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SS Forum: Pathways to Net-Zero Carbon Emissions

Event Type
Guest Lecture
Speaker
Dr. Douglas Ray
Sponsor
Center for Sustainable Systems
School of Natural Resources and Environment
Details
March 18, 20162:30pm - 4:00pm
 - 
1040 Dana Building

ABSTRACT: Limiting global warming requires that net emissions of greenhouse gases ultimately be reduced to zero. It is becoming increasing probable that “negative CO2 emissions” will be required to limit global warming to 2o C. I will discuss this thesis, various approaches to negative CO2 emissions and the scientific challenges associated with these approaches. 

Speaker:
Douglas Ray, Ph.D.
Director of Strategic Partnerships
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Richland, WA

On June 1, 2015 Dr. Douglas Ray became the first Director of Strategic Partnerships at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). In this new role he is responsible for identifying and creating partnering opportunities with universities and other research institutions that further the institutional strategy and impact of the laboratory.

From May 2006 through May 2015 Dr. Ray led PNNL’s Fundamental & Computational Sciences Directorate, overseeing unprecedented growth in PNNL’s fundamental science research portfolio. Dr. Ray was also responsible for the PNNL-University of Washington Northwest Institute for Advanced Computing, the PNNL-Oregon Health & Science University Northwest Co-laboratory for Integrated ‘Omics and the PNNL-University of Maryland Joint Global Change Research Institute. Under Dr. Ray’s leadership, PNNL has become recognized as a leader in advanced computing, biological systems science, chemical and materials science, climate and earth systems science and particle physics.

Dr. Ray became a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2013 for “distinguished contributions to physical chemistry and molecular spectroscopy, and for building a world-class chemistry organization at PNNL”.  He is a member of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the American Geophysical Union and the American Physical Society. Dr. Ray serves on the Editorial Advisory Board for the ACS journal Energy & Fuels, and is a member of the U.S.-Japan Joint Committee for Cooperation in High Energy Physics, the Carbon Capture Simulation Initiative Board of Directors, the Joint BioEnergy Institute Board of Directors, the International Advisory Committee for the Dalian (China) National Laboratory for Clean Energy, the International Energy Agency's Experts Group on Science for Energy, and the Scientific Advisory Committee of DOE's Combustion Research Facility. Dr. Ray was formerly a member of the Chemical Sciences Roundtable of the National Academy of Sciences, the DOE’s Joint Genome Institute Scientific Advisory Committee, the Columbia Basin College Foundation Board and the Washington State STEM Education Foundation.

Dr. Ray holds an A. B. in Physics from Kalamazoo College and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley, where his mentor was Richard J. Saykally. He was a postdoctoral research associate with W. Carl Lineberger at the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics in Boulder, Colorado before joining PNNL in 1990 as a senior research scientist.