Nanotechnology Now - Press Release: UC Berkeley, Berkeley Lab announce Kavli Energy NanoSciences Institute

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Paul Alivisatos (left) with students at his lab. Paul Alivisatos is the director of new Kavli Energy NanoSciences Institute (Kavli ENSI)

Photo: Roy Kaltschmidt, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Abstract:
The Kavli Foundation has endowed a new institute at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) to explore the basic science of how to capture and channel energy on the molecular or nanoscale, with the potential for discovering new ways of generating energy for human use.

UC Berkeley, Berkeley Lab announce Kavli Energy NanoSciences Institute

Berkeley, CA | Posted on October 4th, 2013

The new Kavli institute will be lead by Paul Alivisatos, who has also been a member of the Kavli Prize committee in nanoscience.

The Kavli Energy NanoSciences Institute (Kavli ENSI), announced today (Thursday, Oct. 3), will be supported by a $20 million endowment, with The Kavli Foundation providing $10 million and UC Berkeley raising equivalent matching funds. The Kavli Foundation will also provide additional start-up funds for the institute. The Kavli ENSI will explore fundamental issues in energy science, using cutting-edge tools and techniques developed to study and manipulate nanomaterials - stuff with dimensions a thousand times smaller than the width of a human hair - to understand how solar, heat and vibrational energy are captured and converted into useful work by plants and animals or novel materials.

"The field of nanoscience is poised to change the very foundations of how we should think about future energy conversion systems," said Kavli ENSI Director Paul Alivisatos.

"I am delighted to welcome the Kavli ENSI into the community of Kavli institutes," said Fred Kavli, Founder and Chairman of The Kavli Foundation. "By exploring the basic science of energy conversion in biological systems, as well as building entirely new hybrid and perhaps even completely artificial systems, the Kavli ENSI is positioned to revolutionize our thinking about the science of energy, and is positioned to do the kind of basic research that will ultimately make this a better world for all of us."

The Kavli ENSI will be the fifth nanoscience institute established by The Kavli Foundation, joining Kavli Institutes at the California Institute of Technology, Cornell University, Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and Harvard University.

For more information see The Kavli Foundation website: www.kavlifoundation.org

The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters awards the Kavli Prize in astrophysics, nanoscience and neuroscience. This is a cooperation between the Kavli Foundation, The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research.

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About The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters
The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, founded in 1857, is a non-governmental, nation-wide, and interdisciplinary body which embraces all fields of learning. The main purpose of the Academy is the advancement of science and scholarship in Norway.
The Academy provides a national forum of communication within and between the various learned disciplines, and it represents Norwegian science in relation to foreign academies and international organisations.

Members
The Academy has 219 ordinary seats for Norwegian members and 183 additional seats for foreign members. The Academy is divided into two divisions, one for the natural sciences and one for the humanities and social sciences. Including members over 67 years of age, there are 830 members.

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Contacts:
Anne-Marie Astad
+4722121092

Robert Sanders
UC Berkeley:

(510) 643-6998

James Cohen
The Kavli Foundation:

(805) 278-7495