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CEI Seminars

The CEI Interdisciplinary Seminar Series brings distinguished leaders in the field of clean energy to UW to present their research and meet with our faculty and students from departments across the university.

Send speaker nominations to Madelynne Zornes, CEI education coordinator, at 

Past CEI seminars

2023-2024
Sep. 28, 2023 Maria Antonietta Loi University of Groningen Tin/lead perovskites: challenges and opportunities for photovoltaics
Nov. 30, 2023 June Lukuyu University of Washington Enriching the Conceptual and Analytical Framework for Energy Access: A Case of Kampala, Uganda
2022-2023
Oct. 6, 2022 Jesse Jenkins Princeton University Will New Federal Policy Put the United States on the Path to Net-Zero?
Oct. 27, 2022 Line Roald University of Wisconsin – Madison Optimizing the Electric Grid: From Climate Mitigation to Climate Change Adaption
Nov. 3, 2022 Sascha Von Meier University of California, Berkeley Measurements in the Electric Grid
Nov. 10, 2022 Jan Kleissl University of California, San Diego DERConnect – A Distributed Energy Resources Testbed for Solar Power Integration
Nov. 10, 2022 Katherine Mirica Dartmouth College Molecular Engineering of Multifunctional Framework Materials
Feb. 9, 2023 Zhaoyu Wang Iowa State University Energy Savings via Conservation Voltage Reduction: Measurement and Verification Methodologies and Field Results
Feb. 16, 2023 Laura Schelhas National Renewable Energy Laboratory Understanding degradation in metal halide perovskite solar cells and modules
Mar. 3, 2023 Alberta Carpenter National Renewable Energy Laboratory Evaluating the Circular Economy
Apr. 6, 2023 Sayantani Ghosh University of California, Merced The Probability Space of Metal Halide Perovskites
Apr. 27, 2023 Kwabena Bediako University of California, Berkeley Quantum Materials for Electrochemistry and Electronics
May 25, 2023 Daniel T. Schwartz University of Washington State of CEI
2021-2022
Oct. 21, 2021 Ali Abur Northeastern University Monitoring and Anomaly Detection in Large Power Grids Containing Renewable Energy Sources
Nov. 4, 2021 Ted Sargent University of Toronto Electrical Synthesis of Fuels and Feedstocks from CO2
Nov. 18, 2021 Michael Irwin CubicPV Derisking Metal Halide Perovskite Semiconductors for Solar PC Applications
Jan. 13, 2022 Pierre Pinson Technical University of Denmark Regression Markets and Their Link to Energy System Operation
Feb. 10, 2022 Marija Ilic MIT Photocatalysis with Plasmons: From Light Absorption to Charge General and Utilization
Mar. 3, 2022 Venkat Viswanathan Carnegie Mellon University The Challenges and Opportunities of Battery-Powered Flight
Apr. 7, 2022 Andy Sun MIT Electric Power System Operations and Planning in Energy Systems Transition
May 5, 2022 Juan-Pablo Correa-Baena Georgia Institute of Technology Tailored Interfaces in Metal Halide Perovskites for Efficient Charrier Transfer
May 19, 2022 Sam Stranks University of Cambridge Understanding Nanoscale Recombination and
Instabilities in Halide Perovskite Solar Cells
May 26, 2022 Daniel T. Schwartz University of Washington State of CEI
2020-2021
Oct. 8, 2020 Florian Dorfler ETH Zurich Data-Driven Control in Autonomous Energy Systems
Oct. 15, 2020 Inez Azevedo Stanford University Getting to sustainable energy systems while considering trade-offs, environmental justice, and distributional effects
Nov. 5, 2020 Alán Aspuru-Guzik University of Toronto Where computational science meets experiment: Self-driving laboratories for materials discovery
Jan. 14, 2021 Jillian L. Dempsey University of North Carolina Elucidating Proton-Coupled Electron Transfer Mechanisms Underpinning the Catalytic Generation of Renewable Fuels
Feb. 18, 2021 Jacinto Sá Uppsala University Photocatalysis with Plasmons: From Light Absorption to Charge General and Utilization
Feb. 25, 2021 Bettina V. Lotsch Max Planck Institute Bridging energy conversion and storage in two-dimensional molecular frameworks
Apr. 29, 2021 Tom Overbye Texas A&M University New Developments in the Visualization of Wide-Area Electric Grid Information with Application to Grid Interconnection Studies
May 6, 2021 Mario Leclerc Université Laval Green Materials for Green Energy
May 13, 2021 Destenie Nock Carnegie Mellon University Low-Carbon Energy Transitions: Understanding Trade-Offs Between Sustainability and Equity
May 27, 2021 Daniel T. Schwartz University of Washington State of CEI
2019-2020
Oct. 3, 2019 Tom Mallouk University of Pennsylvania Managing Electrons and Protons in the Bio-Inspired Production of Fuel from Sunlight
Oct. 10, 2019 Kang Xu U.S. Army Research Laboratory Before Li-Ion Batteries, and Thereafter
Oct. 29, 2019 Yi Cui Stanford Materials and Interface Design for Batteries
Oct. 30, 2019 Yang-Kook Sun Hanyang University High-Energy Cathodes for Next-Generation Electric Vehicles
Oct. 31, 2019 Sean Meyn University of Florida Demand Dispatch and the Zero Marginal Cost Power Grid
Nov. 4, 2019 Jay Whitacre Carnegie Mellon University Autonomous Machine Learning-Informed Experimentation:  Optimizing Complex Battery Electrolyte Solutions with Maximum Efficiency
Nov. 7, 2019 David Wood Oak Ridge National Laboratory Perspectives on the Relationship Between Materials Chemistry and Roll-to-Roll Electrode Manufacturing for High-Energy Lithium-Ion Batteries
Nov. 12, 2019 Bruce Dunn UCLA Some New Directions in Solid Electrolytes
Nov. 21, 2019 M. Stanley Whittingham SUNY at Binghamton Lithium Batteries: From an Ideal to Domination of Portable Storage
Jan. 16, 2020 James McCalley Iowa State University Connecting Eastern and Western Grids; Macrogrid Design – a Strategic US Infrastructure Investment
Jan. 21, 2020 James E. West Johns Hopkins Piezoelectric Polymers
Jan. 23, 2020 Mark Hersam Northwestern University Stabilizing and Enhancing Lithium-Ion Batteries
with Chemically Inert 2D Materials
Jan. 30, 2020 Carlos Silva Georgia Tech Exciton Polarons in Two-Dimensional Hybrid Metal-Halide Perovskites
Apr. 9, 2020 Lin Chen Northwestern University, Argonne National Laboratory Electronic Processes, Morphologies and Structural-functional Correlations in Conjugated Oligomers, Polymers and Perovskite for OPV/HOPV
Apr. 16, 2020 Jie Xiao Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Energy Storage: Integration of Materials Chemistry, Electrochemistry and Engineering
Apr. 23, 2020 Kristin Persson Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory The Era of Data-Driven Materials Innovation and Design
Apr. 30, 2020 Victor Zavala University of Wisconsin-Madison Optimization of Energy Systems: At the Interface of Data, Modeling, and Decision-Making
May 6, 2020 Daniel Kammen University of California, Berkeley The Clean Energy Revolution Has (Finally) Begun
May 28, 2020 Daniel T. Schwartz University of Washington State of CEI
2018-2019
Nov. 1, 2018 Brian Johnson University of Washington Nonlinear Oscillators for Modular Power Electronics Architectures
Nov. 29, 2018 Neal Armstrong University of Arizona Interface Science of Emerging Solar Cell Technologies and Their Potential Role at the Nexus of Energy/Water/Food (A View from Arid and Hyper-Arid Environments
Dec. 6, 2018 Tobias Hanrath Cornell University Quantum Dot Solids: From Fundamental Insights into Assembly and Attachment Mechanism Towards Fabrication of Complex Hierarchical Superstructures and Enabled Energy Applications.
Jan. 24, 2019 Quyen Nguyen Univeristy of California, Santa Barbara Solution-Processed Organic Solar Cells for Energy-Efficient Buildings
Feb. 7, 2019 Dragan Maksimovic University of Colorado Boulder Advances in Power Electronics Enabled by Converter Topologies, Soft Switching Techniques, and Wide Bandgap Semiconductors
Feb. 21, 2019 Vijay Vittal Arizona State University Interdependent Electric and Water Infrastructure Modeling, Optimization and Control
Feb. 25, 2019 Noël M. Bakhtian Center for Advanced Energy Studies
Mar. 7, 2019 Joe Berry National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Apr. 18, 2019 Ted Miller Ford Motor Company Vehicle electrification
Apr. 25, 2019 Xavier Crispin Linköping University, Sweden Electronic and Ionic Thermoelectric Effects with Conducting Polymers
May 2, 2019 Daniel P. Abraham Argonne National Laborator No official title (Topic: Rapid cycling of lithium-ion batteries)
May 16, 2019 Brian Korgel University of Texas at Austin Nanomaterials in Pursuit of Ubiquitous Portable Power
Jun. 13, 2019 Daniel T. Schwartz University of Washington State of CEI
2017-2018
Sept. 28, 2017 Kameshwar Poolla University of California, Berkeley The Sharing Economy for the Smart Grid
Oct. 6, 2017 Sean James Microsoft Disruptive Facility Architectures with Fuel Cells
Oct. 12, 2017 Tom Meyer University of North Carolina Our Energy Future. Science and Technology Challenges for the 21st Century
Nov. 2, 2017 Dan Steingart Princeton University Exploring and Exploiting Often Unwanted Coupling in Closed Energy Cells
Jan. 4, 2018 Michael McGehee Stanford University How perovskite semiconductors could transform the solar industry
Feb. 22, 2018 Jean-Luc Brédas Georgia Tech Organic Solar Cells: Characterization of interfacial charge-separation and charge-recombination processes
Mar. 1, 2018 Takayuki Homma Waseda University Electrochemical nano/micro processing for functional materials and devices: Process development and mechanistic understanding
Mar. 29, 2018 Khalil Amine Argonne National Laboratory Next Generation Rechargeable Lithium Batteries and Beyond
Apr. 5, 2018 Christian Belady Microsoft
Apr. 12, 2018 Johanna Wolfson PRIME Impact Fund Overcoming Challenges to Getting Clean Energy Technologies to Market
Apr. 26, 2018 Ian Dobson Iowa State University Data-Driven Models of Cascading Blackouts in Electric Power Transmissions Networks
May 3, 2018 Elsa Reichmanis Georgia Tech From silicon to plastic: materials design and process considerations
May 31, 2018 Daniel T. Schwartz University of Washington State of CEI
2016-2017
Sept. 29, 2016 Venkatesh Narayanamurti Harvard University Is this America’s Sputnik Moment? Re-inventing the Future and Bridging the Basic Applied Dichotomy: The Case of Clean Energy and the National Laboratories
Oct. 6, 2016 Michael Chertkov Los Alamos National Laboratory Pressure Transients and Fluctuations in Natural Gas Networks caused by Gas-Electric Coupling
Oct. 13, 2016 Benjamin F. Hobbs Johns Hopkins University Designing Power Markets to Support Socially Optimal Decisions
Oct. 27, 2016 Pascal Van Hentenryck University of Michigan Optimization of Electricity and Gas Networks
Dec. 1, 2016 Yuriy Roman Massachusetts Institute of Technology Architecture at the nanscale: Design principles for next generation catalysts in energy applications
Dec. 13, 2016 Jonathan Pershing US Department of State The Paris Agreement and the Path Forward
Jan. 5, 2017 Jianhui Wang Argonne National Laboratory Grid Modernization: Challenges, Opportunities, and Solutions
Jan. 20, 2017 Sergei V. Kalinin Oak Ridge National Laboratory Electrochemistry on Nano- and Atomic Levels: Scanning Probe Microscopy Meets Deep Data
Feb. 2, 2017 Amy Prieto Colorado State University Inexpensive, Efficient Approaches for Energy Production and Storage
Mar. 2, 2017 Gao Liu Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory The Design, Synthesis and Engineering of Soft Materials for Lithium Batteries
Apr. 6, 2017 M. Stanley Whittingham SUNY at Binghamton The Ultimate Limits of Intercalation Reactions for Li-Batteries
Apr. 27, 2017 Regan Zane Utah State University Transportation Electrification: Techologies Towards a Sustainable Future for Transportation Systems
May 11, 2017 Mercouri Kanatzidis Northwestern University Energy from waste heat: how the thermoelectric materials are designed and used
May 18, 2017 Daniel T. Schwartz University of Washington State of CEI
2015-2016
Oct. 29, 2015 Peter Faguy US Department of Energy Development of Next-Generation Batteries for Plug-in Electric Vehicles
Nov. 5, 2015 Vincent Holmberg University of Washington Synthesis, application and integration of nanomaterials
Nov. 12, 2015 Sossina Haile Northwestern University Thermochemistry of Redox Active Oxides and its Relevance to Solar Fuel Generation
Dec. 10, 2015 Daniel T. Schwartz University of Washington Testbeds Update and Roadmap for the Future
Jan. 7, 2016 Dirk Weiss First Solar Disruptive Solar Technologies versus the State of the Art
Jan. 14, 2016 Matthew Sheldon Texas A&M Plasmonic Nanomaterials for Optical-to-Electrical Energy Conversion
Jan. 28, 2016 Hiroyuki Nishide Waseda University Radical Polymer Batteries: Towards High-Power, Safe and Flexible Devices
Feb. 4, 2016 Paulina Jaramillo Carnegie Mellon University Consequential Energy Systems Analysis: Case Studies on the U.S. Transition Away from Coal
Mar. 3, 2016 Ross Baldick University of Texas Transmission Capacity Expansion Planning
Apr. 28, 2016 Lindsay Anderson Cornell University Toward scalable methods for managing uncertainty under high penetration of renewable energy resources
May 5, 2016 CEI Testbeds University of Washington Testbeds to accelerate a scalable clean energy future
May 19, 2016 Judith C. Yang University of Pittsburgh Structural Dynamics of Surface Reactions: Oxidation and Heterogeneous Cayalysis
May 26, 2016 Adienne Little US Department of Energy Changing the Paradigm for Thermal Energy Systems: An ARPA-E Initiative
May 26, 2016 Christopher Wolverton Northwestern University Accelerating Materials Discovery with Data-Driven Atomistic Computational Tools
2014-2015
Oct. 9, 2014 John Lemmon Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) Materials science and electrochemical properties of several battery chemistries
Oct. 30, 2014 Cody Schlenker University of Washington Charge dynamics at interfaces in next-generation energy conversion materials
Nov. 6, 2014 Venkat Subramanian University of Washington Model Based Battery Management System (BMS) for Electric Transporation and Renewable Microgrids
Jan. 15, 2015 Bruce Dunn University of California, Los Angeles Intercalation Pseudocapacitance: A Route Towards Oxide Supercapacitors
Jan. 29, 2015 Antonio Jesus Conejo Navarro Ohio State University Toward Fully Renewable Electric Energy Systems
Feb. 12, 2015 Antoine Kahn Princeton University (In)Organic Electronics: A World of Ubiquitous and Cruical Interfaces
Apr. 9, 2015 Henry Snaith University of Oxford Understanding Formation, Operation and Stability of Organic-Inorganic Perovskite Solar Cells
Apr. 15, 2015 Sam Stranks Massachusetts Institute of Technology Organic-Inorganic Perovskites for Photovoltaics and Light Emission
May 21, 2015 Ronald L. Litzinger Edison Energy An Executive’s View of the Changes Driving the Energy Economy
2013-2014
Nov. 7, 2013 Mildred Dresselhaus Massachusetts Institute of Technology Perspectives on Our Energy Future
Jan. 14, 2014 Zhigang Suo Harvard University Soft Generators that Harvest Energy from Renewable Sources
Feb. 6, 2014 François Bouffard McGill University Umbrella Constraint Discovery
Feb. 13, 2014 Steven Low Caltech Optimal Power Flow for Future Smart Grid
Mar. 6, 2014 Cyrus Wadia Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and White House OSTP Scaling Cleaning Energy Production – A Materials Grand Challenge
Apr. 3, 2014 Harry Atwater Caltech Photovoltaics and Solar Energy
May 8, 2014 George Crabtree Argonne National Laboratory JCESR: Beyond Li-ion Batteries
May 13, 2014 Tobin J. Marks Northwestern University Interface Science of Organic Photovoltaics
May 22, 2014 Kory Hedman Arizona State University Managing variable renewable resources in the smart grid
Aug. 18, 2014 Reza Ghodssi University of Maryland Biofabrication for Micro-Nano-Bio-Systems Integration