20th Anniversary Symposium and Celebratory Reception

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.

Robert C. Armstrong, the Chevron Professor of Chemical Engineering, emeritus, is the former director of the MIT Energy Initiative, an Institute-wide effort at MIT linking science, technology, and policy to transform the world’s energy systems. A member of the MIT faculty since 1973, Armstrong served as head of the Department of Chemical Engineering from 1996 to 2007. From 2013 to 2023 he was director of MITEI, after serving as the organization’s initial deputy director from its inception in 2007. His research focuses on pathways to a low-carbon energy future.

Armstrong has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2020) and the National Academy of Engineering (2008). He received the 2006 Bingham Medal from the Society of Rheology, which is devoted to the study of the science of deformation and flow of matter, as well as the Founders Award (2020), Warren K. Lewis Award (2006), and the Professional Progress Award (1992) from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.

Armstrong chaired MIT’s studies on The Role of Fusion Energy in a Decarbonized Electricity System (2024) and The Future of Energy Storage (2022) and was a member of MIT’s Future of Solar Energy (2015) and Future of Natural Gas (2011) study groups. He advised the teams that developed MITEI’s reports, Insights into Future Mobility (2019) and The Future of Nuclear Energy in a Carbon-Constrained World (2018). He co-edited Game Changers: Energy on the Move (2014) with former U.S. Secretary of State George P. Shultz.

Shreya Dave is the co-founder & CEO of Via Separations, an MIT spinout dedicated to reducing emissions in industrial manufacturing. Via is a technology company that was recognized as one of C&EN’s 10 startups to watch in 2019, and has received awards from ARPA-E, NSF, and MassCEC. Recent investors in Via Separations include Marathon Petroleum Corporation, Aramco Ventures, and Climate Initiative. Dave was awarded Technology Review’s 35 Innovators under 35 in 2018. Dave holds Bachelors, Masters’ and Doctoral degrees from MIT in mechanical engineering and technology & policy. She also enjoys serving on MIT’s Corporate Development Committee, formerly the board of directors for Greentown Labs, and misses teaching in MIT’s product design and development course, 2.009.

As the director of research, Randall Field supervises the research performed by MITEI research scientists and their teams. He was also executive director of MIT’s fusion study, which released the 2024 report The role of fusion energy in a decarbonized electricity system, examining the global multidecadal dynamics of the energy transition and how fusion energy can contribute. He was previously executive director for MITEI’s Future Energy Systems Center and Mobility Systems Center. He was also executive director for MIT’s Mobility of the Future study, which produced the Insights in the Future Mobility report covering global projections of alternative fuel vehicle fleets and energy consumption, deployment of charging and fueling infrastructure, attitudes towards mobility, and the impacts of innovative technologies and business models on urban mobility. As executive director for the Conversion Research Program at MIT for 10 years, Field worked with a multidisciplinary team of researchers to explore various conversion technologies for production of alternative fuels. Prior to MIT, Field worked for Aspen Technology for 23 years. Field received a SM in chemical engineering practice from MIT and a BS in chemical engineering from Caltech.

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.

Cameron Halliday is co-founder and CEO of Mantel, a carbon capture start-up based in Boston. Mantel’s solution captures CO2 at the high temperatures found inside boilers, kilns, and furnaces, and by doing so, aims reduce the energy cost of carbon capture by more than 60%.

Originally from the UK, Cameron studied chemical engineering at Loughborough University before joining the PhDCEP program at MIT. As a PhD student in the Chemical Engineering department, Cameron developed the newly discovered carbon capture technology with Professor Alan Hatton and Takuya Harada. After demonstrating the technology at the bench-scale Cameron joined the MBA program at MIT Sloan, where he launched Mantel with co-founders Sean Robertson and Danielle Colson.

Susan Hockfield served as the 16th president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 2004 to 2012, the first life scientist and first woman in that role. She is now president emerita, professor of neuroscience, and a member of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. As president, Hockfield strengthened the foundations of MIT’s finances and campus planning while advancing Institute-wide programs in sustainable energy and the convergence of the life, physical, and engineering sciences.

In 2006 under Hockfield’s leadership, MIT launched a major energy initiative (MITEI), capitalizing on the Institute’s deep strength in science, engineering, architecture, management, and economics to pioneer the leading edge of energy and environmental research, from visionary policy recommendations to technological breakthroughs.

In addition, Hockfield helped shape national policy for energy and next-generation manufacturing, appointed by President Obama in 2011 to co-chair the steering committee of the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership and by serving as a member of a Congressional Commission evaluating the Department of Energy laboratories in 2015.

As a biologist, she pioneered the use of monoclonal antibody technology in brain research, identifying proteins through which neural activity early in life affect brain development. Prior to MIT, she was the William Edward Gilbert Professor of Neurobiology, Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (1998-2002), and Provost (2003-2004) at Yale University. She studied at the University of Rochester and Georgetown University and carried out research at the NIH and UCSF before joining the faculty at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and then Yale. She has published extensively, in scientific and public media, and is the author of the 2020 Science Communication Award from the American Institute of Physics for her 2019 book, The Age of Living Machines. She is the past president and chairman of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and currently serves as a director of Break Through Cancer, Fidelity Non-Profit Management Foundation, Pfizer, Inc., and Repertoire Immune Medicines. She is a life member emerita of the MIT Corporation, and a board member of the Belfer Center at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Robert Marlay recently retired from the U.S. Department of Energy. In his 30 years as a senior career executive, he held leadership positions in energy security, R&D, policy, and international affairs.

During a transition period, he was the acting assistant secretary for policy and international affairs. as director of DOE’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, he led the development of a 13-agency National Energy Strategy, a multi-agency strategy to guide $8 billion in R&D to advance climate change mitigating technology, and an international initiative launched by 20 heads of state, known as Mission Innovation. The latter aimed to double governmental R&D in clean energy over 5 years, with a baseline of $15 billion. In his last position at DOE, he was the director of DOE’s wind energy R&D program. 

Notably for this panel, he was also the founding director of the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center. This was a successful, 10-year collaborative research program with China’s Ministry of Science and Technology. It was supported by many U.S and Chinese businesses and universities.  

Marlay is a fellow of the AAAS and a registered Professional Engineer. He holds a BS in civil engineering from Duke, and MS in civil engineering, Master of city planning, and PhD in nuclear science and engineering from MIT. He is an Emeritus Ambassador of the international initiative (C3E) to advance women in energy, organized and led by MITEI.

Michael Mehling is deputy director of the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research. In his work, he focuses on climate policy design and implementation, including its intersections with environmental, energy, financial market, and trade policy. For over two decades, he has advised decision makers in over a dozen countries, testified before or briefed legislators in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union, and served as an expert in several climate litigation and arbitration cases. Previously, he was a professor of law at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow and president of Ecologic Institute in Washington, DC. He has helped pioneer several initiatives in the areas of climate law and policy, and is a founding board member of, inter alia, the Blockchain & Climate Institute (BCI) in London, the European Association of Climate Law (EACL), and the European Roundtable on Climate Change and Sustainable Transition (ERCST) in Brussels. He also founded and is editor-in-chief of the Carbon & Climate Law Review (CCLR), the first academic quarterly journal focused on climate law and regulation. Trained as a lawyer – with law degrees from the University of Constance and the Hanseatic High Court of Appeal, as well as postgraduate LLM and PhD degrees from the University of Helsinki – and admitted to the German bar, he is a German and American citizen, and has lived for extended periods in Europe, the United States, and Latin America.

Ernest J. Moniz was the thirteenth U.S. Secretary of Energy from 2013 to January 2017, advancing clean energy technology innovation as central to climate change mitigation, 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, founded the MIT Energy Initiative, and is the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics and Engineering Systems emeritus. He is the CEO of the Energy Futures Initiative and also served as CEO of the Nuclear Threat Initiative. He has served on boards and advisory groups of numerous companies, non-profits, research institutions and government agencies in the energy, science and security arenas.

Moniz received a Bachelor of Science degree summa cum laude in physics from Boston College, a doctorate in theoretical physics from Stanford University and thirteen honorary doctorates, including four from European universities. Among his awards are the Grand Cross of the Order of Prince Henry the Navigator (Portugal), the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun (Japan), the Distinguished Public Service Award of the Department of Defense, election to the American Philosophical Society, and the inaugural American Academy of Arts and Sciences Award for Excellence in Public Policy and Public Affairs.

Moniz is a resident of Brookline Massachusetts with his wife of almost five decades, Naomi, daughter Katya, and grandchildren Alex and Eve. He is a very modestly accomplished but very enthusiastic practitioner of fly-fishing.

Bob Mumgaard leads the strategic vision and direction of Commonwealth Fusion Systems, the world's leading, largest, and best capitalized fusion energy company. Under his leadership, Commonwealth Fusion Systems is paving the way for clean, abundant fusion energy to drive the energy transition.

Since co-founding Commonwealth Fusion Systems with a mission to commercialize the high-field approach to fusion, Mumgaard has grown the company to more than 1,000 employees and raised $4 billion from some of the world’s leading investors, including Counterpoint Global (Morgan Stanley), Google, NVentures (NVIDIA’s venture capital arm), Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Khosla Ventures, The Engine, oil majors including Eni, and long-term strategic investors including Temasek and Tiger Global, among others.

Mumgaard performed his PhD work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he contributed to the design of several small superconducting tokamaks for a variety of physics missions using high temperature superconductors (HTS). Prior to co-founding Commonwealth Fusion Systems, as an MIT fellow, Mumgaard focused on how entrepreneurship, risk-retirement strategies, and partnerships could increase the speed of fusion from laboratory to market. He organized and led a team identifying strategies to utilize private finance and traditional academic resources to speed the path to fusion energy resulting in a collaboration model with MIT and the launch of Commonwealth Fusion Systems.

Mumgaard serves on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). He holds a PhD in applied plasma physics and a MS in nuclear engineering from MIT, and a BS in mechanical engineering and BS in engineering physics from the University of Nebraska.

Vice President Waitz is the Institute’s senior research officer and has overall responsibility for research administration and policy at the Institute. He sets MIT’s strategic research direction, fosters an outstanding research environment for faculty, students, and staff, and enables major multidisciplinary research initiatives. The Vice President for Research is responsible for research integrity and compliance and plays a central role in the Institute’s research relationships with the federal government, industry, and other sponsors. Vice President Waitz oversees MIT Lincoln Laboratory and more than a dozen interdisciplinary research laboratories and centers.

Waitz has been on the faculty at MIT since 1991. He has served as head of the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, dean of the School of Engineering, and MIT’s vice chancellor for undergraduate and graduate education. While leading the Office of the Vice Chancellor, Waitz re-envisioned the first-year undergraduate academic experience, expanded undergraduate advising and financial aid, and increased support and professional development opportunities for graduate students. He also led MIT’s response to graduate student unionization. As dean of the School of Engineering, Waitz enhanced the school’s ability to attract and support exceptional students and faculty, launched the MIT-wide Institute for Data, Systems, and Society and the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, fostered innovation and entrepreneurship among students and faculty, and advanced programs for residential and online learning.

Waitz’s early research led to advances in gas turbine engines, fluid mechanics, combustion, and acoustics. However, his most significant contributions have related to the modeling and evaluation of climate, air quality, and noise impacts of aviation, along with the assessment of technological, operational, and policy options for mitigating these impacts. These efforts have led to more rigorous evaluations of environmental policy and technology. His current research aims to reduce the climate impacts of aviation.

William (Billy) Woodford is co-founder and CTO of Form Energy. His career has focused on developing robust low-cost energy storage systems based on electrochemical platforms. Prior to Form Energy, Woodford was director of Advanced R&D at 24M Technologies, where his team focused on low-cost automotive and grid storage Li-ion development. In 2018, he was recognized with MIT Technology Review’s prestigious TR35 award, as one of the top 35 innovators under the age of 35. Woodford earned his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his BS from the Pennsylvania State University, both in materials science and engineering.