12 Enabling the Digital and Energy transition What is your specific focus area? Before joining ARPA-E, I had a broad interest in functional materials and composites, polymers and gels, paints and coatings, engineered interfaces and micro/nanostructures, bio-inspired engineering, and architecture. I am a cofounder and former CTO of Adaptive Surface Technologies, Inc. (formerly, SLIPS Technologies, Inc.) which commercializes fouling-resistant/fuel-saving ship hull coatings and additives as well as zero-waste consumer packaging solutions. Before my start-up experience, I spent 5 years at Harvard University’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering where I participated in R&D activities in the area of adaptive materials, adaptive living environments, and slippery liquid-infused porous surfaces. In addition to my academic experience, I have 12 years of industrial experience in petrochemicals, polymers, and coatings products. My interest area got even broader after joining the agency. I have been looking into technologies to improve the reliability and resilience of U.S. electric power distribution by undergrounding -- a proven way to improve grid resilience and reliability, but at the highest cost. The reliability, resilience, and security of the U.S. grid system are poorer than in many other developed countries due to outdated infrastructure. They are getting worse every year as the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events grow, exacerbated by climate change. Grid dependability is a climate and energy justice concern since low-income and disadvantaged populations experience frequent and longer outages. To allow a clean energy transition, such as renewable power, DERs, and EVs, toward decarbonization, the U.S. must rapidly expand transmission and distribution grid infrastructure in the next few decades. However, existing undergrounding technologies are slow, disruptive to the surfaces and environments (resulting in low societal acceptance), unsafe for our workforces, expensive, and lacking reliability and resilience. Undergrounding provides reliability, resilience, and security, yet is expensive and time-consuming to install. Therefore, I am specifically looking at novel underground civil construction technologies that are minimally disruptive to the surface (small rig footprint, fast mobilization/demobilization, low power requirement, low noise and hazardous wastes), automated to the greatest extent possible (with the ultimate goal of autonomous drilling, concurrent construction of conduits, ducts, vaults), and equipped with enhanced situational intelligence (real-time detection of other buried utilities and obstacles, steerable drilling tools to avoid damages). I held a workshop on this topic in July 2022. Information on this workshop can be found at www.arpa-e.energy.gov/events/undergrounding-workshop. What are some of the other things you are working on? In addition to my focus on a reliable and resilient grid, I am directing two inherited programs from former program directors. ULTIMATE targets next-generation superalloys for power generation and aviation industries that can continuously operate at extreme temperatures and stress environments (at 1300C as a standalone material and at 1700C with coatings) to increase the efficiency of gas turbines and jet engines up to 7% by allowing the turbine inlet temperature up to 1800C. The project teams are taking AI/ML-
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy Mzc4NjU=