January 28, 2010

Contact:   Bill Giduz

Steven E. Koonin

Davidson College invites the public to a talk on Monday, February 1, by Steven E. Koonin, Undersecretary for Science at the U.S. Department of Energy. Koonin will speak about "Addressing America's Energy Challenges: Science, Politics, and the Global Search for Alternative Energy" beginning at 7:30 p.m. in the Alvarez College Union Smith 900 Room. There is no admission charge to attend the event.

Koonin oversees the country's national laboratories, which places him at the center of the effort to identify alternative energy sources.

Koonin will be speaking at Davidson in conjunction with this year's Bank of America Lecture Series, which involves several speakers addressing the topic "Responding to the Global Energy Crisis: Technology, Policy and Security." His talk is also being presented as the college's annual Smith Lecture.

Koonin was named to his post by President Barack Obama last March, who recruited him from five years as chief scientist for BP, where he guided the company's long-range technology strategy in alternative and renewable energy sources. 

Prior to his work at BP, Koonin taught theoretical physics for 29 years at the California Institute of Technology, including a nine-year term as the Institute's provost. He established national and international alliances that provided the institute with funding to carry out some of the county's most important research in the physical sciences. His personal research interests have included theoretical and computational physics, as well as global environmental science.  

Koonin has served on numerous advisory bodies for the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Energy and its various national laboratories. 

For more information on his talk at Davidson, call 704-894-2440.

Davidson is a highly selective independent liberal arts college for 1,800 students located 20 minutes north of Charlotte in Davidson, N.C. Since its establishment in 1837 by Presbyterians, the college has graduated 23 Rhodes Scholars and is consistently regarded as one of the top liberal arts colleges in the country. Through The Davidson Trust, the college became the first liberal arts institution in the nation to replace loans with grants in all financial aid packages, giving all students the opportunity to graduate debt-free. Davidson competes in NCAA athletics at the Division I level, and a longstanding Honor Code is central to student life at the college.
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