Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics and Engineering Systems
Director, Laboratory for Energy and Environment
Director, MIT Energy Initiative

Ernest J. Moniz is the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics and Engineering Systems, Director of the Laboratory for Energy and the Environment and the Director of the MIT Energy Initiative at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has served on the faculty since 1973. Dr. Moniz served as Under Secretary of the Department of Energy from October 1997 until January 2001. In that role, he had programmatic oversight responsibility for the offices of Science; Fossil Energy; Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy; Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology; Environmental Management; and Civilian Radioactive Waste Management. He served as DOE chair of the Laboratory Operations Board and of the Research and Development Council, through which he initiated a portfolio approach to managing and advancing the Department’s R&D programs. He also led a comprehensive review of the nuclear weapons stockpile stewardship program and served as the Secretary’s special negotiator for Russia initiatives, with a particular focus on the disposition of Russian nuclear weapons materials. Dr. Moniz also served from 1995 to 1997 as Associate Director for Science in the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President, where his responsibilities spanned the physical, life, and social and behavioral sciences, science education, and university-government partnerships. At MIT, Dr. Moniz served as Head of the Department of Physics and as Director of the Bates Linear Accelerator Center, a DOE user facility. His principal research contributions have been in theoretical nuclear physics, particularly in advancing nuclear reaction theory at high energy. His current research centers on energy technology and policy studies. He served as co-chair of the MIT Energy Research Council, an interdisciplinary faculty group that advanced the MIT President’s energy initiative. Moniz was appointed Director of the MIT Energy Initiative in 2006.

Dr. Moniz received a Bachelor of Science degree summa cum laude in physics from Boston College, a doctorate in theoretical physics from Stanford University, and honorary doctorates from the University of Athens, the University of Erlangen-Nurenburg, and Michigan State University. Dr. Moniz is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Humboldt Foundation, and the American Physical Society and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He received the 1998 Seymour Cray HPCC Industry Recognition Award for vision and leadership in advancing scientific simulation. He serves on the Boards of the Gas Technology Institute, Nexant, and American Science & Engineering, on the Keystone Energy Board, and on the advisory councils of EPRI, Cummins, BP, and the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs.

Updated July 2007

News and announcements:

Selected Publications by Ernest J. Moniz

Prof. Moniz in Boston Globe – 3 Little Numbers Haunt Big Energy Producer (April 14, 2008)

Prof. Moniz quoted in NY Times (February 7, 2008)

ESD Prof. Ernie Moniz on $50m funding for energy research (January 17, 2008)

Prof. Moniz named director of MIT Energy Initiative (September 21, 2006)

ESD' Moniz, MIT's Deutch, Heywood featured in Scientific American (September 9, 2006)

Prof. Moniz on Living on Earth (March 14, 2006)

ESD Professor Ernest Moniz co-authors A Plan for Nuclear Waste, published in Washington Post (January 31, 2006)

ESD's Prof. Moniz, MIT profs, colleagues propose nuclear-energy plan (May 11, 2005)