Paul Falkowski, Board of Governors Professor of geological sciences in New Brunswick/Piscataway, is the acting director of the new Rutgers Energy Institute.

Rutgers has established the Rutgers Energy Institute (www.ruei.rutgers.edu) to work on alternative energy strategies.

“Our long-term goal is to help break the dependence of the United States on fossil fuels in general and on foreign fossil fuels in particular,” said Paul Falkowski, Board of Governors Professor of geological sciences and the institute’s acting director. “The purpose of the institute is to bring together energy-related projects across the university’s organizations and campuses, to educate the public on energy and climate science, and to provide advice to policy makers.”

The Rutgers Energy Institute is a “virtual” institute – it consists of scientists and ideas, rather than bricks and mortar. It will provide an organizational structure in which researchers who might not ordinarily be familiar with each other’s work have opportunities to collaborate on fruitful projects.

Rutgers is particularly strong in plant science, microbiology (especially genomics) and computational science, said Falkowski, who has pulled together an initial core group of scientists from the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences (formerly called Cook College), the School of Engineering, the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, the Waksman Institute of Microbiology, the Rutgers EcoComplex in Bordentown, and several other units of the university.

The researchers include biologists, chemists, oceanographers, public policy specialists, engineers, and representatives of several other disciplines. Monica Mazurek, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at the School of Engineering and an expert on air pollution, is the institute’s assistant director.