Arun Majumdar, who currently heads a Lawrence Berkeley National Lab project that aims to help India reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, has been nominated by President Obama to head the newly-created Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy at the DOE.
The White House announced Majumdar’s nomination — which requires Senate confirmation — on Sept. 18. The IIT-Bombay graduate is not allowed to comment on the nomination until he is confirmed.
Majumdar — dubbed the nation’s new “green czar” by the press — is currently the associate laboratory director for energy and environment at Berkeley Labs in Berkeley, Calif. He also serves as a professor of mechanical engineering and materials science and engineering at UC-Berkeley.
ARPA-E was created in 2007, but only received its budget this February, under the Obama administration’s economic stimulus plan. The agency’s goals are to create technologies to reduce the country’s reliance on foreign energy and improve energy efficiency.
ARPA-E is also charged with reducing greenhouse gas emissions. At Berkeley Labs, Majumdar heads a collaboration between the U.S. and India that aims to reduce the latter’s greenhouse gas emissions while maintaining sustained economic growth.
The collaboration, the Berkeley-India Joint Leadership on Energy and the Environment, involves researchers from Lawrence Berkeley Labs and UC-Berkeley, and other U.S. and Indian universities and organizations.