History
Investing in a Cleaner, Greener, Future
Founded in 2009, through a generous gift from Stewart and Lynda Resnick with additional support from the Gordon and Betty Moore Matching Program, the Resnick Sustainability Institute at Caltech has become a leader in innovative science and engineering research for a sustainable future.
Jonas C. Peters, Caltech Bren Professor of Chemistry, was appointed Director in 2015. His expertise is in chemical catalysis with broad relevance to global carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen cycles, and distributed energy conversion strategies.
Harry A. Atwater, Jr., Caltech's Howard Hughes Professor of Applied Physics and Materials Science, was appointed founding director in 2009 and served in that role until 2015. He is currently the Director of the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis -the US Department of Energy Innovation Hub.
The Resnick Sustainability Institute serves as Caltech's hub for cross-disciplinary scientific and engineering research aimed at solving global energy and climate challenges. The institute is located in the heart of the Caltech campus, in the Earle M. Jorgensen Laboratory, which was renovated and rededicated in the Fall of 2012.
The Resnick Sustainability Institute celebrated its 10-year anniversary in 2019 and the dawn of a new era in sustainability research at Caltech, made possible by a breakthrough $750M pledge from Stewart and Lynda Resnick. The Resnick Sustainability Institute proudly supports a diverse range of projects, with an agile and evolving infrastructure that is able to provide training and resources towards solutions with environmental, economic and societal value.