Stanford Energy Postdoctoral Fellowship is a cross-campus effort of the Precourt Institute for Energy.

Cultivating energy leaders

The Stanford Energy Postdoctoral Fellowship aims to identify, develop, and connect the next generation of energy leaders from science and engineering to policy and economics to address the challenges of the global energy transformation through interdisciplinary approaches.

Featured fellowship news

  • Hard questions, soft materials

    Carlos Diaz-Marin and his colleagues are engineering inexpensive materials called hydrogels to collect water from the air, capture carbon from the atmosphere, and massively improve heating efficiency, among other sustainability challenges.

  • Postdocs merge perspectives on reaching net zero

    Stanford Energy Postdoctoral Fellows Jackie Dowling and Chenfei Qu approach decarbonization from different but often overlapping angles. Together, they arrive at the same conclusion about what building clean, reliable energy systems will require.

    Precourt Institute

Stanford University

Ranked in Nature in 2022 as the top US Institution in affordable and clean energy research, Stanford University is leading the energy transformation in academia.  

Preparation

Fellows participate in professional programming that complements their postdoctoral work and prepares them to take on leadership roles in energy in all sectors of academia, industry, government, and nonprofit.

Community

A new cohort of up to 10 fellows is selected each year, adding to a diverse community of scholars from across disciplines, perspectives, nationalities, and identities. Fellows learn and grow together, developing lifelong friendships along the way.

A word from the director

Yi Cui profile photo

I know how beneficial a great postdoctoral program can be. I began researching sustainable energy technology as a Miller postdoctoral fellow at UC–Berkeley and Berkeley Lab. In 2004, Steve Chu became director of the lab. Steve, a Nobel physicist, arrived with such a strong commitment to sustainable energy. He and I overlapped for only about a year before I was hired as an assistant professor at Stanford, but I started my focus on energy research based on what I had first learned from Steve.

Coming full circle: Steve, also at Stanford after his time as U.S. secretary of energy, has agreed to chair the Stanford Energy Postdoctoral Fellowship’s advisory board. I and the other leaders of the program are thrilled Steve has taken on this role.

If you are interested in interdisciplinary research in pursuit of sustainable, affordable, secure energy for all people, I encourage you to apply and hope to see you soon on the Stanford campus.

- Yi Cui
Director, Sustainability Accelerator, Stanford University
Director, Stanford Energy Postdoctoral Fellowship
Professor, Materials Science & Engineering