Majumdar, who has had a highly distinguished research career in the science and engineering of energy conversion, transport, and storage ranging from molecular and nanoscale level to large energy systems, is also a Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.
For his pioneering work, he was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2005. At Berkeley Labs and UC Berkeley, he helped shape several strategic initiatives in the areas of energy efficiency, renewable energy as well as energy storage, and testified before Congress on how to reduce energy consumption in buildings.
"These individuals have proven that they will bring skill, dedication and expertise in these important areas to my administration, and I look forward to working with them in the coming months and years," Obama said in a statement as he announced his intent to nominate Majumdar and two others -- Daniel W Yohannes, Nominee for Chief Executive Officer, Millennium Challenge Corporation and Gustavo Aranavat, United States Executive Director to the Inter-American Development Bank.
For years Majumdar and fellow investigator Peidong Yang have been trying to see if energy that is routinely lost as heat during production of electricity could be harnessed through the use of silicon nanowires.
Two years ago Majumdar and his colleagues became successful. They discovered that it is possible to achieve substantial improvement of thermoelectric energy efficiency at room temperature in silicon nanowires.
The high performance thermoelectric capability in silicon, Majumdar said in an earlier interview with rediff.com, opens tremendous possibilities for human welfare and also huge cost savings.
For starters, nearly all of the world's electrical power is generated by heat engines, gas or steam powered turbines that convert heat to mechanical energy before it is converted to electricity. But much of this heat is not converted, but is wasted.
"To give you an example," Majumdar said, "90 percent of the world's power is generated by heat, whether its steam turbine, coal-fired power plants or gas turbine. It is all heat to power conversion. These engines operate at approximately 30 to 40 percent efficiency which means that about 60 to 70 percent of the heat is lost."
"Even we can convert two to three percent of that lost heat to electricity, the number is absolutely staggering. It is almost half the US electrical capacity," Majumdar told rediff.com.
He said much of the thermoelectric materials that have the ability to convert heat into electricity could be used to capture much of the heat that is currently wasted.
Majumdar, who has nine patents to his name has served on the advisory committee of the National Science Foundation's engineering directorate, was a member of the advisory council to the materials sciences and engineering division of DOE's Basic Energy Sciences, and was an advisor on nanotechnology to the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology in the Bush administration.
Majumdar has also been an entrepreneur, and has served as an advisor to startup companies and venture capital firms in the Silicon Valley. He received his Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay in 1985 and his PhD in 1989 from the University of California, Berkeley.
