chemical Engineering
9:45-10:00 am	Break
10:00-11:15 am	Getting to work: Building the talent pipeline to support energy transition success Well-trained human capital will be key to our ability to decarbonize our energy system rapidly. What are the workforce strategies and programs we should plan now to create the workforce required in 2040 and 2050? Our panelists bring different perspectives on the best ways to ensure the equitable and effective development of the workers we will need. Jennifer Applebaum, Managing Director of Workforce Development, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center Zoe Lipman, Lead, Good Jobs & Labor Standards, Office of Energy Jobs, U.S. Department of Energy David S. Miller, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Clean Energy Ventures Moderated by: Elisabeth Reynolds, Professor of the Practice, MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning
11:15 am-12:00 pm	Student slam competition Students who participated in this summer’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) will present their research in a slam competition. Each will present a pitch emphasizing: the problem statement for the UROP project, its research contributions, and the potential real-world impact of that research. Members will vote for their top three presenters based on their energy and presentation, not on the research content of their presentation.
12:00-1:15 pm	Lunch and student poster viewing
1:15-2:30 pm MITEI Annual Research Conference afternoon sessions on September 26 are open to the MIT community.	Energy transition in different regions Reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 requires massive energy changes in daily life and every global region’s economy. The required technology and social and policy changes vary widely from region to region. This panel will put a focus on these factors and the energy transition priorities of regions outside of the U.S. Moderated by: Namrata Kala, Associate Professor, Applied Economics, MIT Sloan School of Management
2:30-3:00 pm	Keynote address
3:00-3:30 pm	Break
3:30-4:45 pm	Future of the energy workforce Antje Danielson, Director of Education, MIT Energy Initiative Liam Fenlon, Commercial Associate, Eku Energy
4:45 pm	Closing remarks William H. Green, Director, MIT Energy Initiative; Hoyt C. Hottel Professor, MIT Department of Chemical Engineering

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About the speakers

Stephen Ansolabehere

Frank G. Thompson Professor of Government, Harvard University

Stephen Ansolabehere is the Frank G. Thompson Professor of Government at Harvard University. Before joining the faculty at Harvard University, he taught at MIT and UCLA. He is an expert on democracy and representation in the United States, especially U. S. elections, voting behavior, public opinion, and energy and environmental politics. He is author of five books, including Cheap and Clean: How Americans Think About Energy in the Age of Global Warming (2014), and has published academic research in a wide range of fields, including political science, economics, statistics, law, and environmental policy.

He leads the Salata Institute’s Research Cluster on Strengthening Communities for Changing Energy Systems. He is principal investigator of the Cooperative Congressional Election Study and consults with CBS News on the Election Night Decision Desk, helping the network call the elections. In 2007, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Jennifer Applebaum

Managing Director of Workforce Development, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center

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.

Antje Danielson

Director of Education, MIT Energy Initiative

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.

Sili Deng

Associate Professor, MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering

Sili Deng is an associate professor in the MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering. She received her bachelor’s degree in thermal engineering from Tsinghua University in 2010 and her master’s and doctoral degrees in mechanical and aerospace engineering from Princeton University in 2012 and 2016, respectively. From 2016 to 2018, Deng was a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University. Deng received the Princeton Energy and Climate Scholarship in 2013 and the Gordon Wu Prize for Excellence in 2014, both from Princeton University. She also received the Excellence in Teaching Award in 2014 from Princeton University and was one of the five recipients of the Bernard Lewis Fellowship at the biennial International Symposium on Combustion in 2016. She was appointed to the d’Arbeloff Career Development Chair in 2019 and the Class of 1954 Career Development Chair in 2022. She was also a recipient of the Frontiers of Engineering from National Academy of Engineering (2021), NSF CAREER Award (2022), Kavli Exploration Award (2023), Scialog Fellow by Research Corporation for Science Advancement (2024), and Irvin Glassman Young Investigator Award by Eastern States Section of Combustion Institute (2024).

Elizabeth Endler

Chief Scientist for Energy Storage and Integration, Shell

Elizabeth Endler currently serves as chief scientist for energy storage and integration at Shell. In this role, she provides strategic leadership in the development of technologies and business opportunities for the energy transition, especially in the areas of electrification, system integration and energy storage.

Liam Fenlon

Commercial Associate, Eku Energy

William H. Green

Director, MIT Energy Initiative; Hoyt C. Hottel Professor, MIT Department of Chemical Engineering

William H. Green, the Hoyt C. Hottel Professor at MIT, is a world leader in chemical kinetics, reaction engineering, 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, and he invented an instrument to directly measure rate coefficients for multi-channel reactions. He developed computer methods to predict the behavior of complicated reacting mixtures, many of which are included in the open source Reaction Mechanism Generator software package, a type of AI expert system for reactive chemistry. The associated popular website rmg.mit.edu includes estimators for many chemical properties and several databases. Green co-invented several algorithms and numerical methods helpful for handling complicated chemical kinetics. His group has also developed machine-learning methods and software (ASKCOS and Chemprop) for accurately predicting the products of organic reactions and for predicting many chemical and reaction properties. Chemprop, whose recent versions were developed primarily by Green’s research group, is currently the most popular open-source chemistry software on GitHub. It is heavily used by the pharmaceutical industry, to predict the properties of proposed new drug molecules. Green also invents and analyzes technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, particularly in the transportation/fuel sector. Two of his greenhouse-gas reduction inventions are now being commercialized, one by Thiozen, a company he co-founded. Recently he has been developing and analyzing technology options for decarbonizing the freight sector, with a special interest in long-haul trucking.

Green earned his BA from Swarthmore College, and his PhD in physical chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley under the supervision of C. Bradley Moore. After postdocs at Cambridge University with Nicholas Handy and at the University of Pennsylvania with Marsha Lester, he worked for Exxon Research & Engineering for six years before joining the Chemical Engineering faculty at MIT in 1997. Green has co-authored more than 350 journal articles, which have been cited more than 23,000 times. He is a fellow of the AAAS and of the Combustion Institute, and has received the American Chemical Society’s Glenn Award in Energy & Fuel Chemistry and the AIChE’s Wilhelm Award in Reaction Engineering. He convened and organized the International Conference on Chemical Kinetics in 2011, and now serves as treasurer of that conference series. More than 20 of his former graduate or postdoctoral students are now tenured or tenure-track faculty. He previously served as the editor of the International Journal of Chemical Kinetics, as the faculty chair of MIT’s Mobility of the Future project, and as the executive officer of the MIT Department of Chemical Engineering. He was appointed director of the MIT Energy Initiative in Spring 2024.

Prasanna Joshi

Vice President of Low-Carbon-Solution, ExxonMobil

Namrata Kala

Associate Professor, Applied Economics, MIT Sloan School of Management

Janelle Knox-Hayes

Lister Brothers Professor of Economic Geography and Planning, MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning

Sally Kornbluth

President, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

J.J. Laukaitis

Director of Member Services, MIT Energy Initiative

J.J. Laukaitis is the director of Member Services at the MIT Energy Initiative, where he manages the growth of impactful collaborations between leading corporations and MIT faculty, researchers, and innovators.

Laukaitis has over 25 years of experience in engineering, product management, and large account sales management across multiple industries including mechanical design, software, electronics, and semiconductor manufacturing equipment.

During his industry career Laukaitis has led new revenue growth and business development initiatives at large established corporations and was a key contributor to early revenue generation and the IPO at PTC.

At MIT, Laukaitis has a track record of initiating and growing large, strategic engagements between industry partners and MIT, resulting in mutually beneficial research projects and technology commercialization initiatives. For 11 years, Laukaitis has worked closely with some of the largest and boldest initiatives across MIT, such as the MIT Energy Initiative, Abdul Latif Jameel World Water and Food Systems Lab, and Advanced Manufacturing Initiatives.

Laukaitis received a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Lehigh University and a masters in science from the MIT Sloan School of Management. Laukaitis is a graduate of Leader 2 Leader (L2L), MIT’s nationally-recognized development program for MIT leaders.

Zoe Lipman

Lead, Good Jobs & Labor Standards, Office of Energy Jobs, U.S. Department of Energy

Ruaridh Macdonald

Energy Systems Research Lead, 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 also ensuring grid resilience and security. He is developing novel approaches to macro-energy system modelling 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. Ruaridh is a co-lead developer of the GenX and DOLPHYN macro-energy system models. He completed his PhD in Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT.

David S. Miller

Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Clean Energy Ventures

A sought-after investor and advisor for companies at the intersection of technology and climate impact, David Miller brings over 25 years of technology startup management experience and over 20 years of early stage investing experience to Clean Energy Ventures as a founding partner. Previously, Miller was the founder and executive managing director of the Clean Energy Venture Group. Prior to that, he was a director in the New Ventures Group at Lucent Technologies, and founder and CEO of Quantum Telecom Solutions. Miller has been on the board of directors of several clean energy companies, including CEV portfolio companies Boston Materials, Pearl Certification, Volexion, Noon Energy, prior portfolio companies Pika Energy, and MyEnergy, and has advised and mentored many others. He is an advisory board member of the MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative, where he also has an appointment as research affiliate, and previously taught electrical engineering at Rutgers University. He completed his doctorate at MIT where he developed the model underpinning the CleanStart clean energy startup simulator, and runs workshops utilizing CleanStart as well as the En-ROADS climate change solutions simulator. He developed the methodology behind CEV’s Simple Emissions Reduction Calculator (SERC) in order to most quickly and effectively screen which startup companies have the most potential to reduce GHG emissions at scale and supports industry efforts to standardize emission reduction assessments.

Ernest J. Moniz

Professor of Physics & Special Advisor to the President, MIT

Ernest J. Moniz was the thirteenth US Secretary of Energy, advancing clean energy technology innovation, nuclear security, and cutting-edge scientific research capabilities. He negotiated the Iran nuclear agreement alongside the Secretary of State.

Moniz joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty in 1973, was founding director of the MIT Energy Initiative and is the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics and Engineering Systems emeritus. He is CEO of the Nuclear Threat Initiative and of the Energy Futures Initiative and received the inaugural American Academy of Arts and Sciences Award for Excellence in Public Policy and Public Affairs.

John Parsons

Deputy Director for Research, MIT Center for Energy and 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 and the path to decarbonization, 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, and the economics of new microreactors. He is currently working on the design of market rules for electricity storage.

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.

Elisabeth Reynolds

Professor of the Practice, MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning

Afreen Siddiqi

Research Scientist, MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Afreen Siddiqi is a research scientist in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She has an SB in mechanical engineering, an SM in aeronautics and astronautics, and a PhD in aerospace systems, all from MIT. Her research interests are at the intersection of engineering, analytics, and policy. She builds mathematical models and devises new methods for analyzing complex, dynamic systems operating in changing environments. Her work, motivated by challenges of sustainability for human well-being, includes modeling of interactions between water, energy, and agriculture systems, satellite remote sensing for decisions, and new applications of portfolio theory for technology and infrastructure investments. She has co-authored a book and over 120 technical and scientific publications. She has also served as a contributing author to the sixth assessment report of 2022 (working group II, chapter 4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on implications of water, energy, and food interconnections for climate change adaptation, and has contributed research for the United Nations Committee of Experts on Public Administration (UN-CEPA) on Climate Change Action and Sustainability of Natural Resources.

Larry Susskind

Ford Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning, MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning; Co-founder and Vice-Chair, Program on Negotiation, Harvard Law School

Larry Susskind has been a member of the teaching faculty in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT for more than 50 years. He teaches a range of courses on environmental policy and planning, cybersecurity for critical urban infrastructure, sovereignty of indigenous communities, social entrepreneurship, water diplomacy, and local climate adaptation. He co-founded and serves as vice-chair of the inter-university Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School. He also founded and serves as chief knowledge officer of the not-for-profit Consensus Building Institute through which he has provided mediation services in complex resource management disputes in more than 10 countries and 20 states. He is the author of more than 20 books published in eight languages and has supervised 70 doctoral dissertations at MIT and Harvard. He is currently designing a new MIT Clinic on Renewable Energy Facility Siting that will provide a neutral setting for joint fact finding and collaborative problem-solving for parties in facility siting disputes.

Yogesh Surendranath

Professor, MIT Department of Chemistry