Energy

1. Recipient: MIT Energy Seed Fund
   Amount: $500,000
   Time Period: May 2008 – August 2012
   
   In March 2008, MITEI announced its first round of Energy Seed Grant recipients – MIT faculty teams with innovative ideas for new projects to address energy challenges.
   
   From harnessing microbes to developing new materials, from curbing pollution to harvesting wasted watts, a wide variety of MIT research projects in solar technology, climate change impacts and power transmission were among those chosen to receive more than $1.6 million in the MIT Energy Initiative's (MITEI) first round of campus seed grants.
   
   The grants, which range from $30,000 to $150,000 and last anywhere from one semester to two years, are intended to help launch new or early stage projects that, it is hoped, will then produce enough results to be able to secure outside funding for further development. In all, 11 projects were selected to receive major grants totaling some $1.4 million, while six other projects proposed by junior faculty members were chosen for shorter-term grants.



2. Recipient: MIT Energy Study Fund
   Amount: $1,200,000
   Time Period: May 2008 – August 2012
   
   In May 2008, the MIT Energy Initiative announced the launch of the MIT Future of Solar Energy Study, the third in a series of faculty led, interdisciplinary studies that explore the contribution that different energy technologies could make to meet the future energy needs of the United States and the world.
   
   Past studies include the MIT Future of Nuclear Power study in 2004 and MIT Future of Coal study in 2006. Institute Professor John Deutch will serve as chair of the new MIT Future of Solar Energy Study. Students will participate in the study, which will have an outside advisory committee chaired by Philip Sharp, President of Resources for the Future.



3. Recipient: MIT Sustainable Energy Revolution Program
   Amount: $500,000
   Time Period: May 2008 – August 2012
   
   The Sustainable Energy Revolution Program (SERP) will be a center administered by the MIT Energy Initiative to address energy challenges across renewable topic areas, starting with solar and continuing into wind, waves, tidal, geothermal, and biomass.
   
   Dr. Ernest Moniz, Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics and Engineering Systems and Director of the MIT Energy Initiative, will serve as Co-Chairman with Arunas Chesonis, Chairman and CEO of PAETEC Communications and benefactor of the Chesonis Family Foundation.



4. Recipient: Solar Revolution Project at MIT
   Amount: $7,800,000
   Time Period: May 2008 – August 2012
   
   The Solar Revolution Project (SRP), funded by a $10 million gift from the Foundation, will explore new materials and systems that could dramatically accelerate the availability of solar energy. The SRP will complement and interact closely with other large solar projects at MIT, creating one of the largest solar energy clusters at any research university.
   
   Projects sponsored by corporations or governmental agencies often have stringent and frequent status reports than deter risk taking in the lab and impede fundamental breakthroughs.
   
   “High quality” dollars are those that demand lower frequency check points and allow researchers to think creatively, investigate longer-range solutions, and take risks with a higher likelihood of larger incremental change to the state of the art.
   
   Foundations and private philanthropists are uniquely positioned to give in a flexible manner to maintain a level of trust with fellowship recipients while giving researchers the freedom to innovate.
   
   By awarding unrestricted gifts to trusted MIT faculty rather than grants to specific projects, the SRP is guided by the principle of investing in people, not projects.
   
   SRP investigators have the freedom to explore and, if necessary, to change direction in their research. Moreover, they have support to follow their ideas through to fruition - even if that process takes many years.
   
   Click here to view a document with more details about SRP projects



5. Recipient: Photovoltaic University Education Workshop VIP Dinner Sponsorship
   Amount: $2,500
   Time Period: January-May 2008
   
   Only July 17 and 18, 2008, MIT’S Professor Tonio Buonassisi convened 20 of the world’s top photovoltaic researchers and educators together in Cambridge, MA to develop the next generation of collegiate PV curriculum. On the evening before the summit, the Chesonis Foundation co-sponsored a VIP dinner for the meeting attendees with the objective of building the community around solar at MIT.



6. Recipient: Raw Solar Dish Concentrator Course Sponsorship
   Amount: $500
   Time Period: July 2008
   
   In January 2008, MIT mechanical engineering graduate student Spencer Ahrens and a team of peers put together a curriculum for an IAP course at MIT that taught students from across disciplines how to construct a solar dish concentrator. For a project that could be on the very cutting edge of renewable energy, this one is actually decidedly low tech--and that's the point.
   
   The team of students has spent the last few months assembling a prototype for a concentrating solar power system they think could revolutionize the field. It's a 12-foot-square mirrored dish capable of concentrating sunlight by a factor of 1,000, built from simple, inexpensive industrial materials selected for price, durability and ease of assembly rather than for optimum performance.
   
   The student team has already formed a company – Raw Solar – that they hope will one day have an assembly line cranking out cheap solar dishes that individually or in large arrays could supply affordable heat to a college campus, suburban home, or third-world village.
   
   



7. Recipient: Thermoelectric Power Generation Student Group
   Amount: $850
   Time Period: November 2007-August 2008
   
   MIT's cogeneration plant, which provides most of the electricity, heat and air conditioning for the campus, could get even more efficient if a team of students' project to harness surplus heat works as expected.
   
   Andy Muto and Daniel Kraemer, graduate students in mechanical engineering, and Bryan Ho, a graduate student in materials science and engineering, have been working together on a thermoelectric system that could be installed in a hot-water pipe, or in exhaust flues at the plant, to get some extra electric power from heat currently going to waste.



8. Recipient: Clinton Global Initiative
   Amount: $35,000
   Time Period: September 2007 – August 2008
   
   President Bill Clinton launched the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) in 2005 as a non-partisan catalyst for action, bringing together a community of global leaders to devise and implement innovative solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges. Sarah Wood, Executive Director of the Chesonis Family Foundation, has been a CGI member since 2007.
   
   The defining characteristics of the Clinton Global Initiative are its action-oriented nature and its track record of converting pioneering ideas into viable solutions with tangible results. CGI members develop ‘commitments to action’, focusing on practical, effective problem-solving measures that can be taken now. Member commitments are comprehensive, formal plans of action with timetables for evaluating progress. They are developed within one or more CGI areas of focus, which change annually to address the most imperative global issues requiring attention. After the 2007 CGI Annual Meeting, the Chesonis Family Foundation announced a commitment to the area of energy and climate change.



9. Recipient: CEEP Energy Futures Week
   Amount: $10,000
   Time Period: February 2008
   
   The MIT Clean Energy Entrepreneurship Prize‘s mission is to be the catalyst for a unified competition to help develop a new generation of energy entrepreneurs and great new companies. This will be achieved by working to stimulate productive relationships between academic, community, industry, and government organizations with strong interests in meeting the world’s energy challenge through innovation and entrepreneurship.

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Earth Systems

1. Recipient: Earth System Initiative Ignition Grants Program
   Amount: $51,000
   Time Period: September 2007-March 2008
   
   One of the most meaningful ways to enable innovation and discovery in the environmental sciences is to provide financial support for scientists and engineers to work on new, high risk projects. Currently, most traditional funding sources don’t support the most creative, cutting edge research. Rather they support more tried and true, less risky projects. The Earth System Initiative Ignition Grant Program seeks to bridge this gap, to allow scientists and engineers to do the preliminary research and generate the data they need to then pursue large amounts of funding from traditional sources.
   
   Each $50,000 grant not only has an immediate impact on enabling the exploration of a great idea, but the more our program builds, more great ideas crystallize and we build on MIT’s renowned culture of innovation and cross-disciplinary collaboration.



2. Recipient: Earth System Initiative Community Building Event
   Amount: $30,000
   Time Period: November 2007
   
   The MIT Earth System Initiative is a research and educational enterprise that cuts across environmentally-oriented disciplines such as geology, atmospheric science, oceanography, biology, chemistry, and environmental engineering.
   
   In the tradition of innovation that characterizes MIT, this Initiative provides a fertile ground for a new kind of Earth exploration – one that will marshal revolutionary tools and technologies to answer fundamental questions about life on Earth.
   
   By unveiling the processes of physical and biological change, ESI will build the understanding required to sustain the vital functions of the Earth system for future generations.



3. Recipient: Prochloroccocus Festival Sponsorship
   Amount: $5,000
   Time Period: July 2008
   
   Over the last 20 years, Prochlorococcus has emerged from being a newly-discovered group of cyanobacteria to become a well-studied model marine microbe that is of global importance. What began as an observation of a novel group of small marine phytoplankton, Prochlorococcus is now recognized as a genetically and physiologically diverse cluster of marine cyanobacteria that represents a key component in marine ecology and global biogeochemical cycles. The 20 year anniversary of the first formal description of Prochlorococcus was marked by a special colloquium highlighting past achievements, current research and future directions in the study of this important organism and its close relative Synechococccus.

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Rochester Community Building

1. Recipient: The Harley School
   Amount: $1,000,000
   Date: September 2009-August 2012



2. Recipient: Monroe Community College Foundation
   Amount: $1,200,000
   Date: September 2007-August 2011



3. Recipient: Friendly Home
   Amount: $100,000
   Date: September 2010-August 2012



4. Recipient: University of Rochester
   Amount: $1,000,000
   Date: September 2007-August 2011



5. Recipient: The Harley School
   Amount: $18,000
   Date: July 7, 2008



6. Recipient: St. Joseph’s Community Center
   Amount: $300
   Date: June 24, 2008



7. Recipient: Nazareth Schools
   Amount: $1,000
   Date: May 27, 2008



8. Recipient: Mary Cariola Children’s Center
   Amount: $500
   Date: May 9, 2008



9. Recipient: Women’s Foundation of Genesee Valley
   Amount: $1,000
   Date: April 10, 2008



10. Recipient: SSJ Daystar
    Amount: $1,000
    Date: March 19, 2008



11. Recipient: Kodak Park School No. 41
    Amount: $1,000
    Date: December 12, 2007



12. Recipient: SSJ Daystar
    Amount: $100
    Date: October 22, 2007



13. Recipient: Al Sigl Center
    Amount: $500
    Date: September 7, 2007