As Steven Denbaars joined IEE as director in 2025, he introduced IEE 3.0 to reflect UCSB’s growing strengths—including world-class leadership in energy-efficient quantum technologies, photonics and electronics for improved energy efficiency, AI and machine learning, AI-informed computing architectures and infrastructure, energy-efficient storage, and energy analysis and policy. Research at the Institute for Energy Efficiency (IEE) is organized into six interdisciplinary themes. Projects within each theme attack critical energy efficiency grand challenges.
Highlights
Learn more how the Institute of Energy Efficiency influences the world
UCSB Among the World’s Most Influential Research Universities for Science Impact
UC Santa Barbara ranks first among U.S. public universities, third among all U.S. institutions, and seventh worldwide for scientific impact in engineering and the physical sciences
February 9, 2026
UCSB to join major collaboration supporting battery innovation and commercialization
UC Santa Barbara is joining a powerful new collaboration aimed at revolutionizing the battery industry through the Electrochemistry Foundry (ECF)
May 6, 2026