Jennifer Gerbi recently served as the Acting Director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), the "moonshot’" high-risk, high-reward R&D agency at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Initially joining as a program director in 2015, her programmatic focus at ARPA-E included improving the energy efficiency and management of buildings via advanced sensing systems and storage, novel insulating materials for windows and renewable energy generation via photovoltaics. Leveraging her experience from industry, her role grew to add responsibilities including recruiting, people management and culture, coordination both inside and outside the DOE, legal issues and research security, culminating in leading the entire agency in 2021 for two years. Experiencing ARPA-E from multiple roles has given her a unique perspective into the opportunities and challenges of this type of agency, much of which she will share in an introspective discussion at the Spring 2024 MRS Women in Materials Science and Engineering Keynote Breakfast.
Prior to joining ARPA-E, Gerbi worked at Dow Corning in multiple capacities, starting in 2011 as a program leader in the company’s Business and Technology Incubator, building a next-generation solar portfolio. She then branched out to include a business focus as a business builder, leading a global team for a lithium-ion battery program. Gerbi’s most recent role at Dow Corning was as an applied engineering and technical service leader, where she led an electronics application engineering and development team, working directly with large global customers to enable technical solutions via silicones in consumer and crossover healthcare electronics markets.
From 2007 to 2011, Gerbi served as a senior materials scientist at The Dow Chemical Company, focusing on the copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) solar technology effort. She served her postdoctoral fellowship at Argonne National Laboratory, developing thin-film diamond coatings for electronics and healthcare markets, and also worked as a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Illinois on novel diffusion barriers. She holds several patents and publications from her earlier active, individual contributor years.
Gerbi holds a PhD degree in materials science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a MS degree in physics from the University of Virginia, and a BA degree in physics from Bard College. She has had an intense, exciting and varied career since she set out as a Materials Research Society (MRS) Graduate Student Award recipient in 2000(!). Building on her experience at every step, from national laboratory to large industry to the federal government, she most recently received the DOE Secretary’s Honor Award (2022) and wrote an invited article for the National Academies of Science and Engineering regarding enabling risk-taking workplace cultures (2023). She has a particular interest in sharing how she overcame personal challenges, understanding how people work together and communicating about how workplace culture can make or break success.