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Wednesday, April 5, 2017

New director named to head Center for Advanced Energy Studies

Dr. Noël Bakhtian
Noël Bakhtian has been named the new director of the Center for Advanced Energy Studies, the research and education consortium between Boise State University, Idaho National Laboratory, Idaho State University, University of Idaho and University of Wyoming.

The announcement was made Tuesday by INL Director Mark Peters, who cited her experience in energy policy and technology. Bakhtian will start May 15, replacing Mike Hagood, who has been interim director since last fall.

Bakhtian most recently served as senior policy advisor for environment and energy in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Prior to that, she was the inaugural Energy-Water Nexus lead at the U.S. Department of Energy Office of International Affairs. She was technical lead on several grant programs for DOE’s Wind and Water Power Technologies Office,  and consulted on energy research and development and investment for the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

While pursuing her master’s and doctorate from Stanford University’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, she did most of her research at NASA’s Ames Research Center, in its advanced computing division, coming up with new entry, descent and landing technology for Mars missions. After getting her Ph.D., she won an AAAS Energy and Environment Fellowship and worked in the office of U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire.

Bakhtian also holds a master’s degree in engineering from Cambridge University, where she was a Churchill Scholar. Her research there involved unmanned ariel vehicles, gathering data from bird flight patterns in wind tunnels. Her bachelor’s degree is from Duke University, where she was a Pratt Fellow.

Bakhtian is a trustee of the Summer Science Program, a science education non-profit organization, and is the energy and environment associate editor for the Science & Diplomacy Journal.

“Dr. Bakhtian’s energy policy and technical experiences span the programmatic portfolio of CAES,” Peters said in a press release. “She will help forward the CAES mission of conducting advanced energy research, educating the next generation of scientists and engineers, and partnering with industry to advance our regional competitiveness.”

For a November 2016 interview Bakhtian gave the website chroniclevitae.com, follow this link: From Bench Science to Senior Policy Advising: An Interview With Noel Bakhtian.