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 msrz@uw.edu
Past CEI seminars
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 | UC Berkeley | Measurements in the Electric Grid |
| Nov. 10, 2022 | Jan Kleissl | UC 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 |
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 |
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 | Univeristy 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 |
2019-2020
| Oct. 3, 2019 | Tom Mallouk | University of Pennsylvania | Managing Electrons and Protons in the Bio-Inspited 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 | Cargnegie 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 Investmen |
| 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 | Gerogia 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 | CEI End of Year Seminar | University of Washington | CEI End of Year Seminar |
2018-2019
| Nov. 1, 2018 | Brian Johnson | Univeristy of Washington | |
| 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 | No official title |
| Mar. 7, 2019 | Joe Berry | National Renewable Energy Laboratory | |
| Apr. 18, 2019 | Ted Miller | Ford Motor Company | No official title (Topic: 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 | Univeristy 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 | Exploring and Exploiting Often Unwanted Coupling in Closed Energy Cells |
| Jan. 4, 2018 | Michael McGehee | ||
| 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/mirco processing for functional materials and devices: Process development and mechanistic understanding |
| Mar. 29, 2018 | Khalil Amine | Argonne National Laborator | Next Generation Rechargable 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 Institute of 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 | Univeristy 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 Deptartment 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 | Univeristy 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 | No official title (Topic: 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 | CEI Test Bed 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 | Consequential Energy Systems Analysis: Case Studies on the U.S. Transition Away from Coal |
| Mar. 3, 2016 | Ross Baldick | Univeristy of Texas | Transmission Capacity Expansion Planning |
| Apr. 28, 2016 | Lindsay Anderson | Cornell | Toward scalable methods for managing uncertainty under high penetration of renewable energy resources |
| May 5, 2016 | CEI Testbeds | University of Washington | Test Beds |
| May 19, 2016 | Judith C. Yang | Univeristy of Pittsburg | 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) | No official title (Topic: 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 | No official title (Topic: 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 | No official title (Topic: 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 | Managing variable renewable resources in the smart grid |
| Aug. 18, 2014 | Reza Ghodssi | University of Maryland | Biofabrication for Micro-Nano-Bio-Systems Integration |