ARPA-E Blog
The ARPA-E Fellows Program seeks to seed innovation and creativity within the Agency by generating new ideas and connecting with leading experts to empower cross-disciplinary solutions that improve energy efficiency, reduce energy imports, and curb emissions. During their two-year tenure, ARPA-E Fellows influence the direction of American energy innovation, engaging with world-class researchers in academia and industry, entrepreneurs, and government officials.
The Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) brings together experts on plant genetics, information technology and robotics in the search for bioenergy crops that are sustainable, affordable and yield abundant feedstocks for biofuel. Through ARPA-E’s TERRA program -- short for “Transportation Energy Resources from Renewable Agriculture” -- some of these researchers are building robots armed with cutting-edge sensors to collect data on plant characteristics. Meanwhile, other teams develop tools that use this data to predict which plants will grow more quickly, thrive in stressful environments, and generally show greater potential to fuel and feed our planet.
ARPA-E's Methane Observation Networks with Innovative Technology to Obtain Reductions (MONITOR) program, now in its second year, is making tremendous technical progress in developing low-cost, highly sensitive technologies for improved methane detection and measurement in the natural gas supply chain. MONITOR technologies are addressing shortcomings of existing technologies through several innovative approaches – such as remote sensing, advanced dispersion models, UAVs, and low cost print manufacturing, to name a few – that can cost-effectively estimate methane emission flow rates, localize the leak source, and provide continuous and remote monitoring. As a teaser for the entire portfolio, learn about three MONITOR project teams developing innovative technologies to detect methane.
This week ARPA-E is celebrating its seventh anniversary! Back in 2009, ARPA-E was a handful of innovative technology leaders and staffers with ambitious ideas about creating an agile government agency that could transform the U.S. energy landscape. Today, ARPA-E is changing the game in energy innovation with a diverse portfolio of more than 475 early-stage energy technology projects -- many of which are showing signs of technical and commercial success.
Learn more about Dr. Sonja Glavaski's background, how she came to ARPA-E, all about the Network Optimized Distributed Energy Systems (NODES) Program, and what it means to be a woman in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).
