News & Events

Date: August 29, 2016 (Monday)
Time: 5:30pm – 6:30pm (Reception: 4:45pm)
Venue: Rayson Huang Theatre, HKU
Speaker: Professor Arun Majumdar
                Jay Precourt Professor of Mechanical Engineering and
                Director of the Precourt Institute for Energy, Stanford University

Abstract:

For almost every action we take in our lives today, we receive the benefit of 250 years of industrial revolution, which has been arguably the most remarkable period of human history. Our global economy and our prosperity grew exponentially, and our population grew ten fold. The industrial revolution has been largely about how we sourced, distributed and used energy. It was and continues to be predominantly based on fossil energy. Science has shown that our current course is unsustainable in the long run. This talk will discuss a variety research opportunities and challenges in stationary power and transportation systems that could create such technological options and enable the transition of our energy economy to a sustainable one. Furthermore, this talk will highlight a few grand challenges in science and engineering that must be addressed within the next few decades. In particular, it will focus on approaches and options to modernize the electricity grid. Technology is necessary, but not sufficient. The talk will also briefly discuss options for public policy to create conditions for such technological options to be utilized.

Biography:

Prof. Arun Majumdar is the Jay Precourt Professor at Stanford University, a faculty member of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and co-director of the Precourt Institute for Energy, which integrates and coordinates research and education activities across all seven Schools and the Hoover Institution at Stanford.

Prof. Majumdar's research in the past has involved the science and engineering of nanoscale materials and devices, especially in the areas of energy conversion, transport and storage as well as biomolecular analysis. His current research focuses on using electrochemical reactions for thermal energy conversion, thermochemical water splitting reactions to produce carbon-free hydrogen, understanding the limits of heat transport in nanostructured materials and a new effort to re-engineer the electricity grid.

In October 2009, Prof. Majumdar was nominated by President Obama and confirmed by the Senate to become the Founding Director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E), where he served till June 2012 and helped ARPA-E become a model of excellence for the government with bipartisan support from Congress and other stakeholders. Between March 2011 and June 2012, he also served as the Acting Under Secretary of Energy, enabling the portfolio that reported to him: Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Office of Electricity Delivery and Reliability, Office of Nuclear Energy and the Office of Fossil Energy, as well as multiple cross-cutting efforts that he had initiated. Furthermore, he was a Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Energy on a variety of matters related to management, personnel, budget, and policy.

After leaving Washington, DC and before joining Stanford, Prof. Majumdar was the Vice President for Energy at Google, where he created several energy technology initiatives, especially at the intersection of data, computing and electricity grid, and advised the company on its broader energy strategy.

Prof. Majumdar received his bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay in 1985 and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1989.

Please click here for online registration.

All are welcome!