Jeffrey C. Grossman is a professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received his PhD in theoretical physics from the University of Illinois, performed postdoctoral work at U.C. Berkeley, and was a Lawrence Fellow at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He returned to Berkeley as Director of a Nanoscience Center and Head of the Computational Nanoscience research group with a focus on energy applications. Prof. Grossman joined MIT in summer 2009, assuming a position that was the result of an interdepartmental search organized by the School of Engineering, for faculty pursuing energy research.

His group uses theory and simulation to gain fundamental understanding, develop new insights based on this understanding, and then use these insights to develop new materials for energy conversion and storage with improved properties – working closely with experimental groups at each step. He has published more than 80 scientific papers on the topics of solar photovoltaics, thermoelectrics, hydrogen storage, solar fuels, nanomechanical phenomena, and self-assembly. He has appeared on a number of television shows recently to discuss new materials for energy including the Fred Friendly PBS series and the Ecopolis program on the Discovery Channel. He holds 6 current or pending U.S. patents.