Patricia M. Dehmer, deputy director for science programs at the U.S. Department of Energy, will give a talk at MIT on Wednesday, Nov. 5, titled "Facing Our Energy Challenges in a New Era of Science." Dehmer is the senior science official in the third-largest federal sponsor of basic research in the country, which funds research at 300 colleges and universities as well as at DoE laboratories.
Dehmer previously directed the DoE's Office of Basic Energy Science, and under her leadership that office's budget more than doubled to $1.2 billion a year. She led a five-year effort there to tie basic energy research more closely to real-world energy problems.
Before beginning work at the DoE's Office of Science in 1995, Dehmer already had a distinguished career in atomic, molecular, optical and chemical physics at Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago, with more than 125 peer-reviewed publications. She earned her PhD in chemical physics from the University of Chicago in 1972.
In her daylong visit to MIT, Dehmer will visit several energy research projects on campus and meet with President Susan Hockfield and with MIT Energy Initiative Director Ernest J. Moniz.
Her talk, which is open to the general public, will begin at 4:30 p.m. in 34-101.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on November 5, 2008 (download PDF).
