Industrial Electrification Symposium

Abstract:

Strategically deployed, industrial electrification can do more than decarbonize—it can enhance energy efficiency and serve as a hedge against increasingly volatile fossil fuel markets. Yet realizing electrification at scale faces real barriers, from persistent technological challenges and policies to regulate cross-sectoral interactions to growing competition for renewable electrons driven by rapidly growing end-uses like AI data centers.

This symposium brings together experts from industry, academia, government, and the nonprofit sector to take stock of where industrial electrification stands today, what the possibilities look like on the horizon, and what it will take to get there.

Speakers:

Liangbing Hu (Yale)
Dr. Liangbing Hu is the Carol and Douglas Melamed Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering & Materials Science at Yale University, where he also serves as the founding director of the Yale Center for Materials Innovation. He joined Yale’s faculty in July 2024 after serving as a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. Dr. Hu’s research group specializes in materials innovation, device integration, and advanced manufacturing, with current projects in electrified ultrahigh-temperature synthesis, next-generation energy storage beyond lithium-ion, and novel wood nanotechnologies. He has authored ~ 500 peer-reviewed publications, including more than 10 articles in Science and Nature, with an h-index of 200. His work has been recognized with several prestigious awards, including the ACS Anselme Payen Award, the MRS Medal, five R&D 100 Awards, and the Nature Spinoff Prize. He is a Fellow of the Materials Research Society (MRS) and the American Chemical Society (ACS). Dr. Hu earned a B.S. in Physics from the University of Science and Technology of China in 2002 and a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2007. Based on his doctoral research on carbon nanotube thin films, he became a founding scientist at Unidym, a Silicon Valley startup specializing in printed electronics. From 2009 to 2011, Dr. Hu completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University. In 2011, he joined the University of Maryland, where he launched his independent academic career.

Jose M. Pinto (Director at Linde)
Jose Pinto is Senior Director, Digital Americas, at Linde plc, where he is responsible for the end-to-end development and implementation of digital technologies across the Americas. Linde is the leading global industrial gases and engineering company, with 2024 sales of $34 billion. Dr. Pinto manages a portfolio of digital solutions that leverage operations research and machine learning to advance supply chain planning and scheduling, electricity optimization, risk analysis, revenue management, and business process optimization. Since joining the company in 2007, he has held positions of increasing responsibility in digital technology. Dr. Pinto holds a BS from the University of São Paulo, an MS from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, and a PhD from Carnegie Mellon University, all in chemical engineering. He has published more than 200 peer-reviewed papers in planning, scheduling, and supply chain optimization; process operations; process synthesis and design; and mixed-integer optimization. Prior to joining Linde, he served on the faculty of the University of São Paulo and the NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering.

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