Professor Robert C. Armstrong will describe the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Energy Initiative. MIT President Susan Hockfield, in her inaugural address in 2005, identified energy as a top priority for her administration. An Energy Research Council (ERC) was established to formulate recommendations that will allow MIT, with its unique talents and capabilities, to address what she called “one of the most urgent challenges of our time.”

Last September, following ERC recommendations, President Hockfield formally established the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) to address “the science, technology, policy, and systems design required to meet the global energy challenge.” She noted that the breakthrough contributions of MIT faculty and students to energy issues will have even greater impact as parts of a coherent answer to the world’s energy problems. “When MIT focuses on large issues of great public importance, we are able to get things done,” she said.