New Member of the Kavli Institutes Announced

October 3, 2013
Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU)

The Kavli Foundation has endowed a new institute at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). The Kavli Energy NanoSciences Institute (Kavli ENSI), announced on Thursday, Oct. 3, will 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.

"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, who is also director of Berkeley Lab and the Samsung Distinguished Chair in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology in UC Berkeley’s College of Chemistry. "UC Berkeley and Berkeley Lab stand out worldwide for their strong efforts in nanoscience and their research activities related to energy, so energy nanoscience is a particular strength for us."

The Kavli ENSI will be the fifth nanoscience institute among the seventeen institutes worldwide – 11 in the United States, three in Europe and three in Asia – endowed by The Kavli Foundation. “We are the sixteenth Kavli Institute, and it is great to see a new addition after ours. I’m especially happy that it creates a new connection between Berkeley and the University of Tokyo, my two home institutions,” said Hitoshi Murayama, Director of the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe. Murayama is also a MacAdams Professor of Physics in UC Berkeley and a Faculty Senior Staff of Berkeley Lab.