For the third consecutive year, the Ralph O’Connor Sustainable Energy Institute (ROSEI) and the Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering (WSE) served as a partner for the ARPA-E Innovation Summit. At the Summit, which was run from March 17-19 in National Harbor, the JHU group met with a variety of representatives from government, industry and academia with the hopes of finding new areas for potential collaboration.

ROSEI and WSE team at ARPA-E Innovation Summit 2025

This year’s JHU contingent comprised of over 30 people, including faculty, students and staff, easily the largest group in the past three years. In addition to JHU’s main booth as a sponsor of the event, Chao Wang, an associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, had four booths for funded projects that he has through ARPA-E. Corey Oses, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering, had one booth as well.

“The Summit has become a major part of our calendar, and I think the number of Hopkins representatives there this year reflects that,” said Ben Schafer, ROSEI’s director and the Willard and Lillian Hackerman Professor of Civil and Systems Engineering. “The event has helped ROSEI and Hopkins become established as a leading academic group in the energy field. Now more than ever, we want the energy community to know that we have a plethora of world class faculty working to mitigate climate change in a variety of ways, and that we aren’t going anywhere.”

Another highlight for the JHU group was hosting a social reception on the second night of the Summit. Just over 130 people attended, enjoying free food and drinks in the Lower Atrium of the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center with the Potomac River providing a scenic backdrop for the event.

“The reception was such an amazing cross-section of all of Hopkins covering research, education and translation efforts, and academic researchers from other schools, alumni, prospective students, large strategic industry players, small startups – such a great mix! – and all brought together under the ‘Energy at Hopkins’ banner,” Schafer said.

Yury Dvorkin (left) leading panel discussion

Yury Dvorkin, a ROSEI core faculty member who is an associate professor of civil and systems engineering as well as electrical and computer engineering, also had an exciting opportunity to lead a panel on the main stage of the Summit. The panel – titled “Enabling an AI World” – included Levi Patterson, the Director of Energy, Science, and AI Infrastructure Policy with NVIDIA and Ben Wilson, the President for National Grid Ventures.

“It was a pleasure to engage in such a thoughtful discussion with Levi and Ben. The interplay between the AI and energy is complex: AI can enhance grid performance and energy optimization, and conversely energy is needed to power all AI applications across countless additional applications in transportation, healthcare, entertainment, etc.,” Dvorkin said. “The session was barely enough to cover all important areas, but we were able to highlight some of the most pressing challenges and promising directions on how to address them via constructive cross-industry collaboration and multilateral engagement of academics and partners from the government. Looking ahead, I’m hopeful that next year we’ll see even greater representation from Hopkins faculty contributing to the pivotal dialogues shaping the future of our energy systems.”