Moniz becomes new energy secretary

Ernest Moniz, Ph.D., has been sworn in as the new secretary of energy, after the U.S. Senate confirmed his appointment on May 16, the Department of Energy said May 21.

“I look forward to the progress we will make together in the coming years — advancing the president’s all-of-the-above energy strategy, maintaining the nuclear deterrent and reducing the nuclear danger, promoting American leadership in science and clean energy technology innovation, and cleaning up the legacy of the Cold War,” Moniz wrote in an email to Department of Energy staff.

Moniz, a nuclear physicist, was a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology prior to his appointment to the Obama administration. Recently Moniz served as the founding director of the MIT Energy Initiative and of the MIT Laboratory for Energy and the Environment. He was also a leader of multidisciplinary technology and policy studies on the future of nuclear power, coal, nuclear fuel cycles, natural gas, and solar energy in a low-carbon world, the Department of Energy said. Moniz served as under-secretary of energy in the Clinton administration.

—Alan Bailey