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Alistair Sproul
Country: Australia
Year Started Research: 1986
Title of Research: Low energy buildings and PV, Energy efficient fluid
handling systems
University: University of New South Wales
Still Active in Research: Yes
Professor Alistair Sproul, BSc (Hons I) (Syd) PhD (UNSW), is Head of the School of Photovoltaic and Renewable
Energy Engineering (SPREE) at UNSW, Sydney, which he first joined in 2001. Concurrent to this, from 2012 – 2019,
he was program leader for Integrated Building Systems with the Cooperative Research Centres’ Low Carbon Living.
Having worked in photovoltaics and energy efficiency research and R&D for over 35 years, Alistair has held senior
positions in both academia and industry in Australia and around the world. In addition to his career at UNSW as a
dynamic leader and teacher, this includes work with BP Solar, Pacific Solar and the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar
Energy Systems, in Freiburg, Germany. Professor Sproul currently focusses on research areas of interest including
energy efficient buildings, building integrated and building applied PV/energy systems for low energy buildings, as
well as highly efficient fluid handling systems. He is the author of over 160 journal and conference papers, as well
as two books, and is the recipient of over $4M in grant funding to date.
Aldo Steinfeld
Country: Switzerland
Year Started Research: 1989
Title of Research:
University: PhD at University of Minnesota-now ETH Zurich
Still Active in Research: Yes
Prof. Steinfeld’s research program is aimed at the advancement of the thermal and chemical engineering sciences
applied to renewable energy technologies. His fundamental research focus comprises high-temperature heat/
mass transfer phenomena and multi-phase reacting flows, with applications in solar power, fuels, and materials
production, thermochemical processing, CO capture and recycling, energy storage and sustainable energy systems.
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He has pioneered the development of solar reactor technologies for producing carbon-neutral transportation fuels.
He served as the Editor of the Journal of Solar Energy Engineering, co-Editor of the CRC Handbook of Hydrogen
Energy, and in several editorial boards. He has authored more than 300 papers in refereed scientific journals, filed
30 patents, and supervised 52 PhD theses in the field of sustainable energy. Two ETH-spinoff companies spun
out from his lab, Climeworks and Synhelion, to implement at an industrial scale the technologies for the direct air
capture and solar fuels production. www.prec.ethz.ch
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