New Energy Appoints Business Partnering and Scientific Experts

New Energy Technologies, Inc. announced the appointments of Dr. Scott R. Hammond as principal scientist, and Dr. Christopher M. Harris to the company’s Board of Advisors.

Both Drs. Hammond and Harris were previously tenured at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), one of the world’s most respected and advanced solar-photovoltaic research institutions. NREL and New Energy have been working through a cooperative research and development agreement to advance the company’s SolarWindow technology, capable of generating electricity on see-through glass.

“I’m honored to welcome Dr. Harris and Dr. Hammond to our team,” stated John A. Conklin, president and CEO of New Energy Technologies, Inc. “Dr. Hammond brings a special blend of organic chemistry and photovoltaic device fabrication experience important to advancing our SolarWindow technology towards commercial production. As a nuclear physicist, patent agent and licensing executive who’s successfully partnered new technologies with Fortune 500 corporations, Dr. Harris has the depth of technical insight and business expertise that we very much look forward to leveraging.”

Dr. Harris joins New Energy’s Board of Advisors with a proven track record of exploiting novel renewable energy technologies for commercial partnership, joint-venture and technology and product development. His expertise includes evaluating a technology’s technical strength, building key strategies for advancing product development with commercial partners and negotiating tactical licensing agreements with public research institutions, private companies and Fortune 500 corporations.

Dr. Harris is a certified licensing professional and a registered patent agent at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. He earned his PhD in nuclear and particle physics, and master’s and bachelor’s degrees in physics at the University of Virginia.

Dr. Harris currently serves as director of licensing at Vanderbilt University. Previously, he tenured as associate director, licensing at NREL, and as senior licensing manager at the University of Virginia Patent Foundation.

New Energy also announced the appointment of principal scientist Dr. Hammond. His expertise includes the development of coatings for generating electricity and the application of such coatings in the fabrication of photovoltaic device architectures. This combination of skills is important to the advancement of SolarWindow, which makes use of electricity-generating coatings applied to see-through glass surfaces.

Electricity-generating coatings, consisting largely of ‘polymers’, are first designed and subsequently produced by way of synthesis; Dr. Hammond’s experience includes such polymer design and organic synthesis. He also brings skills specific to various systems and methods for applying these coatings to various material surfaces, including high-speed, high-volume industrial processes important to the eventual commercial manufacturing of SolarWindow products.

Once electricity-generating polymers are applied to a material surface, the resultant effect is the production of an ‘organic photovoltaic’ cell (OPV). The prospect of SolarWindow products generating electricity on see-through glass is made possible by way of OPV.

Dr. Hammond brings extensive experience in all areas of OPV, the underlying SolarWindow technology, including the design and synthesis of small molecule and polymeric donor materials, the development of new solution-processed contact materials, the fabrication of OPV devices, large-area device fabrication using various coating methods and the development of solution-processed flexible and transparent moisture barriers.

Dr. Hammond also has a strong background in nanostructured organic materials, with an emphasis on optoelectronic materials. His experience spans materials design, synthesis, nanoscale characterization, processing, and optoelectronic device fabrication. Of note, he has worked specifically on developing nanostructured materials in an attempt to improve performance, simplify processing, and increase useful life.

Dr. Hammond earned his PhD in organic/materials chemistry and Nanotechnology from the University of Washington, Seattle and a BS in chemistry with high honors from the University of California, Berkeley. His awards include a Hypercube Scholar Award, a Mindlin Brothers Fellowship for Creativity in Science, a U.S. National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Honorable Mention, and a Joint Institute in Nanotechnology Fellowship. He is currently a member of the American Chemical Society and the Materials Research Society, and a Sigma-Aldrich Global Advisor.