Page 35 - CEMS News Summer 2020

ALUMNI NEWS
Alumni awards continued from page 27
“I’m very proud to be granted this honor by the University,” noted Jones. “I believe that the University is a cornerstone of innovation for our state. I am always amazed at the value it provides through its various programs and I look forward to continuing to be actively involved in supporting its mission in the future.”
Franklin “Lynn” M. Orr, Jr. (PhD ChE ’76)
Lynn Orr has been honored with a prestigious University of Minnesota Outstanding Achievement Award for his accomplishments as the Former Undersecretary of Science and Energy for the U.S. Department of Energy, as a public servant and advocate for the environment and renewable energy, university leader and distinguished scholar. His scholarly
contributions and leadership in energy issues earned him election to the National
Academy of Engineering in 2000.
Orr has had a tremendously successful career in academia, first at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (1978-85), then at Stanford University (1985-2014), followed by service in the public sector as Undersecretary of Energy (2014-2017) during the Obama Administration. Orr also served as Dean of the School of
Returning home continued from page 21
Those specific experiences along with the broader interactions I enjoyed with the amazing faculty, staff and students of CEMS, make it clear to me that I will return to Minnesota to finish my planned sabbatical. That I have contact to the Twin Cities in my personal life is no longer a prerequisite; during my stay as the 2020 Piercy Visiting Professor, CEMS proved to be an inspiring and welcoming community that feels indeed like family and friends.
Erica T. Lilleodden
Professor for Experimental Nano- und Micromechanics, Institute of Advanced Ceramics, Hamburg University of Technology;
Department Head, Experimental Materials Mechanics, Institute of Materials Research, Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht
Earth Sciences at Stanford from 1994-2002.
He founded the Global Climate and Energy Project (GCEP) at Stanford and served as Director from 2002-2009. He also founded the Precourt Institute for Energy, which he directed from 2009-2013. The Precourt Institute now involves over 200 Stanford faculty focused on solar
and wind energy, hydrogen production, carbon capture, biomass conversion, and many other topics. No other US academic institution has a comparable investment in renewable energy research.
Upon learning of this recognition, Orr remarked, “I’m honored. I’ve been lucky all the way – choosing to
come to Minneapolis was a very good decision (despite obvious limitations of growing up in Texas from a weather standpoint).
The opportunities I’ve had to contribute have built, at almost every turn, on the foundation of technical, thinking, writing, and speaking skills that were developed and honed during my few years at the U of M. Looking back, that short time had a remarkable impact on me. Learning to hold my own in a debate with (Regents Professor Emeritus) Skip Scriven on some arcane topic of free- surface fluid mechanics turned out, decades later, to
be good training for dealing with tough questions from members of Congress. And, I learned how powerful it
can be to treat students as fully functioning research colleagues whose ideas are worth pursuing. That’s what Skip did with me, and I’ve tried to do that with my students over the decades that followed.”
Honored as the Visiting Piercy Professor, Erica Lilleodden reacts to remarks from Dan Frisbie, CEMS Department Head, during the Piercy Dinner. Photo credit: Rebecca Slater, By Rebecca Studios.
Lynn Orr
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