Zaina’s research titled “ Clean Steel Development in Southern Africa: Air Quality, Climate, and Economic Impacts ” was one of over 70 CMU student research projects entered in the 2026 CMU Energy Week Poster Competition! The abstract for her research is below. Merchant shared: “I had a great time presenting a poster at Energy Week! It was a wonderful opportunity to speak with other students, faculty, and industry professionals about my research. As a first-year student, I am

LEO Ph.D. student Emily Allendorf was awarded the Robert W. Dunlap Award for her Part B research. Congratulations, Judy! About the award: The Robert W. Dunlap Award for best Part B Qualifier Solution was instituted in 2011. The winner is chosen by the Part B Question Committee. Winners are catalogued on an engraved plaque that hangs in the EPP main office. Additionally, the winner receives a monetary award of $250 after taxes. If there is a tie, each recipient receives $250.0

LEO Ph.D. student Emily Allendorf was awarded the Herbert L. Toor Award for her Part A research. Congratulations, Emily! About the award: The Herbert L. Toor Award for best Part A Qualifier Paper was instituted in 1989. There is special recognition given only in those years when the faculty judge that one of the qualifier papers is outstanding. The winner is chosen by EPP faculty. In the early 1990s, the winner was chosen using a ranking ballot. By 2010, the winner was chos

LEO member Tamar Moss has been selected to receive the Phillips and Huang Family Fellowship in Energy. This fellowship pays a portion of tuition and supports highly deserving College of Engineering PhD students whose research advances renewable energy and energy efficiency. The award recognizes Tamar’s outstanding research and her strong potential for continued impact in the field. Congratulations, Tamar!

Valerie Karplus participated in a National Academies webinar on February 12 at 1 PM ET about the promise and potential of energy parks. The discussion explored how energy parks can meet increasing energy demand, provide energy resilience and reliability, and support the testing of innovative technologies. Energy Parks are an emerging approach to designing integrated hubs that co-locate generation, storage, and large-scale load (e.g. data centers, advanced manufacturing) at on

Karplus's talk — Energy Management and Systems Change in Factories and Supply Chains in China — was delivered on Friday, January 30, 2026, as part of the SCCEI's Seminar Series (Winter 2026). Read the abstract here .

Hoffmann, Elina S., Karplus, Valerie J., Pistorius, P. Chris. "An Open-Source Framework for Evaluating the Cost and Greenhouse Gas Emission Impacts of Design Decisions in Hydrogen Direct Reduced Iron Production," AIST Transactions , Iron & Steel Technology , February 2026, Vol. 23, No. 2, pp. 196-211. DOI 10.33313/TR/0226. View the paper here

The findings of a recently published study by LEO member Dr. Elina Hoffmann, Dr. Valerie Karplus, and INDABA partner Dr. Chris Pistorius are discussed in this CMU news story by Monica Cooney, Communications Manager, Materials Science and Engineering, published January 20, 2026. The study "analyzes variations in operations across the global blast furnace fleet and its impact on CO 2 emissions, finding that emissions could have been reduced by as much as 9.6% globally and 15.

Hoffmann, Elina S., Karplus, Valerie J., Pistorius, Chris P. 2025. Heterogeneous operations and opportunities to reduce CO2 emissions in global blast furnace ironmaking. Environmental Research: Letters 21 024005. View the paper here

Moore, Emily J., et al. 2025. Status of CCS injection well regulation in the United States and correlates of project location and maturity . Environmental Research: Energy 2 045021. View the paper here

Western Pennsylvania and West Virginia have all the ingredients needed to be a powerhouse of industrial innovation: grid infrastructure, strong industrial bases, and the presence of research universities with deep expertise in artificial intelligence (AI), energy systems, robotics, and automation. The challenge is how to ensure the region leverages these strengths to lead in—and, importantly, benefit from—the next wave of economic opportunity, spurred by the development of ne

Curtis, S. E., B. Fischhoff, and V. J. Karplus. 2025. Subsistence preference in practice: access decisions in salmon fisheries in the Alaskan Yukon River. Ecology and Society 30(4):43. View the paper here

The Wilton E. Scott Institute for Energy Innovation hosted a research workshop on Accelerating Green Steel at Carnegie Mellon University. The workshop gathered experts on iron and steelmaking from around the globe on September 4-5, 2025. The workshop was co-hosted by the Center for Iron and Steelmaking Research (CISR), with support from the Industrial Decarbonization Analysis, Benchmarking, and Action Partnership, funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation. The workshop b

The outcomes of the 2025 CMU Accelerating Green Steel Workshop, co-hosted on campus from September 4-5, 2025 by the Wilton E. Scott Institute for Energy Innovation and the Center for Iron and Steelmaking Research, are discussed in this CMU news article by Scott Institute Communications Manager, Giordana Verrengia, published November 13, 2025. Read the story here.

Karplus, V and C Samaras (2025), ‘Downsizing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration‘, in Gensler, G, S Johnson, U Panizza and B Weder di Mauro (eds), The Economic Consequences of The Second Trump Administration: A Preliminary Assessment, CEPR Press, Paris & London. View the chapter here.

Armitage, Sara; Barrage, Lint; Burtraw, Dallas; Colmer, Jonathan; De Preux, Laure; Gillignham, Kenneth T.; Hawkins-Pierot, Jonathan; Holt, Charles; Karplus, Valerie J.; Löfgren, Åsa; Martin, Ralf; Miller, Nathan; Muûls, Mirabelle; Osborne, Matthew; Severnini, Edson; Shobe, Willian; Sileo, Grethcen; Smirnyagin, Vladimir; Stoerk Thomas; Tsyvinski, Aleh; Wagner, Katherine; Wagner, Ulrich J.; Wu, Xi (2025). New frontiers in research on industrial decarbonization. Science Vol. 39

Valerie Karplus just published a new discussion paper entitled Sustaining the Global Energy Transition with the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements. The paper considers the implications of high interest rates, trade tensions, and energy geopolitics for the deployment of technologies to decarbonize industries worldwide and argues for strategies that maintain momentum that are connected with objectives beyond climate alone. View the paper here . A related LinkedIn post about

The Resilient Energy Technology and Infrastructure Consortium , led by a team at West Virginia University in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh, and over 60 regional partners, was selected on Sept. 18 as a finalist in the competition for a prestigious $160 million National Science Foundation Regional Innovation Engines award. The LEO Group is involved in supporting the group’s R&D and policy engagement efforts to grow a vibrant energy

LEO Principal Investigator Valerie Karplus presented research and facilitated a hackathon at this year's Future of Heavy Industries USA...

The Laboratory for Energy and Innovation celebrated the graduation of three newly-minted PhDs in Engineering and Public Policy at CMU’s...