Electrification and Decarbonization Solutions for Industry Workshop - Speakers and Panelists
Dhruv Arora is leading Shell’s efforts in Integration of renewable generation and energy storage with loads to create flexible, safe, reliable and resilient power systems with desired power quality. Dr. Arora is part of Shell’s Project and Technology Organization and championing Shell’s research initiative in new energy space by fostering close collaborations between Shell and wider public-private partnerships. His prior research experience at Shell encompasses research in—GTL Catalyst, Water Reuse, Corrosion Management, CO2 Utilization, Gas Conversion, Multi-physics multi-scale numerical modeling of complex systems, high-temp high-voltage dielectric materials, experimental studies, scale-up, pilot design and project management. Dr. Arora—B.Tech (Mechanical Engineering) from IIT-Delhi and PhD (Mechanical Engineering) & MBA from Rice University—specialized in innovation, entrepreneurship, strategy, High Performance Computing (HPC) and numerical modeling of blood flow in artificial hearts. After a short post-doc assignment in chemical engineering department, he joined Shell R&D in Shell Technology Center – Houston and has worked in US, Netherlands, Qatar and India.
Joule Bergerson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, and Canada Research Chair in Energy Technology Assessment, University of Calgary. Her primary research interests are systems-level analysis for policy and decision making of energy system investment and management. The focus of her work is developing tools and frameworks for the assessment of prospective technology options and their policy implications from a life cycle perspective. To date, her work has addressed fossil fuel derived electricity, oil sands development, carbon capture and storage and renewable energy systems. Bergerson is the lead researcher for the Life Cycle Assessment of Oil Sands Technologies project, a collaborative effort between the University of Calgary and the University of Toronto, with industry and government participants. The project’s aim is to use modern hybrid life cycle assessment techniques to assess the economy-wide impacts, including greenhouse gas emissions, of current and proposed oil sands projects.
Adam Brandt is Associate Professor of Energy Resources Engineering at Stanford University. He is interested in reducing the environmental impacts of energy systems and is focused on understanding, measuring, and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from fossil energy sources. Reducing GHG emissions from fossil fuels is important because fossil energy sources will continue to be key components of our energy system for decades to come. His research in this area uses the tools of life cycle assessment (LCA) and process optimization to measure and estimate impacts from technologies at broad scales (LCA) and to help reduce these impacts (optimization). Applications include reducing GHG emissions from transportation energy supply and from power systems through CCS. Through his teaching, Brandt aims to help train the next generation of energy professionals to: optimize energy systems so as to improve their efficiency; rigorously account for the environmental impacts of energy sources; and think critically about systems-scale phenomena in energy production and consumption.
Matteo Cargnello is Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering and Terman Faculty Fellow. His group research interests are in the preparation and use of uniform and tailored materials for heterogeneous catalysis and photocatalysis and the technological exploitation of nanoparticles and nanocrystals. Reactions of interest are related to sustainable energy generation and use, control of emissions of greenhouse gases, and better utilization of abundant building blocks (methane, biomass). Dr. Cargnello received his Ph.D. in Nanotechnology in 2012 at the University of Trieste (Italy) and he was then a post-doctoral scholar in the Chemistry Department at the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia) before joining the Faculty at Stanford.
Chris Chidsey is Associate Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus at Stanford University. His research interests lie in electrochemistry and electrocatalysis, and in building the chemical base for molecular electronics. He has investigated the role of chemical bonding in promoting long-distance electron tunneling across interfaces and contributed to the development of silicon and germanium surface chemistry, including the self-assembly of complex molecular monolayers on silicon. His lab develops molecular systems, analytical tools and theoretical approaches to understand electron transfer between electrodes and among redox species, with applications in sustainable battery technology, fuel chemistry, and biochemical analysis. Chidsey studied chemistry at Dartmouth College (A.B. 1978) and physical chemistry at Stanford University (Ph.D. 1983).
Yi Cui is the director of the Precourt Institute for Energy, co-director of the StorageX Initiative, and professor of materials science and engineering at Stanford University, and of photon science at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. He earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1998 from the University of Science & Technology of China and his PhD in chemistry from Harvard University in 2002. Cui was a Miller Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley from 2002 to 2005 before joining the Stanford faculty. He has founded five companies to commercialize technologies from his lab: Amprius Inc., 4C Air Inc., EEnotech Inc., LifeLabs Design Inc. and EnerVenue Inc. A preeminent researcher of nanotechnologies for better batteries and other sustainability technologies, Cui has published more than 530 studies and is one of the world’s most cited scientists. His honors include the Global Energy Prize (2021), Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award (2021), Materials Research Society Medal (2020) and Blavatnik National Laureate (2017).
Leora Dresselhaus-Marais is an Assistant Professor of Materials Science & Engineering, with a courtesy appointment in Mechanical Engineering, and a Precourt Institute for Energy fellow at Stanford University. She also has a term appointment in Photon Science at the SLAC National Accelerator Lab. Leora was a Lawrence Fellow in the Physics Division of the Physics and Life Sciences Directorate at Lawrence Livermore National Labs, where she developed the tools to study time-resolved defect dynamics in bulk materials. She led a large collaboration towards these goals and was involved in many projects that used dark-field X-ray microscopy and other tools to study dislocation patterning, recovery in metals, ultrahigh strength materials, radiation damage, automation and shape recognition methods. She did her PhD in Physical Chemistry with Prof. Keith Nelson at MIT, where she demonstrated how shock waves initiate chemistry in RDX that couples to deformations in unique ways that enhance the sensitivity.
Eric Duchesne started his career as a graduated engineer in technical plant support, projects and operations in polymers in France, Belgium and Scotland. In 2011, he was appointed General Manager of TOTAL's Lyon Technical Center before becoming Vice President Technologies within Refining & Chemicals in 2012. Renowned both for his managerial skills and his expertise in the field, Eric Duchesne was appointed Senior Vice President, Technology Experts of the Total Group in 2016. Two years later, he became Senior Vice President Manufacturing & Projects and member of the Refining & Chemicals management committee (CDRC). As off September 2021, Eric is Senior Vice President Technical Lines for TotalEnergies thus being in charge of all the experts and SMEs of the Company. Since the beginning of his career, Eric Duchesne participates in various projects and technological developments in the TotalEnergies company.
Elizabeth Endler currently serves as the Principal Technology Advisor and Senior Principal Science Expert (Electrification, Integration, & Energy Storage) at Shell. Elizabeth has worked in industrial R&D over 18 years, with over a decade in energy storage and clean energy technologies. She currently focuses on the foundational science, innovative technologies, and commercial opportunities related to electrification of industry, mobility, and the built environment through increased use of renewable and low carbon electricity. Prior to this role, Elizabeth created Shell’s global energy storage research program, managing a global research portfolio of internal technology development efforts and over 30 external collaborations in energy storage & system integration while leading international R&D teams. Her experiences include fundamental research, product development & technology commercialization, project development and valuation, venture capital investing, and mergers and acquisitions support. Elizabeth is based in Houston, TX, and holds a BS from the University of South Carolina and a PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Jill Engel-Cox is Director of the Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis (JISEA) at the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Over her 30-year career, Dr. Engel-Cox has been an engineer, researcher, program manager, and strategic planner for a diverse suite of renewable energy, clean technology, and environmental programs in the United States, Asia, and Middle East. Her first job was climbing smokestacks in Los Angeles, followed by leading industrial pollution prevention programs for small and medium sized businesses and R&D laboratories in the United States and internationally. In the past decade, she has led international strategic planning and technology assessments for renewable energy and environmental sustainability research programs, working extensively in Malaysia and Saudi Arabia. She also teaches a course in energy issues for the University of Colorado Denver Global Energy Management program and industrial processes and environmental communications courses at Johns Hopkins University Engineering for Professionals Program.
Bob Foglesong has over 20 years of experience in Upstream technology with ExxonMobil, where he is currently the Upstream GHG Solutions Manager. Bob joined ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company in 2001 with a Bachelor Degree in Mechanical Engineering from University of Delaware and a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. There he spent the first six years of his career working the deployment of LNG ship and terminal technologies targeting ExxonMobil’s rapidly growing ventures in Qatar. Bob then moved to ExxonMobil Company, where he spent the majority of his career, serving in various technical leadership roles in both the US and Qatar. In 2019, concurrent with ExxonMobil’s Upstream reorganization, Bob returned to Research and Technology Development. Now a part of the recently formed ExxonMobil Technology and Engineering Company, his current role focuses on technology solutions for meeting ExxonMobil’s Upstream GHG emissions reduction objectives.
Sarah Gasda is Research Director and Chief Scientist in Computational Geosciences at NORCE, an independent research institute in Bergen, Norway. She currently leads the Centre for Sustainable Subsurface Resources, a national research centre that will provide the knowledge required for the Norwegian petroleum industry to transition to zero-emissions production and clean energy resources in the next decades. Over a 20-year research career, she has applied her expertise in modeling and simulation of multiphase flow in porous media to solve engineering challenges in geological carbon storage, underground hydrogen storage, and IOR/EOR technology. She is an internationally recognized expert in CO2 storage technology with contributions to understanding of long-term migration and containment, leakage risk, gigatonne-scale storage assessment, and storage in depleted petroleum reservoirs. Her research team at NORCE specializes in open-source reservoir simulation that brings state-of-the-art methods into commercial-ready software. Dr. Gasda holds a PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Princeton University in 2008.
Mriganshu Guha is the Head of Tata Steel Advanced Material Research Centre (TSAMRC) at Tata Steel, a position he has held since 2017. He is responsible for leading and managing Tata Steel’s technology entrepreneurship initiatives in advanced materials domain. He works to identify emerging technology/ ideas through technology intelligence and nurture for commercial application development through collaborative route with multiple stakeholders using a centre of expertise model through TSAMRC. Prior to this role, he served as a principal researcher at Tata Steel, where he conducted research activities in the field of iron making and developed process models, unique simulation/ experimental facilities to improve process insights, control, monitoring, stability and productivity. He also worked as a chemical engineer at Indian Oil Corporation, where he conducted research in the field of extraction, distillation and adsorption related processes of petroleum refinery, and developed adsorbent for Sulphur removal from diesel fuel below 50 ppm.
Amy Herhold has 25 years of experience in science and technology for ExxonMobil and is currently Senior Advisor, Corporate Portfolio in the Research division of the recently formed ExxonMobil Technology and Engineering Company. She received her B.S. in Chemistry from M.I.T. in 1992 and Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from University of California, Berkeley in 1997. Amy then joined ExxonMobil in the Corporate Strategic Research group in Annandale, New Jersey. She spent a decade conducting basic research in reactive flow and phase behavior including wax crystallization for flow assurance, rock dissolution and precipitation for reservoir property prediction, and a novel drilling technology, followed by two years in Corporate Planning as Technology Advisor for ExxonMobil’s Annual Outlook for Energy. From 2009 through 2016, Amy led research sections in sensing, geochemistry and mechanics and materials in CSR and in the ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company. In 2016, she became Director of Physics and Mathematical Sciences for CSR, leading long-range research in experimental and theoretical physics, computational physics, and data analytics and optimization.
Shaffiq Jaffer joined TOTAL (now TotalEnergies) in 2009, as the Vice President of Corporate Science and Technology Projects in North America (NA) with as mission to find and fund novel ideas and technologies that will lead to breakthroughs to meet future energy demand while addressing the climate challenges. He is engaged across the research ecosystem: academia, startups, and private research companies, focused on building long lasting relationships that create value for TotalEnergies and its partners. Prior to TotalEnergies, he has worked for P&G and Koch-Glitsch in research and engineering roles. He was educated in Canada at University of Alberta (BSc) and McMaster University (PhD) and is a Fellow of Canadian Academy of Engineering (FCAE).
Matt Kanan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Director of the TomKat Center for Sustainable Energy at Stanford University. Matt’s research addresses chemical and engineering challenges in energy conversion, sustainable resource utilization, carbon negative technology, and human health. His group has developed carbon dioxide utilization technology to streamline the synthesis of commodity chemicals, catalysts that improve the efficiency of sustainable fuel synthesis, and a point-of-care device for ammonia detection. Matt has co-founded ReSource Chemical Corp. and Aza Technology to commercialize technologies invented in his lab. At the TomKat Center, Matt directs programs that help Stanford students and researchers develop and commercialize innovations that impact energy and sustainability. Prior to joining Stanford in 2009, Matt did his Ph.D. studies in organic chemistry at Harvard and postdoctoral research at MIT in inorganic chemistry. He earned his B.A. in chemistry from Rice University in 2000.
Tony Kovscek is the Keleen and Carlton Beal Professor of Energy Resources Engineering in the School of Earth, Energy and Environmental Sciences where he joined the faculty in 1996. Currently he directs the Center for Mechanistic Control of Unconventional Formations, a DOE-funded Energy Frontier Research Center, the Stanford Center for Carbon Storage, and the SUPRI-A Program on Subsurface Engineering for Sustainability. Kovscek and his research group develop and apply advanced imaging techniques, experimentation, and models to understand complex multiphase flows of gas, water, and organic phases in natural and manufactured porous media with applications in carbon storage, energy storage, and increased utilization of carbon dioxide for subsurface applications. Such research has resulted in more than 180 peer-reviewed publications and 2 books. He has been honored with the John Franklin Carll Award for distinguished achievement in engineering from the Society of Petroleum Engineers and the School of Earth Sciences Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Raphaël Le-Gall graduated from IFP School in 1996 and joined TotalEnergies in 1997 as a R&D engineer in Refining division and continued working to develop expertise in the area of hydrotreatment/hydrocracking. He moved to Normandy Refinery at north-west of France, the largest integrated Refining & Chemicals facility of TotalEnergies in Europe, in 2004 to work on construction and commissioning of Distillate Hydrocracker/Steam Methane Reformer complex and in 2008 he became the lead of process department of Normandy Refinery. In 2013 he joined Industrial Direction of Refining & Chemicals division to manage industrial projects on Energy Efficiency and Distillation. He moved to R&D in 2017 as Research Delegate managing R&D program portfolio for Refining & Chemical division. In 2021 he became CO2 Conversion Team Manager of TotalEnergies global R&D program. Raphaël is in charge of the R&D team located at TotalEnergies One Tech Belgium Research Centre working on CO2 Conversion processes to decarbonize chemical manufacturing.
Arun Majumdar is the Jay Precourt Provostial Chair Professor at Stanford University, a faculty member of the Departments of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering and Senior Fellow and former Director of the Precourt Institute for Energy. He is also a faculty in Department of Photon Science at SLAC.
Dr. Majumdar serves as the Chair of the Advisory Board of the US Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm. He led the Agency Review Team for the Department of Energy, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission during the Biden-Harris Presidential transition. He served as the Vice Chairman of the Advisory Board of US Secretary of Energy, Dr. Ernest Moniz. In October 2009, 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 until June 2012. After leaving Washington, DC and before joining Stanford, Dr. Majumdar was the Vice President for Energy at Google, where he assembled a team to create technologies and businesses at the intersection of data, computing and electricity grid.
Eric Masanet holds the Duncan and Suzanne Mellichamp Chair in Sustainability Science for Emerging Technologies at UCSB. His research develops energy and materials systems models to identify technology and policy pathways for decarbonizing industrial systems. From 2015-2017, he led the Energy Demand Technology Unit at the International Energy Agency in Paris, where he oversaw energy analyses of the global industrial, transport, and buildings sectors. He is currently a Lead Author of Chapter 5 (Demand) for Working Group III of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report and a member of the Research Advisory Board at the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy. From 2012 -2019 he was an Associate Professor of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern University. From 2004-2012 he was a Research/Staff Scientist and Deputy Head in International Energy Studies Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He holds a PhD in mechanical engineering with an emphasis in sustainable manufacturing from UC Berkeley.
Jennifer Milne is Associate Director for Advanced Research Projects, Precourt Institute for Energy and the Strategic Energy Alliance. She is a scientist with more than a decade's experience in identifying research needs in energy and shaping the Global Climate and Energy Project's (GCEP) research portfolio. She now leads the Advanced Research Projects at the Precourt Institute for Energy, working with the Director of Precourt and the Strategic Energy Alliance and other stakehlders to foster energy research at Stanford. Jennifer is a technical resource for energy related projects across the University and advisor in the bioenergy area. Prior to joining GCEP in 2007, she was a post-doctoral scholar at the Carnegie Institution for Science, Department of Plant Biology, and Stanford University, working on plant cell wall polysaccharides and biomass related projects. She holds a Ph.D. in Biology from the University of York, U.K. and a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry (First Class Honors) from the University of Stirling, U.K.
Liang Min is the Managing Director of the Bits & Watts Initiative at Stanford University. Bits & Watts is a Stanford initiative bringing together multi-disciplinary research teams to enable digital transformation for the 21st century electric grid. Prior to joining Stanford, Dr. Min worked at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory since 2011, as the founding group leader of the energy delivery group and associate program leader for the national lab’s cyber & infrastructure resilience program. He was the Research Director for Livermore’s CES-21 Electric Operations program and had previously worked at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) as a senior project manager. Liang earned his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Texas A&M University in 2007. He holds two U.S. patents in voltage stability assessment.
Pulakesh Mukherjee is Managing Partner at Imperative Ventures. Before Imperative, Pulakesh spent ten years at BASF Venture Capital sourcing and executing investments in the energy, agriculture, chemical, and industrial sectors. During that time, he served as a director or observer on the boards of early stage technology companies. Prior to his role in venture capital, Pulakesh gained over ten years of experience in international business development, sales, marketing, and chemical process scale-up while working at BASF. He serves on the NREL Investor Advisory Board and also on the advisory board of the Stanford Energy Club. Pulakesh has a PhD from Stanford University and a M.Sc. from IIT Kanpur, India. He has published in peer-reviewed journals and has co-authored more than 15 patents.
John O'Donnell is Chief Executive Officer at Rondo and has over 30 years of experience taking novel solutions from conception to reality across the energy, semiconductor and supercomputer industries. Prior to founding Rondo, John served as co-founder and vice president of development for GlassPoint Solar, which delivered solar industrial heat worldwide. He previously cofounded and led Ausra, a pioneer in solar thermal electric systems. John served as a lead engineer for Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, where he designed award-winning technology to support fusion experiments. He is a published author of numerous technical papers and holds more than 20 patents in the U.S. and internationally. John earned a B.Sc. with Special Distinction in Computer Science from Yale University.
Jeremy Pearce started his career with Shell at the Bellaire Technology Center as a Research Petrophysicist developing novel well logging and fiber-optic surveillance technologies. He joined the Unconventionals organization in 2012 and has held a variety of technical and business roles including as an Asset Petrophysicist in Permian, Business Advisor, Commercial Continuous Improvement Lead, and Business Planning Manager in Appalachia. In 2019, he returned to PTX and served as the General Manager of Shales Technology maturing and deploying technologies to deliver substantial value to the Unconventionals business. Jeremy has recently joined the Power Technology organization leading the Industrial Electrification Technology Program aimed at developing technologies to decarbonize industrial sites through electrification. Jeremy holds a B.S. in Computer Engineering from Texas A&M University, M.S. & Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Rice University, and an M.B.A. from Rice University.
P. Chris Pistorius is a metallurgical engineer whose research focuses on production of metals and alloys, mainly steel, and corrosion. A native South African, he received bachelor's and master's degrees in metallurgical engineering from the University of Pretoria, and completed a Ph.D. in corrosion at the University of Cambridge. He was an associate professor and then professor in the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgical Engineering, University of Pretoria, South Africa, from 1991 to 2008. He served as head of that department from May 2002 to June 2008. He has been professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Carnegie Mellon since July 2008, working closely with Richard Fruehan and then Bryan Webler in the Center for Iron and Steelmaking Research. He is the POSCO professor of iron and steelmaking.
Andrew Ponec is the co-founder and CEO of Antora Energy, a startup developing thermal energy storage products to deliver zero-carbon industrial heat and power. Ponec has led technology development and fundraising at Antora Energy, which is backed by world-leading investors including Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Lowercarbon Capital, and Shell Ventures. Mr. Ponec previously founded a solar energy company called Dragonfly Systems. Dragonfly developed and commercialized novel power electronics for utility-scale solar power plants, and was acquired by SunPower in 2014. Ponec led the team through concept generation, prototyping, validation testing, and manufacturing, and eventually oversaw the installation of over 10 MW of solar power plants that used the technology. He received his B.S. in energy systems engineering from Stanford University, where he researched advanced photovoltaics and power electronics.
Jennifer Port is currently Chief of Process Sustainability for ExxonMobil supporting ExxonMobil’s ambitions to lead in sustainability and the energy transition, reduce GHG emissions, and increase circularity of products. She has over 25 years of experience in a broad range of technology roles within ExxonMobil Technology and Engineering Company. Jennifer’s career has spanned multiple areas mostly in olefins technology including pyrolysis furnace design, yields, feedstock, optimization, process safety, and energy systems analysis. Recent roles have included Chief Engineer supporting ExxonMobil Chemical Company Major Growth Ventures, and Technology and Facilities Planning Manager for the Gulf Coast Growth Ventures project, a mega-cracker complex joint venture with SABIC near Corpus Christi, TX. Jennifer is co-inventor on 10 patents and is the ExxonMobil representative on the AIChE Ethylene Producer’s Committee. She holds a BS degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Kansas.
Jeffrey Rissman is the Industry Program Director and Head of Modeling at Energy Innovation, and leads the company’s work on technologies and policies to achieve zero net greenhouse gas emissions from the industry sector. He is also the originator and developer of the Energy Policy Simulator, an open-source computer model that quantifies the effects of various energy and environmental policies in combination, predicting outputs such as fuel use, pollutant emissions, financial cost or savings, electric vehicle deployment, power sector structure, and more. Versions of the simulator have been developed for an ever-growing list of countries and regions, in partnership with in-country government agencies or NGOs, accounting for more than 50 percent of the world’s emissions. Jeff also worked on policies supporting R&D for clean energy and efficiency technologies for the American Energy Innovation Council, at which time he co-authored several papers in a series of case studies on the role of government in energy technology innovation.
Amitava Sarkar pursued his professional career in industrial R&D at energy sector in Canada, USA, Europe and Qatar. The primary focus of his research has been development of low-carbon sustainable energy technology and energy efficient process for decarbonization of chemical manufacturing. Amitava serves as Corporate Research Scientist for North America (TotalEnergies SE) and Resident Visiting Scientist (Stanford University and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory). In his current role as technical lead, he manages project stewardship of TotalEnergies sponsored electrochemical CO2 conversion projects at USA and Canada, performs critical analysis of results for technology maturity validation and provides industrial guidance for R&D gap closure. He also leads assessment of low-carbon novel and disruptive technologies for industrial readiness. He has served at various research consortiums and technical advisory board at premier research institutions including this conference. Amitava received his PhD from University of Waterloo, Canada and ME from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India.
Richard Sassoon is the Executive Director of the Strategic Energy Alliance under the Precourt Institute for Energy at Stanford. Prior to this role, he was the Managing Director of the Global Climate and Energy Project (GECP) at Stanford since November 2003. Dr. Sassoon has over 30 years of research and management experience in the fields of physical and analytical chemistry, as well as energy sciences. Prior to joining Stanford, Dr. Sassoon was Senior Scientist and Assistant Vice President at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), where he led systems integration efforts for nanotechnology applications. For many years, he was a contractor to the Department of Energy supporting the strategic planning and management of its environmental programs, and its hydrogen and renewable energy activities. Dr. Sassoon spent over a decade conducting research into photochemical solar energy conversion and storage systems, performing computer modeling of the catalytic processes involved in hydrogen production, and investigating technologies for cleanup of nuclear waste.
Amit Singh is the Global Head of Strategy & Marketing, based in London, a position he assumed in June 2021. In this role he is responsible for corporate strategy, M&A, strategic partnerships, venture capital and marketing to maximize customer value generation for the Digital, Integrated Projects & Energy Transition division of Schlumberger. Prior to this role he served as Managing Director based in Qatar where he managed all Oilfield Services Division of Schlumberger ranging from Reservoir Characterization, Well Construction, Production & Digital to deliver growth and superior performance, safely for the basin. He led the ramp-up and execution of the world’s largest Gas development project in Qatar, which is being executed in a very short span of time with range of successful new technology introductions in upstream. Singh holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi in the year 2000. He is an advocate of digital & low carbon technologies for driving sustainable development.
Addison Stark is Director of Energy and Environment at Clark Street Associates, a strategic consulting firm based in Silicon Valley and Washington, DC. Previously he served as Associate Director for Energy Innovation at the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC). Prior to joining BPC, Dr. Stark served as a Fellow at the US Department of Energy, Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) focusing on early-stage energy technology development and R&D across sectors including renewable fuels, green industrial chemistry, dry-cooling technologies for water conservation in power generation, advanced sensor systems for agriculture and leveraging advanced manufacturing for the fabrication of energy devices. While at ARPA-E, he also served as Acting Program Director for ARPA-E’s $33 million Energy-Water Nexus portfolio, the Advanced Research In Dry-cooling (ARID) program. Stark is the author of multiple peer reviewed journal articles and popular press pieces on diverse topics in energy technology innovation. He completed his PhD in Mechanical Engineering at MIT.
Vijay Swarup is Director of Technology at ExxonMobil and has been leading energy technology development at the company since 2014. A 30-year veteran of ExxonMobil, Vijay has held a variety of leadership roles in engineering, chemicals, and planning from offices in Alberta, Canada, to Baytown, Texas. He has a PhD in chemical engineering from Rutgers University and serves on the National Academies Board on Chemical Sciences Technology, and the Advisory Boards for the MIT Energy Initiative, and the Singapore Energy Center.
Eric Trusiewicz is a specialist on heavy industrial decarbonization, especially cement & concrete. He has worked on the topic as an entrepreneur in residence at the cleantech venture capital fund Breakthrough Energy Ventures, as a fellow at Stanford University, and prior to that has a decade of experience in the cement industry in a variety of executive roles across Europe and the United States. Eric holds a Master’s degree in Management from Stanford University Graduate School of Business, as well as a Bachelor’s degree from Yale University.
Tiziana Vanorio is an Associate Professor and Sr. Associate Dean for Educational Affairs in the School of Earth, Energy, and Environmental Sciences at Stanford University. Tiziana leads the Rocks and Geomaterials Lab (RGL) where she integrates laboratory experiments that mimic Earth processes with analytical techniques that characterize the textural, physical, and mechanical properties of rocks and geomaterials. A major emphasis of her work is on studying how the bulk properties of matter are governed by the underlying structure across many length-scales, from the angstrom scale of chemical bonds to the micron scale of the microstructure. Since Earth itself is an excellent nanotechnologist, her group applies solid-fluid interactions and nanoscale phenomena relating to geological systems to engineer new processes and materials. Examples of applications of her research include CO2 reuse through storage and mineralization and mimicking natural cementation processes and nanostructures of fibrous cementitious phases to address the demand for more sustainable cement.
John Weyant is Professor of Management Science and Engineering and Director of the Energy Modeling Forum at Stanford University. He is also a Senior Fellow of the Precourt Institute for Energy and an affiliated faculty member of the Stanford School of Earth, Environment and Energy Sciences, the Woods Institute for the Environment, and the Freeman-Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford. His current research focuses on analysis of multi-sector, multi-region coupled human and earth systems dynamics, global change systems analysis, energy technology assessment, and models for strategic planning. Weyant was a founder and serves as chairman of the Integrated Assessment Modeling Consortium, a fourteen-year-old collaboration among over 60 member institutions from around the world. He has been an active adviser to the United Nations, the European Commission, U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Department of State, and the Environmental Protection Agency. He has been and adviser to the California Air Resources, the California Energy Commission, and the California Public Utilities Commission.