Ramamoorthy Ramesh

Rice University

Vice President for Research

Professor Ramamoorthy Ramesh is the Vice President for Research at Rice University. Prior to joining Rice University in August 2022, Dr. Ramesh served as the Founding Director of the successful Department of Energy SunShot Initiative in the Obama administration, envisioning and coordinating the R&D funding of the U.S. Solar Program, spearheading the reduction in the cost of Solar Energy. He also served as the Deputy Director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Associate Lab Director at LBNL. Most recently, he served on the Biden-Harris Transition Team for Energy and wrote the EarthShots. He is also a co-founder of Kepler Computing, which is focused on low power computing using ferroelectrics. His extensive publications on the synthesis and materials physics of complex oxides are highly cited (over 100,000 citations, H-factor =150). He is a fellow of APS, AAAS & MRS and an elected member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, a Foreign member of the Royal Society of London, the Indian National Science Academy, the Indian National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the American Academy for Arts and Sciences. His awards include the Humboldt Senior Scientist Prize, the APS Adler Lectureship and McGroddy New Materials Prize, the TMS Bardeen Prize and the IUPAP Magnetism Prize and Neel Medal and the Europhysics Prize in 2022. He was recognized as a Thomson-Reuters Citation Laureate in Physics for his work on multiferroics.

Sessions With Ramamoorthy Ramesh

Monday, 6 March

Wednesday, 8 March

Thursday, 9 March

  • 08:30am - 09:00am (CST) / 09/mar/2023 02:30 pm - 09/mar/2023 03:00 pm

    Challenges and Learnings from decarbonizing distributed networks
    Decarbonizing distributed networks is challenging due to the widespread nature of assets. As our world gets more digitalized and connected every day the demands for power is ever increasing. This has a direct impact on the overall emissions footprint from distributed digital assets. We will explore the role of advanced materials, technology & innovation and a systems approach in improving energy efficiency of distributed assets and lowering the overall emissions footprint.

Friday, 10 March

  • 08:50am - 09:35am (CST) / 10/mar/2023 02:50 pm - 10/mar/2023 03:35 pm

    How Fast Can Innovation Scale?
    Innovation & Technology
    Last year taught us that our global energy system still does not have the resilience to sustain a sudden and forced transition to a net-zero world. The International Energy Agency estimates that about half of the technologies needed to deliver net-zero emissions by 2050 are not currently commercially competitive. What is needed to accelerate the journey from laboratories to commercial application to financing to deployment? Should multiple tracks—such as hydrogen; carbon capture, utilization and storage; and fusion—move forward in parallel to mitigate risk? What new vulnerabilities will come with innovation, from supply chain to cyber risks? How can innovation create an agenda for resilience?