DOE Recognizes NREL Hydrogen Researchers at 2022 Annual Merit Review Awards

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The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Hydrogen Program recently honored three National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) researchers for their outstanding achievements at the 2022 Annual Merit Review and Peer Evaluation Meeting (AMR).

Each year, the DOE Hydrogen Program presents awards to recognize research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) achievements in specific program areas. The Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office (HFTO) Postdoctoral Recognition Award is also awarded annually to identify postdoctoral fellows from DOE national laboratories with outstanding contributions in hydrogen and fuel cell technologies RD&D.

Technology Acceleration—Daniel Leighton

NREL’s Daniel Leighton was recognized for outstanding leadership in incorporating hydrogen and fuel cell technologies into the Advanced Research on Integrated Energy Systems (ARIES) platform. Leighton is leading the megawatt-scale hydrogen system capability buildout at NREL's Flatirons Campus, which will support H2@Scale goals by enabling integrated systems RD&D, including demonstrating grid services, energy storage, renewable hydrogen production, and innovative end use applications. Leighton has demonstrated exceptional planning, due diligence, and communication to successfully navigate and mitigate challenging supply chain issues to advance the integration and scaling of hydrogen energy systems.

HFTO Postdoctoral Recognition Award—Carlos Baez-Cotto

NREL’s Carlos Baez-Cotto is a first-place winner of the 2022 HFTO Postdoctoral Recognition Award for his work in formulating strategies for the large-scale manufacturing of crack-free electrodes for fuel cells. He made notable contributions to HFTO’s Million Mile Fuel Cell Truck Consortium, has four peer-reviewed publications, and has received multiple awards for his RD&D efforts. At NREL, his work focuses on addressing formulation and processing conditions that enable fabrication of crack-free catalyst layer electrodes, and on mitigating defects that enable increased durability in fuel cells, particularly for heavy-duty vehicles.

HFTO Postdoctoral Recognition Award (Runner-Up)—Ryan Klein

NREL’s Ryan Klein is a runner-up of the 2022 HFTO Postdoctoral Recognition Award. Klein was recognized for his significant contributions to the Hydrogen Materials Advanced Research Consortium in characterizing hydrogen storage materials using neutron scattering techniques for a variety of samples from five different national laboratories. Klein has conducted extensive work in materials-based hydrogen storage research, including developing design criteria for new metal hydride materials with greatly enhanced volumetric storage capacities, and elucidating mechanisms of hydrogen-induced flexibility and storage in flexible metal-organic frameworks. Klein has 13 publications, including a book chapter on neutron scattering measurements for hydrogen storage materials, and has also received multiple awards for his RD&D efforts.

See the full list of winners of the 2022 Annual Merit Review Awards and 2022 HFTO Postdoctoral Recognition Awards. NREL principal investigators presented the status and accomplishments of dozens of NREL-led projects at the meeting, and their presentations are available in the 2022 AMR Proceedings.

Learn more about NREL's hydrogen and fuel cells research.