Seven ETA Researchers Honored at Lab Director Awards

October 20, 2020

Seven researchers in the Energy Technologies Area have recently been honored with prestigious Director's Awards at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).

The awards program recognizes Lab employees' accomplishments and commitment to excellence in support of the Lab's mission and strategic goals. Lab-wide, three staff members received Lifetime Achievement Awards, and another 34 employees received awards across different categories this year.

Lynn Price (pictured), a senior advisor for the Lab's International Energy Analysis Department and the China Energy Group, received a Lifetime Achievement Award for "a career marked by extraordinary global outcomes, most notably the design of innovative industrial energy efficiency policy in China, as well as her analysis and leadership that contributed to the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement," according to the award citation.

"I think it's wonderful that the Lab is recognizing Lynn. She's a role model for others who are following in her footsteps and working for sustainable, clean energy around the world," said Tom Kirchstetter, EAEI division director.

In the Technology Transfer category, the research team of Carolyn Szum, Chao Ding, Nan Zhou, Xu Liu, Han Li were recognized for their work on the Building Efficiency Targeting Tool for Energy Retrofits (BETTER). The citation calls out their exemplary efforts "to build important relationships with industry to advance the science of data-driven, remote building energy analysis to improve building energy efficiency at speed and scale worldwide."

"This is an impressive team and I'm proud of them for this achievement. I hope that they are able to build on this success such that BETTER realizes its full potential and saves building energy worldwide," Kirchstetter said. 

Purabi Thakre of ETA's Program Development Office was honored as part of the team working on the National Alliance for Water Innovation (NAWI). The citation recognized "the extraordinary Operations-Development-Scientific teamwork of Peter Fiske, Carol Valladao, Michelle Chew Wong, Jim Hawley and Purabi Thakre that played an essential role in Berkeley Lab's award of the $100M DOE Water-Energy Hub, NAWI. This team of legal, CA government affairs, financial, and science experts demonstrated deep dedication to working assiduously and creatively to advance clever constructs and to overcome significant bottlenecks associated with developing the proposal and getting the award under contract."

Read about all of the Director's Awards laureates for 2020 at this link: https://recognition.lbl.gov/2020-laureates/