Professor Green – often described as the “father of modern photovoltaics” – is recognized for his pioneering efforts and groundbreaking achievements in high conversion efficiency of silicon photovoltaic materials as well as leading the invention and development of the passivated emitter and rear contact (PERC) solar cell.

PERC technology improved the quality of both the top and rear surfaces of standard silicon solar cells, resulting in greater and more efficient generation. This allowed more electricity to be generated from sunlight, lowering costs and increasing the adoption of sustainable solar energy worldwide.

The technology breakthrough helped increase the conversion efficiency of standard solar cells by over 50% in relative terms from 16.5% in the early 1980s to 25% in the early 2000s. Through successive improvements to cell design and fabrication, Green and his team held the record for silicon cell efficiency for 30 of the past 40 years.

PERC currently dominates solar cell production worldwide. Together with Tunnel Oxide Passivated Contact (TOPCon) cells – first demonstrated by Green’s research group at UNSW – the cells account for more than 90% of solar cells manufactured in the world today at a sales value exceeding $100 billion USD to date.

Development of this technology also resulted in the training of a generation of students who, with Green’s support, applied their acquired skills to establish solar cell manufacturing in Asia. These achievements are unique globally in both the quantum of efficiency improvement and the share of manufacturing capacity.

Professor Green is thrilled to be awarded the Leigh Ann Conn Prize. “From the start of my career, I was determined to do something that would make a difference in the world. I am very proud that, through the efforts of my team and countless others, we now have low-cost solar as a means for reducing the impact of climate change while, at the same time, reducing the cost of energy generation, something not widely thought possible only a decade ago,” said Green.

UNSW’s acting Vice-Chancellor and President Professor George Williams congratulated Professor Green on winning the Prize.

“Martin is a brilliant engineer whose leadership and accomplishments have led to the creation and development of the world’s solar manufacturing industry. His life’s work benefits people around the globe every day and is arguably our biggest weapon to combat global warming and climate change. Everyone at UNSW is proud to celebrate this well-deserved honour with him,” Williams said.

In March 2024, Green will give a public lecture in Louisville about his winning work and achievements, trials and tribulations. He will receive the Conn Prize medal and $50,000 award at a formal ceremony.

“Professor Martin Green is a true pioneer in the field of photovoltaics,” said University of Louisville President Kim Schatzel, who will confer the award. “His work in solar cell technology is of great importance worldwide, and it is an honor to bestow upon him the Leigh Ann Conn Prize.”

The UofL prize is named for the late daughter of Hank and Rebecca Conn, who were university alumni, supporters and the prize benefactors. Their vision to create a legacy in honor of Leigh Ann celebrates scientists with the fortitude, patience, and resiliency to endure renewable energy technology innovation and translation into the marketplace, where impact occurs.

Nominations for the 2025 Leigh Ann Conn Prize competition close Dec. 31, 2024. Criteria and instructions are found at . For more information, contact Andrew Marsh at 502-852-8597 or LeighAnnConnPrize@louisville.edu.

The RJ Project will use the $75,000 award from the National Sea Grant Law Center through NOAA’s National Coastal Resilience Fund to examine coastal urban adaptation in the eight cities: Boston, Cleveland, Miami, New Orleans, San Diego, Savannah, Seattle and Tampa. Principal investigator Tony Arnold, the Herbert F. Boehl Chair in Property and Land Use at Brandeis Law, and his team will collaborate with researchers at Georgetown University and Georgia State University.

The project will examine how the cities are currently ensuring that their climate adaptation plans are equitable and fair.

“We will assess plans, policies and laws affecting climate adaptation in these eight coastal urban areas with an eye towards addressing the vulnerabilities of low-income neighborhoods of color,” Arnold said. “We’ll then use our assessments to produce a guidebook of best practices and a series of webinars so that any city can use the information to make their climate adaptation planning equitable for all neighborhoods.”

The project utilizes the Resilience Justice Assessment Framework, pioneered by Arnold and Resilience Justice Fellows at Brandeis Law. The Resilience Justice Project addresses the inequitable vulnerabilities of communities, such as neighborhoods, to many different shocks and changes.

“Systems of injustice, inequality, marginalization and oppression have undermined the capacities of low-income communities of color to resist and adapt to shocks and changes,” Arnold said. “These shocks and changes include climate change, economic shocks, political change, disasters, pollution, health crises and many other disruptions.

“Many low-income neighborhoods of color have both community-based resilience but also vulnerabilities that come from inequitable conditions and systems of inequitable policies. We aim to empower marginalized communities so that they can thrive, not just survive.”

Arnold and his team will build on work they began last year using the framework in a project funded by the EPA and Kentucky Division of Water to examine the 34-square-mile Mill Creek watershed in southwest Louisville. In this study, the research team gathered the views and needs of residents on environmental and community conditions and is providing the information to the Louisville/Jefferson County Metropolitan Sewer District.

“We’re taking what we’ve learned about how the framework worked with Mill Creek to the eight cities in the new project,” Arnold said. “We’ll continue to be engaged with the Mill Creek watershed community while we carry out the work under our new grant. In this way, all communities involved can learn from one another.”

Along with his law school appointment, Arnold holds an affiliated professorship in , part of the College of Arts and Sciences. The Resilience Justice Fellows working on the project are Brandeis Law students Ralph Banchstubbs, Carcyle Barrett, Irie Ewers, Jake Mace, Colin Sheehan and Laken Wadsworth and Ph.D. candidate in Urban and Public Affairs Rebecca Wells-Gonzalez.

The collaborating groups working with UofL on the project are the Georgetown Climate Center at Georgetown Law School and the Center for the Comparative Study of Metropolitan Growth at Georgia State. They also will work with local governments and community-based environmental justice groups in the eight coastal areas.

The research project is titled “Equitable Coastal Urban Adaptation to Climate Change: A Resilience Justice Assessment” and is supported by National Sea Grant Law Center grant PTE Federal Award Number NA22OAR4170089, Subaward Number 24-07-08.

That funding, an increase of more than $30 million over the previous record set a year earlier, supported work to address some of the biggest global problems of our time, including climate change and battling the COVID-19 pandemic.

“UofL is truly a research powerhouse, continuously blazing new trails and seeking answers to important questions,” said UofL President Neeli Bendapudi. “This record-breaking year for funding is proof of that fact, but it also shows our research and scholarship are a great investment — that UofL is a great place to invest.”

The value of that investment is especially apparent in the university’s work to combat COVID-19. In the past year, researchers investigated innovative new treatments, led widespread community testing and developed new methods that could revolutionize how we track and contain future disease outbreaks.

“The research we do here at UofL has real impact — it can improve the way we live and work, spur economic development, and in some cases, it literally saves lives,” said Kevin Gardner, UofL’s executive vice president for research and innovation. “This funding makes that important work possible.”

The 2021 fiscal year was also far-and-away the university’s best year on record for commercialization income. UofL earned $26.7 million from license royalties and other related income from university research-born intellectual property, nearly triple the previous record set just a year before, and was awarded 80 new patents.

The increased income was propelled by strong deals and development funding, including the license of UofL-born drugs to fight cancer and other conditions. UofL also received grants to develop new technologies, including those addressing societal problems caused by COVID-19.

The past fiscal year also saw the launch of two new startups based on university-born technology. One, iTolerance Inc., signed an exclusive license for a UofL therapy that helps people with Type 1 diabetes stay off immunosuppressants, and is now developing it for clinical use.

To support the launch of more startups based on university technology, UofL recently launched UofL New Ventures, within the . UofL New Ventures is dedicated to broad entrepreneurial support, from forging connections with experienced and potential company founders to helping the resulting startups attract funding and market share.

“It’s important for people to know that our research doesn’t end with a paper or manuscript,” Gardner said. “It ends in getting our research out into the world in the form of innovative new companies, partnerships and technologies. Our goal is innovation with impact.”

UofL will lead the project in Kentucky with a public webinar April 7 on “Green Recovery and Climate Solutions,” one of 136 events held by universities in every state and 50 countries around the world in early April. Students and the public can participate in the project by watching the discussion with Kentucky energy experts on concrete ways to move the needle on climate change while creating jobs and income for all and then keep the conversation going in the classroom and in the community.

The UofL event will feature Rebecca Goodman, secretary of the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet, Steve Ricketts, co-owner and general manager of Solar Energy Solutions LLC and Zachary Kuznar, managing director of regulated renewables for Duke Energy, which has a company goal to reduce CO₂ emission by 50% by 2030 and 100% by 2050. The discussion will be moderated by Jacek Jasinski and Joshua Spurgeon, both faculty members in the UofL and theme leaders in the UofL .

“Our energy strategy must be market-based, aggressively pursue innovation and energy efficiency and promote a climate-resilient infrastructure,” Goodman said. “It must focus on affordability, reliability and resilience.”

“We have 10 years to solve climate (change) and we can get a lot done in this decade, but only if we focus the world on climate solutions,” Jasinski said. “We are proud to lead Kentucky for this global climate education project, and we hope students and concerned citizens across the state will join us for this important conversation.”

The event will be livestreamed via on April 7 from 2 to 4 p.m. A one-hour presentation will be followed by a one-hour panel discussion. The recorded webinar will be posted at the same YouTube address following the event. Register for the event at the . The recorded webinars from all participating sites will be posted there.

Teachers in higher education, high school and middle school are encouraged to assign the live or recorded UofL webinar as homework and lead the students in a discussion about the topics addressed. Project leaders from Bard College have prepared to assist instructors in every discipline teach the class.

“You don’t have to be an expert on climate to talk with your students,” said Eban Goodstein, economist at Bard College and director of the Solve Climate project. “Every subject contributes to understanding climate solutions. Whether you are teaching art, literature, business, philosophy or any other discipline, you can access the easy-to-use teaching guides to make climate a class.” 

In addition to the teaching support, organizers have designated the hashtag #MakeClimateAClass to spread awareness of the event and have developed a short to emphasize the need for action.

Photo provided by .��

“Part of what we want our children to understand is that climate change is happening everywhere, but it looks different in different parts of the world,“ Miller said.

Two of Moore teacher Ben Kolb’s science classes interacted with students from South Africa for more than an hour via Skype, asking about each other’s daily lives, the environment in their home countries and their shared project on climate change.

“We’re doing something called The DOT project and it stands for ‘do one thing,’” said Riley Burton, Moore middle school student. “Some of the ideas have been to take shorter showers and don’t use as much water. Reduce, reuse, and recycle, and use less plastic to help save the animals in the oceans.”

Sadie Dickinson, a Marion C. Moore student, was excited when she was able to interact with people from the country where she grew up.

“It was like a little taste of home, honestly. It’s a way to connect with them in a different way,” said Dickinson.

‘We are partnering with our schools here and in other parts of the world to try to bring the research and educational resources of the university out into the community to work together to address climate change,” said Miller.

Check out more from the program: 

The board of trustees approved a new Bachelor of Arts in Sustainability degree at its meeting Sept. 22. Classes will begin next fall.

The degree will be the first undergraduate degree housed in the Department of Urban and Public Affairs (UPA), which coordinates several master’s degrees including the new Master of Interdisciplinary Studies: Concentration in Sustainability that began enrolling students this fall.

“We have been working for several years to make this bachelor’s degree a reality,” said David Simpson, PhD, chair of UPA and of the university’s 60-member Sustainability Council. “I know that graduates of this degree will make a difference in their own communities and the world.”

UofL is leading the way in programs and education in sustainability, he said, adding that creating the degree “positions graduates to be thought leaders and solution seekers in the many facets of sustainability, from the environment to health, conservation and community quality of life, among many others.”

Simpson noted that UofL is the only university in the state to receive the top sustainability ranking from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher ����ֱ��, earning a gold STARS ranking earlier this year. In addition, The Sierra Club ranked UofL in the Top 50 of its 2016 “” (No. 43).

The new bachelor’s degree program will train students to research, identify, implement and monitor sustainable processes and systems. It is designed to prepare students for future careers in sustainability-related endeavors, including the environment, energy, climate change, public policy, transportation, and urban and regional planning. It will also serve as a well-rounded base to allow students to pursue graduate training in affiliated fields of study. The degree is designed as an interdisciplinary program and will require a minimum of 124 hours to complete.

The degree program proposal was based on models from other university programs, several years of discussion at the university among interested departments, and through the Sustainability Council. The Faculty Senate recommended the creation of the Bachelor of Arts degree in Sustainability during its May meeting, and the Council on Postsecondary ����ֱ�� 45-day review of the preproposal was completed on July 22.