Weekend in Washington: Caltech at AAAS

A number of Caltech faculty are weekending in Washington, D.C., speaking at—and attending—the 2011 annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Caltech biologist and AAAS president Alice Huang opened the meeting on Thursday by delivering the President's Address, highlighting the meeting's theme, "Science Without Borders." This theme, she writes in her invitation to the meeting, "integrates interdisciplinary science, both across research and teaching, that utilizes diverse approaches as well as the diversity of its practitioners."

On Friday, Nate Lewis spoke on "The Future of Game-Changing Energy Technologies," as part of a symposium entitled, "Portraits of the California Energy System in 2050: Cutting Emissions by 80 Percent." The session addressed the expectation—via executive order of California's governor—that the state reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, despite the fact that energy demand is projected to double by that time. In his talk, Lewis addressed some of the strategies for achieving our clean-energy goals.

On Saturday, Lewis spoke again—in a symposium called "Powering the Planet: Generation of Clean Fuels from Sunlight and Water," organized by Caltech's Harry Gray, Bruce Brunschwig, and Jay Winkler. In Lewis's talk, "Sunlight-Driven Hydrogen Formation by Membrane-Supported Photochemical Water Splitting," he discussed a solar-driven hydrogen methodology for achieving more efficient generation of energy and clean fuels.

Also on Saturday, Frances Arnold gave a plenary lecture entitled, "Design and Evolution: Engineering Biology in the 21st Century." Arnold is a pioneer in the use of methods of laboratory evolution to generate novel and useful enzymes and organisms for applications in medicine and alternative energy. Her multidisciplinary approach reveals insight into the way natural evolution might have occurred, and recently earned her the Charles Stark Draper Prize from the National Academy of Engineering, which is considered the profession's highest honor.