Chief Science and Technology Advisor and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Arati Prabhakar (far left), National Science Foundation Director Sethuraman Panchanathan (middle) and Vice President for Research & Innovation Mridul Gautum (right) during tour and roundtable event focused on University’s battery research. David Calvert ’12, ’22 M.A.
President Joe Biden’s Chief Science and Technology Advisor and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Arati Prabhakar and Director of the U.S. National Science Foundation Sethuraman Panchanathan joined University leadership and community members in August for a campus and battery research laboratory tour, moderated presentation and roundtable discussion.
“This visit is a testament to the fact that the University, which is small, excels in certain areas of research relevant to national security needs,” said Dev Chidambaram, co-principal investigator and chemical & materials engineering professor. “The students and researchers were energized by the visit and it reinforced in them that the education and training they are receiving is globally competitive and that they can compete successfully against the best.”
This visit with senior Biden administration officials coincided with the one-year anniversary of the president signing the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act into law. This landmark act demonstrates how public investments act as a magnet to attract significant private investments and together, those investments create good-paying jobs, fuel innovation and tackle society’s most difficult challenges. Prabhakar and Panchanathan also highlighted how the NSF Regional Innovation Engines program is creating regional collaborations between government and educational institutions, labor unions, businesses, and community-based organizations to drive progress in key fields across the country.
“It was really great meeting the directors of the NSF and the OSTP to discuss the important lithium-ion battery research we do at the University,” said Jason Mennel ’20 M.S. (chemistry), a chemical & materials engineering graduate research assistant. “They were excited to discuss our recent results at low temperature and wondered what other materials we might test or what lower temperatures we might use. It was illuminating to be a part of the presentations, tours and roundtable talks, and seeing just how many local companies are already part of the entire lithium-ion battery life cycle, from extraction of minerals, to research, to manufacturing and recycling. It really highlighted the importance that this region will have in the coming years to be a major part of the growing lithium-ion battery sector.”
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