President Obama Announces Director of ARPA-E

Friday, September 18, 2009

WASHINGTON, DC -- On Friday, September 18, 2009, President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate Arun Majumdar, Director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy, Department of Energy.

Arun Majumdar is currently the Associate Laboratory Director for Energy and Environment at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. He has had a highly distinguished research career in the science and engineering of energy conversion, transport, and storage ranging from molecular and nanoscale level to large energy systems. For his pioneering work, he was elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2005. At Berkeley Labs and UC Berkeley, he helped shape several strategic initiatives in the areas of energy efficiency, renewable energy as well as energy storage, and testified before Congress on how to reduce energy consumption in buildings. He has served on the advisory committee of the National Science Foundation's engineering directorate, was a member of the advisory council to the materials sciences and engineering division of DOE's Basic Energy Sciences, and was an advisor on nanotechnology to the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

Dr. Majumdar has also been an entrepreneur, and has served as an advisor to startup companies and venture capital firms in the silicon valley. He received his Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay in 1985 and his PhD in 1989 from the University of California, Berkeley.