Abstract
This tutorial will summarize key developments at the local (i.e. California), national, and global levels with respect to the current status of the energy crisis, investments in alternative energy, the need for further research and development, and the policy and regulatory framework. For obvious reasons, this will not be a comprehensive review. The intent is to provide an overview with a few specific examples that illustrate both the challenge and the opportunity for a successful transition to a sustainable energy future, and to point to those areas where additional research and development could have an important impact.
Biography
David Auston is Executive Director of the of the Institute for Energy Efficiency and the Center for Energy Efficient Materials, at the UC Santa Barbara. Prior to joining UC Santa Barbara, he was President of the Kavli Foundation. He has been a member of the technical staff and department head at AT&T’s Bell Laboratories (now Lucent Technologies), Professor of Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics and Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Columbia University, Provost of Rice University, and President of Case Western Reserve University.
Auston has contributed to research in the fields of lasers, nonlinear optics, and solid-state materials. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, the Optical Society of America, and the American Physical Society.
A native of Toronto, Canada, Auston earned bachelors and masters degrees in engineering physics and electrical engineering from the University of Toronto and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.