Growing Our Scholarly Community

New Faculty

Kelsey Hatzell joins Princeton University as assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, effective July 1, 2021. She comes to Princeton from Vanderbilt University. Her expertise is in solid-state batteries, which use a solid electrolyte instead of a liquid or gel polymer electrolyte used in common lithium-ion batteries. Her lab focuses on the fundamental questions related to processes that control battery performance and long-duration thermal energy storage systems, along with translational research related to battery manufacturing. Solid-state batteries allow for more energy-dense anodes than lithium-ion batteries, meaning electric vehicles could potentially travel a greater distance before needing to recharge, with the added benefit of not being flammable. Hatzell was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow, an ITRIRosenfeld Postdoctoral Fellow at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow in chemistry, and received several prestigious industry and academic awards.

Leadership and Growth

Lynn Loo, the Theodora D. '78 and William H. Walton III '74 Professor in Engineering and professor of chemical and biological engineering who has served as Andlinger Center director since 2016, stepped down as of August 1, 2021, and joined the newly founded Global Center for Maritime Decarbonization, based in Singapore, as its first chief executive officer. Loo is taking a two-year leave from Princeton University to fulfill this new role.

Claire Gmachl, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Electrical Engineering, associate chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and head of Whitman College is serving as the interim director of the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment. An international search for a permanent director began in the fall of 2021.

Andrea Goldsmith, an expert and entrepreneur in wireless systems who has served in campus-wide leadership roles at Stanford University, began as dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Princeton University Sept. 1, 2020. Goldsmith is a leader in the fields of information theory and communications, with a focus on creating innovations in wireless communications, cyberphysical systems, and neuroscience. According to Goldsmith, engineering can play a pivotal role in addressing energy and environmental challenges because they require interdisciplinary collaboration and technological innovation, along with interactions with industry and public policy. Goldsmith joins the Princeton faculty as the Arthur LeGrand Doty Professor of Electrical Engineering.

Egemen Kolemen has been promoted to associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment and is also a physicist at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.

Forrest Meggers has been promoted to associate professor of architecture and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment.

Kolemen and Meggers joined the executive committee as of Sept. 1, 2021, in addition to Gabriel Vecchi, professor of geosciences and the High Meadows Environmental Institute and director of the High Meadows Environmental Institute, and Chris Greig, the Theodora D. '78 and William H. Walton III '74 Senior Research Scientist at the Andlinger Center.