RASEI History
Check back soon - we are putting together a more detailed historical account of RASEI.
Introduction
The Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute (RASEI) is a research organization that is joint between the University of Colorado (ºÚÁÏÉçÇøÍø) and the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The RASEI community is comprised of over 50 Fellows and over 100 research scientists from across a broad range of disciplines, from economics and sociology to fundamental physics and chemical research and engineering. Research in RASEI focuses on the transition to a clean and sustainable energy economy for the global population.
Formation
In 2006 ºÚÁÏÉçÇøÍø established its Energy Initiative, with the goal to pursue energy research, education, and technology commercialization. RASEI was founded in 2009, as a joint venture between ºÚÁÏÉçÇøÍø and NREL. Prof. Carl A. Koval was the Faculty Director of the Energy Initiative and became the first Director of RASEI.
RASEI Leadership
Michael L. Knotek
2010 - 2015
In 2010 Dr. Michael L. Knotek was appointed as the new Director of RASEI, taking over from Prof. Carl Koval, who was the founding interim Director. Michael brought more than forty years of energy science and technology expertise to RASEI. Transitioning from the United States Department of Energy, where he led a several teams developing multi-billion dollar proposals and contracts. Knotek formerly served as senior science and technology advisor to the Secretary of Energy at DOE; distinguished science executive at Argonne National Laboratory; Chief Technology Officer with the Battelle Memorial Institute; Chairman of the National Synchrotron Light Source research facility at Brookhaven National Laboratory; and associate laboratory director for Environmental and Energy Sciences at the Pactific Northwest National Laboratory.
Robert McGrath
2015 - 2021
In 2015 Dr. Robert McGrath was named Director of RASEI.
Seth R. Marder
2021 - Present
Dr. Seth Marder, the current RASEI Director, was appointed in the summer of 2021. Marder obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1978 and doctorate from Wisconsin-Madison in 1985 under the supervision of Prof. Charles P. Casey. Marder moved to the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) at Caltech in 1987. In 1988 Seth moved to the University of Arizona where he was Professor of Chemistry and Optical Sciences. In 2003 Marder moved to the Georgia Institute of Technology, until his appointment as RASEI Director in 2021. Throughout his career Seth has been a team builder, being a central member of numerous large team science endeavors, acting as a boundary crosser to bring together multi-disciplinary communities.
Facilities
RASEI was originally located in the Gamow Tower on the ºÚÁÏÉçÇøÍø West Campus. In 2015, driven by a growth in the membership of RASEI, and the formation of the Sustainability, Energy and Environment Community, housed in the newly renovated Sustainability, Energy and Environment Complex Building (known as the SEEC Building), the RASEI community moved to new facilities on the ºÚÁÏÉçÇøÍø East Campus. The 289,000-sq-ft three story SEEC building houses the main RASEI offices, conference and event space, classrooms and dry labs. Early in 2016 the Sustainability, Energy and Environment Laboratory (or SEEL) was completed. Connected to SEEC, this significantly expanded the research lab space available for RASEI members. SEEL is a four story, 142,000-sq-ft multidisciplinary research center, housing wet labs, designed and constructed to LEED-Gold-plus specifications.
In 2018 RASEI helped establish the CU Facility for Electron Microscopy of Materials (CU-FEMM), that features state-of-the-art electron microscopes housed in a vibration, static-free, and temperature-controlled environment. These highly sophisticated tools enable the nondestructive, high-resolution, chemically specific characterization of nanostructures – a critical ability for the development of new energy related materials.