Summary: Dr. Dan Arvizu became the eighth Director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) on January 15, 2005. NREL, in Golden, Colorado, began operations in 1977 and is the Department of Energy’s primary laboratory for energy efficiency and renewable energy research and development. NREL is operated for DOE by Midwest Research Institute (MRI) and Battelle. Dr. Arvizu also is a Senior Vice President with MRI, headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri. Prior to joining NREL, Dr. Arvizu was the chief technology officer with CH2M HILL Companies, Ltd. Before joining CH2M he was an executive with Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He started his career and spent four years at the AT&T Bell Telephone Laboratories. In 2004, Dr. Arvizu was appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate to the National Science Board (NSB), the governing board of the National Science Foundation and national science policy advisory body to the President and the Congress. Dr. Arvizu serves on a number of Boards, Panels and Advisory Committees including the American Council on Renewable Energy Advisory Board; the Energy RD&D Policy Project Advisory Committee at the Harvard Kennedy School; the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Alternative Energies; the Singapore Clean Energy International Advisory Panel; and the Colorado Renewable Energy Authority Board of Directors. He is presently co-chairing the Task Force on Sustainable Energy for the National Science Board. He has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from New Mexico State University and a M.S. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University.
