James Maughan

Providing clean, sustainable, and affordable energy around the world is indeed a grand challenge, with multiple technical, financial, and political dimensions. This seminar will highlight some of the practical considerations and tradeoffs required to meet this goal from the perspective of an industrial provider of energy infrastructure. The discussion will include market trends that are likely to emerge, ongoing technology developments that make some solutions more promising, and technical, cost, or system challenges that unfortunately may make other solutions less probable. There is no single answer that must be adopted everywhere at once. The solution lies in flexibility, and multiple approaches that will change over time. Nevertheless, the pace of change and improvement continues to accelerate, leading to confidence this grand challenge can be solved, as it must for the billions who need the benefits of power and energy.

James R. Maughan gained his perspective and expertise in energy through various technical and leadership positions with General Electric. He began his career in 1989 at their research center in Schenectady, NY, USA, working in the area of low emissions combustion for power turbines and aircraft engines. He later transferred to GE Power to develop and introduce new gas turbine, steam turbine, wind turbine, and repair and service products. Additional roles at GE Research included General Manager of GE’s energy-related research, and Technical Director of Aerothermal and Mechanical research across GE. His current role began in 2016, where he leads the startup of a facility for the design and manufacture of superalloy hot gas path airfoils. 
He holds a B.S. from Brigham Young University, and a M.S. and Ph.D. from Purdue University, all in Mechanical Engineering.