He received his BS in chemical engineering at Michigan State University (2001) while also working as a research assistant in the Composite Materials and Structures Center under the supervision of Dr. Lawrence T. Drzal. He completed his MS (2003) and PhD (2006) in chemical engineering at Stanford University under the direction of Prof. Stacey F. Bent in collaborative research project with IBM T. J. Watson Research Center’s Drs. Nicholas C. Fuller and Stephen M. Gates studying the interactions between ashing plasmas and low-k dielectric thin films. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (2006-2008) before his current position as a Staff Scientist in the Advanced Materials Synthesis group. Currently, his research focuses on nanostructured and porous materials (e.g. aerogels and functional nanocomposites) for a wide range of applications, such as energy storage, sensing, and catalysis. This includes both the development of materials with novel properties and the development of feedstock materials for various additive manufacturing (a.k.a. 3D printing) techniques.
He is a staff scientist in the Computational Engineering Division at LLNL. He currently supports project acquisition and execution in the areas of building energy efficiency control optimization, power system simulation, and hybrid artificial intelligence and optimization control served as Principal Investigator. He was research scientist for energy system analysis at LBNL in Berkeley, CA, and the section manager for renewable energy investment, operation manager for power generation at Huaneng Power Group in Beijing, China. Dr. Qin received the B.S. M.S. and PhD degrees in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of Dalian Tech, Dalian, with emphasis on advanced control theory. He served as researcher for building energy automated control and power system operation for more than 20 years. His patent technology – commercial building optimization won the first Energy I-Corps of DOE in 2015. His areas of expertise include building energy modeling-simulation-optimization, power generation & transmission & Distribution optimization, smart grid, deep learning, complex system optimization, and optimization analytics for near-field.
He is a research engineer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and is a member of the Center for Micro-Nano Technologies in the Materials Engineering Division. He joined LLNL in 2013 after graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a S.B. in physics (’07), a S.B. in mechanical engineering (’07), a M.S. in mechanical engineering (’09) and a PhD in Mechanical engineering (’13). He leads the Precision Micro/Nano group at LLNL, which is focused on applying the principles of determinism to micro/nano design, manufacturing, metrology and assembly. He is leading the development of an uncertainty-based analysis of X-ray CT, as well as developing a high speed, large range precision micromirror array. His research interests include precision engineering, MOEMS, additive micromanufacturing, X-ray metrology, uncertainty analysis, and compliant mechanism design. He is an NDSEG fellow, a member & on the board of directors of the American Society for Precision Engineering (ASPE), the chair of the ASPE Micro-Nano Technical Leadership Committee, and is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering. He has 10 patents and over 65 papers published and submitted.
He has worked at LLNL for the last 25 years, developed a diverse background as a thermal systems analyst, focusing primarily on energy research, clean transportation, and heat transfer analysis including:
• Thermodynamic and heat transfer modeling of thermal and energy systems
• Technologies for hydrogen storage, delivery, dispensing, and utilization
• Internal combustion engine analysis
• Alternative fuels
• Vehicle propulsion
He is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and a Distinguished Alumnus from Oregon State University.
His expertise in the solar area is focused on photovoltaic module reliability with emphasis on testing for water ingress and lifetime service prediction. Experimental capabilities in our group, includes sample fabrication in clean room facilities, spectroscopic characterization of water content up to module sized samples in near and mid infrared, and direct determination of water in polymers with Karl Fisher oven drying titration. Modelling capabilities in our group, include numerical simulation of diffusion in polymeric material, ray-tracing modelling through complex structures (including non-linear absorbance, scattering, and optimization), and ab initio simulations of interaction of water with polymers. Our group has been collaborating with solar industry partners to assess water ingress in solar modules as part of product development cycle.
He has served science and society as a prominent researcher, professor, senior manager in the US Federal and CA State governments, CEO of a systems engineering and naval architecture firm, and currently a member of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Steve is the E-Program Manager in the Global Security Directorate. E-Program’s mission is to develop advanced energy technologies and manufacturing techniques and to advance the resilience of the nation’s energy system to physical and cyber attack.
A graduate of the Dartmouth College, he earned a Ph.D. in geochemistry from The University of Michigan in 1979. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at UCLA, he became a tenured professor at Stony Brook University. From1995 through 2000, he was Associate Chief Geologist for Science at the US Geological Survey. He was responsible for the scientific priorities and funding of the broad portfolio of USGS research, including the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction, Climate Change, Global Energy, and Minerals Resource programs. As President and CEO of Joint Oceanographic Institutions from 2000-2008, he led the global effort in scientific ocean drilling and the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program and the systems engineering and deployment of the US National Science Foundation’s Ocean Observatories. In May 2014, he was appointed by Governor Brown to lead the CA Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources. He rebuilt the Division and developed and implemented the nation’s most comprehensive and environmentally focused regulations on well stimulation and hydraulic fracturing.
With a deep understanding of how the Earth works, he writes and speaks about future challenges and risk assessment of energy, climate, water, and food on a small planet. His 25 years of research on the evolution and stabilization of continental crust is widely cited, and he is among a select group in ISI’s Web of Science of Highly Cited Researchers in the field of Geoscience (atmosphere, ocean, and solid Earth).
He received his doctorate in physics in 1996 from the University of British Columbia, Canada. In 1998, he became a staff scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), in 2007, became the group leader of the Nanoscale Materials Science and Technology Group, and, in 2015, he became the deputy division leader for science and technology of the Materials Science Division. His research interests include advanced and functional materials, including materials for energy conversion and storage, the micro- meso- and nanoscale structure of engineered materials (e.g. assembled nano-materials, nanoporous materials and membranes, biomimetic and bio-inspired nanomaterials), and development of in-situ and operando materials characterization techniques for advanced manufacturing processes, including ultrafast X-ray diagnostics for the characterization of materials under extreme conditions. He has authored and coauthored more than 125 technical articles and is on the advisory board of numerous U.S. Department of Energy user facilities. He is the chair of the LLNL materials laboratory directed research and development portfolio.
His research spans computational and experimental materials science across fields, including solar energy, energy storage, and energy conversion. Much work has focused on the electronic, optical, and optoelectronic properties of semiconductors and nanostructures, emphasizing the relationships among defects, electronic structure, surface/interface effects, and device performance with a theme of enabling materials by design. He employs advanced predictive materials modeling methods in conjunction with advanced synthesis and characterization techniques. At Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), he leads a team of about a dozen computational materials scientists as the deputy group leader of the Quantum Simulations Group and oversees collaborations with experimental groups both internal and external to LLNL. He was a LLNL fellow and Scowcroft National Security fellow at LLNL, and a Hertz Fellow at Stanford where he received his doctorate. He was recently elected a young leader of The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society (TMS).
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