Costa Samaras Appointed Director and Valerie Karplus, Associate Director, of the Scott Institute
By Nicole Rihn
An EST&P prior core faculty member, Costa Samaras (CEE), has been named the Director of the Wilton E. Scott Institute for Energy Innovation. Samaras taught one of EST&P’s core courses, Energy Demand and Utilization (39-611), from Fall 2014 to Spring 2021 (to eight different EST&P cohorts). He frequently supervised research projects for EST&P students and provided career guidance. He stepped away in 2021 when he was invited to serve in the Biden-Harris administration in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).
Valerie Karplus (EPP), an affiliated EST&P faculty member, has been appointed the Associate Director of the Wilton E. Scott Institute for Energy Innovation. Since Fall 2021, Karplus has taught her own section of the Master’s EST&P Project course (39-660), focusing on group projects in de-carbonization. In Fall 2022 and 2023, the project course (cross-listed with EPP's Special Topics: Advancing Low Carbon Transition in Industry (19-664) in 2022) focused on decabonization in the steel industry and attracted students from across the university, including EST&P.
We want to congratulate Costa and Valerie and are looking forward to their new roles!