Houston: Arun Majumdar, Indian-American material scientist, engineer and professor, has been named the inaugural dean of Stanford University’s new school that focuses on climate change and sustainability. To be launched on September 1, Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability - the university’s first new school in 70 years - aims to accelerate solutions to the global climate crisis. Majumdar will assume his new post on June 15.
Originally from Kolkata, Majumdar got his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering at the IIT, Bombay in 1985 and his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley in 1989. He was nominated for the position of undersecretary of energy in the US between November 30, 2011 and May 15, 2012 but then the nomination was retracted. After leaving Washington DC, Majumdar was the vice-president for energy at Google, where he assembled a team to create technologies and businesses at the intersection of data, computing, and electricity grid. He joined Stanford in 2014. He was the founding director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy, and currently serves as the chair of the advisory board to US secretary of energy.
