128th Distinguished Research Lecture: Harnessing Sunlight & Mentoring Startup Founders to Address Climate Change (Michael McGehee)

Professor Michael McGehee (Chemical and Biological Engineering, RASEI) built his research group with a mission to pattern materials at the smallest length scales to address one of humanity’s biggest problems: global climate change. In this talk, he highlights two key inventions and the spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship that has been foundational to his approach.

The group’s early work on printable solar cells ultimately helped lead to perovskite tandem solar cells, which are 30 percent more efficient than conventional silicon solar cells and are now being developed by more than a dozen businesses, including spinouts Swift Solar and Tandem PV. McGehee and his students also invented windows with adjustable tinting that can reduce heating, cooling and lighting costs by 20 percent, leading to the founding of Tynt Technologies.

Students from McGehee’s lab have founded 22 companies. He will share lessons from these founders and how they inform his teaching in Boulder Climate Ventures, a course focused on climate entrepreneurship. The lecture will conclude with thoughts on the controversial subject of cooling the planet with optical geoengineering.