The next presentation in the Texas A&M Energy Institute Lecture Series, featuring Dr. Brian Korgel, the Rashid Engineering Regents Chair and the Director of the Energy Institute at The University of Texas at Austin, will be held on Wednesday, November 2, 2022, from 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. CDT (UTC -5:00) in the Frederick E. Giesecke Engineering Research Building (GERB) Third Floor Conference Room and through a Zoom Meeting. The topic will be “Solar Power for a Sustainable Energy Future.”
Abstract
Global energy sustainability represents one of the most important challenges facing modern society. Energy demand will continue to grow while greenhouse gas emissions need to be significantly reduced. And energy needs to be made accessible to all people on the planet.
Sunlight provides a widely available renewable energy resource that can be converted directly to electricity by photovoltaic devices (PVs), or solar cells. Solar power is providing one of the most important emerging energy resources that can help address the world’s greatest energy and climate challenges.
Biography
Brian A. Korgel is the Rashid Engineering Regents Chair Professor in the McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin (UT). He directs the UT Energy Institute, the Center for a Solar Powered Future (SPF2050), a Phase III Industry/University Research Center (IUCRC) funded by the National Science Foundation, and the Emerging Technologies area of the UT|Portugal program. He is an Associate Editor of the journal, Chemistry of Materials. He received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from UCLA in 1997 and was a post-doctoral fellow at University College Dublin, Ireland, in the Department of Chemistry.
He works at the intersection of nano & mesoscopic materials chemistry and complex fluids, tackling problems in energy storage, chemical transformations, energy harvesting and conversion, and medicine. He is also an artist, exploring collaboration, language, and human-artificial intelligence/robot cohabitation. He has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Alicante in Spain, the Université Josef Fourier in France, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. He has co-founded two companies, Innovalight and Piñon Technologies, and received various honors including the Professional Progress Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) and election into the National Academy of Engineering (NAE).