Carnegie Mellon University - Energy Week

Arun Majumdar

Dr. Arun Majumdar is the Jay Precourt Professor at Stanford University, a faculty member of the Departments of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering (by courtesy) and co-director of the Precourt Institute for Energy, which integrates and coordinates research and education activities across all seven Schools and the Hoover Institution at Stanford. 

Dr. Majumdar's research in the past has involved the science and engineering of nanoscale materials and devices, especially in the areas of energy conversion, transport and storage as well as biomolecular analysis. His current research focuses on using electrochemical reactions for thermal energy conversion, thermochemical water splitting reactions to produce carbon-free hydrogen, understanding the limits of heat transport in nanostructured materials and a new effort to re-engineer the electricity grid.

In October 2009, Dr. Majumdar was nominated by President Obama and confirmed by the Senate to become the Founding Director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E), where he served till June 2012 and helped ARPA-E become a model of excellence for the government with bipartisan support from Congress and other stakeholders. Between March 2011 and June 2012, he also served as the Acting Under Secretary of Energy, enabling the portfolio that reported to him: Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Office of Electricity Delivery and Reliability, Office of Nuclear Energy and the Office of Fossil Energy, as well as multiple cross-cutting efforts such as Sunshot, Grid Tech Team and others that he had initiated. Furthermore, he was a Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Energy on a variety of matters related to management, personnel, budget, and policy. 

After leaving Washington, DC and before joining Stanford, Dr. Majumdar was the Vice President for Energy at Google, where he created several energy technology initiatives, especially at the intersection of data, computing and electricity grid, and advised the company on its broader energy strategy. 

Prior to joining the Department of Energy, Dr. Majumdar was the Almy & Agnes Maynard Chair Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science & Engineering at University of California–Berkeley and the Associate Laboratory Director for energy and environment at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. 

Dr. Majumdar is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He currently serves as the Vice Chairman of the US Secretary of Energy’s Advisory Board and is also a Science Envoy for the US Department of State with focus on energy and technology innovation in the Baltics and Poland. He is a member of the Councils of the National Academy of Engineering, the Electric Power Research Institute, as well as the Science Board of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He is a member of the International Advisory Panel for Energy of the Singapore Ministry of Trade and Industry and the US delegation for the US-India Track II dialogue on climate change and energy.

Dr. Majumdar received his bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay in 1985 and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1989.

JB Straubel

JB is currently the Chief Technical Officer (CTO) and part of the founding team at Tesla Motors Inc. where he oversees the technical and engineering design of the vehicles. JB also has responsibility for new technology evaluation, R&D, technical diligence review of key vendors and partners, IP, and systems validation testing. 

Prior to Tesla Motors, Straubel was the CTO and co-founder of Volacom Inc. along with Harold Rosen. Volacom worked closely with Burt Rutan at Scaled Composites to design a specialized high-altitude aircraft platform using a novel hydrogen-powered electric power plant. At Volacom, JB co-invented and patented the new long-endurance hybrid propulsion concept that was later licensed to Boeing. 

Before Volacom, JB worked with Harold and Ben Rosen at Rosen Motors as a propulsion engineer developing a new hybrid vehicle drivetrain based on a micro turbine and a high-speed flywheel. Rosen Motors ultimately closed but both main technologies carried on with commercial success, the turbine at Capstone Turbine (CPST) and the flywheel at Pentadyne Power Corp. JB was part of the early team at Pentadyne where he designed and built a 1st generation 150kw power inverter, motor-generator controls, and magnetic bearing systems. 

In the area of technical expertise, JB has consulted with VC firms Taproot Ventures and Kleiner Perkins in addition to several other private equity investors to conduct technical diligence reviews for many start-ups in the energy and clean technologies category. JB also consults with Amory Lovins at the Rocky Mountain Institute . 

JB has had a long personal passion for electric vehicles, including building an Electric Porsche 944 that held a world EV racing record, a Custom Electric Bicycle , and a pioneering new Hybrid Trailer System that he designed while in college. He received a B.S. in Energy Systems Engineering and a M.S. in Energy Engineering, emphasis on energy conversion, both from Stanford. Outside of Tesla Motors, JB is also an accomplished pilot and holds private pilot, instrument and multi-engine ratings.