Jennifer Wilcox is Presidential Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering and Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, with a home at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy and the School of Engineering and Applied Science. At Penn, she oversees the Clean Energy Conversions Lab.
Wilcox is also a senior fellow at the World Resources Institute, where she leverages her expertise to help accelerate policy support and investments in research, development, and deployment of industrial decarbonization and carbon removal solutions in order to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.
Most recently, Wilcox served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management at the Department of Energy. Before coming to Penn, she was the James H. Manning Chaired Professor of Chemical Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
Shu Yang is a Professor in the Departments of Materials Science & Engineering, and Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at University of Pennsylvania. Yang received her B.S. degree from Fudan University in 1992, and Ph. D. degree from Cornell University in 1999. She worked at Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies as a Member of Technical Staff before joining Penn in 2004.
Her group is interested in synthesis, fabrication, and assembly of polymers, gels, liquid crystals, colloids, and composite materials; investigation of the dynamic tuning of their sizes, shape and assembled structures, and use geometry to create highly flexible, super-conformable, and shape changing materials. Combining novel materials at the nanoscale and geometric designs at micro- and macroscales, the Yang lab explores unique surface, optical, and mechanical properties for potential applications, including coatings, adhesives, displays, (bio)sensors, energy efficient building skins, soft robotics, biomedical devices, and wearable technology.
Kevin T. Turner is a Professor and the Department Chair of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics at the University of Pennsylvania. He holds a secondary appointment in Materials Science and Engineering and is the Penn site director of the NSF-funded Engineering Research Center for Internet of Things for Precision Agriculture (IoT4Ag). He received his BS from the Johns Hopkins University and SM and PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has received numerous awards, including the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching, ASME Sia Nemat-Nasser Early Career Award, Adhesion Society - Young Adhesion Scientist Award, and NSF Career Award. Turner’s research is at the nexus of mechanics, manufacturing, and materials.
Vijay Kumar is the Nemirovsky Family Dean of Penn Engineering with appointments in the Departments of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, Computer and Information Science, and Electrical and Systems Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania.
Kumar's group works on creating autonomous ground and aerial robots, designing bio-inspired algorithms for collective behaviors, and on robot swarms. They have won many best paper awards at conferences, and group alumni are leaders in teaching, research, business and entrepreneurship.
Vijay Kumar has held many administrative positions in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, including director of the GRASP Laboratory, chair of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, and the position of the Deputy Dean. He served as the assistant director of robotics and cyber physical systems at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.