EES Blog

We welcome Jenny Nelson as a new Editorial Board member for EES.

A Professor of Physics at Imperial College London,  she has researched novel varieties of material for use in solar cells since 1989. Her current research is focussed on understanding the properties of molecular semiconductor materials and their application to organic solar cells. This work combines fundamental electrical, spectroscopic and structural studies of molecular electronic materials with numerical modelling and device studies, with the aim of optimising the performance of solar cells based on molecular and hybrid materials.

Since 2010 she has been working together with the Grantham Institute for Climate Change to explore the mitigation potential of photovoltaic, and other renewable, technologies. She has published over 200 articles in peer reviewed journals, several book chapters and a book on the physics of solar cells. She was awarded the 2009 Institute of Physics Joule Prize and medal and the 2012 Royal Society Armourers and Brasiers Company Prize for her research.

Research areas:

– Multi-scale modelling of molecular electronic materials

– Device physics of organic and hybrid solar cells

– Electronic, spectoscopic and structural characterisation of molecular electronic materials

– Mitigation potential of solar photovoltaic technology

We welcome Wolfgang Lubitz as a new Editorial Board member for EES.

Wolfgang Lubitz studied Chemistry at the Freie Universität (FU) Berlin (1969 – 1974), where he also received his doctoral degree (1977), and his habilitation (1982). He worked as a research scientist at UC San Diego, USA (1983/84) and as Assistant and Associate Professor at the FU Berlin (1979 -1989).

In 1989 he became Professor in the Physics Department of the Universität Stuttgart, before he took over a Chair of Physical Chemistry at the Technische Universität (TU) Berlin in 1991. In 2000 he became a Scientific Member of the Max Planck Society and Director at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion (formerly Max Planck Institute for Bioinorganic Chemistry) in Mülheim/Ruhr, Germany. Professor Lubitz is an Honorary Professor at the Universität Düsseldorf. His scientific work is focused on energy conversion processes in natural and artificial photosynthesis, the investigation of metalloproteins (hydrogenases, water oxidase) and the development and application of molecular spectroscopy, especially magnetic resonance methods.

His work has been published in over 400 scientific publications. He is Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK), the International Society of Magnetic Resonance and has received the Zavoisky Award, the Bruker Prize, the Gold Medal of the International EPR Society and honorary doctorates (Dr. h.c.) of the University of Uppsala, Sweden (2008) and the Université d’Aix-Marseille, France (2014). He has been President of the International EPR Society (2005 – 2008) and is currently Vice President of the Council for the Annual Nobel Laureate Meetings in Lindau.

Wolfgang Lubitz says of his appointment:

“To provide mankind with enough clean energy in the future is one of the great challenges of our time. The articles in the  journal EES are at the forefront of research in this important scientific field”

On 15 June 2016 US Energy Subcommittee Chairman Randy Weber chaired a hearing, Innovation in Solar Fuels, Electricity Storage, and Advanced Materials. A panel of expert witnesses discussed the status of research in the United States and the development of solar fuels, electricity storage and quantum computing systems. Energy & Environmental Science Editorial Board Chair Professor Nathan Lewis, California Institute of Technology, discussed artificial photosynthesis and some of the recent developments in solar fuel research.

You can watch the hearing in full at the website for the Committee on Science, Space & Technology.

Energy & Environmental Science are delighted to announce that Professor Yang Shao-Horn joins the Editorial Board of the journal.

Yang Shao-Horn is W.M. Keck Professor of Energy at MIT. Her research is centered on the chemical physics of surfaces with emphasis on metal oxides, searching for descriptors of catalytic activity, and reactivity between oxides and ion conductors, wetting properties and ion transport, and design materials for solar fuel and batteries including electrochemical/photoelectrochemical water splitting and CO2 reduction, ion/electron storage, and ion conductors. Professor Yang’s research includes extensive experimental components, including synthesis of well-defined surfaces and nanostructured materials, and investigation of processes at the surfaces/interfaces using electrochemical methods coupled with ex situ and in situ X-ray-based and electron-based spectroscopy. These experimental components are used in conjunction with Density Functional Theory computation efforts to develop new, physically based reaction mechanisms and design principles of materials. Professor Yang has published ~200 archival journal papers.

Read Professor Yang’s latest article in EES here:

Professor Yang and the rest of the Editorial Board invite you to submit your best work to EES now!