Research Fellows
Our research fellows advise on the strategic direction of science and technology research at NREL and ensure our work meets the highest standards for quality and objectivity.
Helena Chum
Research Fellow
Dr. Chum's expertise is in renewable fuels, transportation systems, and international renewable energy activities including biomass, biofuels, and biorefineries.
Maria Ghirardi
Research Fellow
Dr. Ghirardi's work at NREL involves photobiological hydrogen production and covers metabolic, biochemical, and genetic aspects of algal metabolism.
David S. Ginley
Research Fellow
David S. Ginley's current activities are in the areas of the general class of defective transition metal oxides including high temperature superconductors, LiTMO2 rechargable Li battery materials, ferroelectric materials, transparent conducting oxides and electrochromic materials.
Michael Himmel
Research Fellow
Dr. Michael Himmel is a biochemist whose work on cellulase greatly simplified and lowered the cost of converting biomass to fuel. Dr. Himmel manages the award-winning cellulase enzyme technology effort.
Sarah Kurtz
Research Fellow
Dr. Kurtz is a world-renowned expert in the fields of multijunction PV, concentrator PV, and PV reliability.
Angelo Mascarenhas
Research Fellow
Dr. Mascarenhas' work focuses on spectroscopic research on semiconductor materials for photonics and advanced solar cells. He has done extensive research on harnessing the material consequences of semiconductor alloy instabilities such as spontaneous ordering and spontaneous composition modulation for optoelectronic applications.
Garry Rumbles
Research Fellow
Dr. Rumbles is widely recognized for his research in photochemistry and photophysics of conjugated molecular systems, energy conversion in organic light emitting diodes and organic photovoltaic devices, and nanoscale morphology.
Robert Thresher
Research Fellow
Dr. Thresher has more than 40 years of research, development, engineering, and management experience in wind technology, plant engineering, and aerospace systems. He has been a strategist for the initiation of a national research program to develop offshore wind, wave, tidal and current energy technology.
John Turner
Research Fellow
Dr. Turner is recognized as a world–class scientist and international spokesperson for hydrogen energy and for his contribution in hydrogen production via photoelectrochemical splitting of water and in the development of fuel cells.
Research Fellows Emeriti
Richard Ahrenkiel
Research Fellow Emeritus
Dr. Ahrenkiel's area of specialization is the measurement and characterization of photovoltaic cells and materials. He is one of the world experts in the area of carrier recombination and carrier lifetime. He invented a unique technique for measuring the excess carrier lifetime in materials.
Timothy J. Coutts
Research Fellow Emeritus
Dr. Coutts' research areas include thin-film science, photovoltaics, and thermophotovoltaics.
Richard DeBlasio
Research Fellow Emeritus
Richard (Dick) DeBlasio is an expert in renewable electricity, end use systems applications, and distributed energy resources.
Arthur J. Nozik
Senior Research Fellow Emeritus
Dr. Nozik’s work focuses on photoelectrochemistry, solid state physics, semiconductor nanoscience, hot carrier effects, Third Generation solar photon conversion, and related interdisciplinary science. He has 11 U.S. patents and over 250 published papers.
Michael Seibert
Research Fellow Emeritus
Dr. Seibert's current research interests include primary processes of and water-oxidation in oxygenic photosynthesis, structure and function of [Fe]-hydrogenases, molecular engineering of hydrogenases, expression profiling in green algae, and photobiological hydrogen production.