Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Program: Solid-State Lighting (SSL) Technology

Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Program: Solid-State Lighting (SSL) Technology is sponsored by U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Encourages small businesses to collaborate with research institutions to develop SSL technologies with commercial applications.

Assessment of the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer Programs at the Department of Energy Consensus/Advisory Activity Consensus/Advisory Activity An activity carried out by an appropriately knowledgeable and balanced ad hoc committee, the purpose of which is to provide formal advice on the matters posed in the statement of task for the activity.

These activities follow institutional policies and procedures to adhere to Section 15 of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA).

See all consensus/advisory activities Assessment of the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer Programs at the Department of Energy Infrastructure and the Built Environment Under the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs, certain federal agencies set aside for small business concerns a portion of their R&D funds.

In response to a Congressional mandate, an ad hoc committee will conduct a study of the role and impacts of the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs at the Department of Energy (DOE) and the effectiveness of the enabling strategies DOE has employed to enhance the programs.

I n response to a Congressional mandate, an ad hoc committee will conduct a study of the role and impacts of the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs at the Department of Energy (DOE) and the effectiveness of the enabling strategies DOE has employed to enhance the programs.

Specifically, and to the extent that data are available, the committee will examine the following: How the SBIR and STTR programs have stimulated technological innovation and engaged small businesses to meet the agency’s research and development needs, including the economic and noneconomic benefits achieved by the SBIR and STTR programs over the life of the programs; and challenges and opportunities for commercialization of SBIR- and STTR-supported technologies.

Collaborations created between small businesses and research institutions that are associated with the SBIR and STTR programs, including an exploration of the origins and development of collaborations formed by current and past awardees, characteristics of successful collaborations, and barriers to and opportunities for new collaborations.

DOE's SBIR/STTR outreach to potential applicants and the agency’s assistance to applicants, including analysis of the potential applicant pool (including small businesses that are woman-owned, minority-owned, or from under-represented states) for the DOE SBIR/STTR programs including historical trends and future projections; and challenges to DOE's ability to increase the number of applications and awards from small businesses that are (1) new to the programs, (2) from under-represented states, (3) woman-owned, or (4) minority-owned.

Characteristics and outcomes of multiple award recipients relative to the overall pool of awardees. Effectiveness of the current operating model utilized by the DOE SBIR and STTR programs in achieving program objectives. The committee will produce a consensus report with its findings and recommendations.

Committee Membership Roster Comments 8/22/2024--Committee membership has been updated to reflect the resignation of Miguel Granier. 2/10/2025--Committee membership has been updated to reflect the resignation of Stephen Comello. 3/11/2025--Committee membership has been updated to reflect the addition of Jeffrey York.

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Folta is Professor and the Thomas John and Bette Wolff Family Chair of Strategic Entrepreneurship at University of Connecticut. His research is currently examining the role of the corporate headquarters in multi-business firms in reallocating strategic resources across businesses, and the effectiveness of government grant programs in supporting technical entrepreneurship.

His research has garnered a number of awards, including several best paper awards at the Academy of Management; the 2009 Fulbright Special Senior Scholar Award for the 60th anniversary of the Fulbright program in Italy; and a 2006 Office of Advocacy, U.S. Small Business Administration award.

He is a member of the Academy of Management and Strategic Management Society; and served as Division Chair (2020-21) for the Strategic Management Division of the Academy of Management. He holds a PhD in strategic management from Purdue University.

David Popp is the Caroline Rapking Faculty Scholar in Public Administration and Policy in the Department of Public Administration and International Affairs at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University.

He is an environmental economist whose research focuses on the links between environmental policy and innovation, with a particular interest in how environmental and energy policies shape the development of new technologies needed to combat climate change.

His work has been published in a variety of economics and policy journals, including American Economic Review, the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Nature Energy, and Research Policy. Popp is also a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and a Research Network Member in the Energy & Climate Economics Research Group of CESifo.

He received a BA in political economy from Williams College in 1992, and a PhD in economics from Yale University in 1997. Margaret Blume-Kohout is an Associate Professor of Economics at Gettysburg College.

In addition to academic appointments at liberal arts colleges and research universities, Blume-Kohout also held a doctoral fellowship at the RAND Corporation and a graduate research assistantship in basic and applied simulation science at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and was founder and CEO of MBK Analytics, LLC, a federal contract research organization.

As an applied microeconomist, policy analyst, and quantitative methodologist, Blume-Kohout focuses on analyzing the effects of government policies on innovation, entrepreneurship, and STEM education and workforce-related outcomes. She earned her PhD in policy analysis from the Pardee RAND Graduate School, her MS in environmental health sciences from the University of California at Berkeley, and her BA in economics from Williams College.

Raphael Calel is an Associate Professor in the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University. He has researched the effects of public policy on innovation in low-carbon technologies. His work has been recognized with a CESifo Distinguished Affiliate Award and the Lloyd’s Science of Risk Prize.

After receiving his PhD in environmental economics from the London School of Economics in 2013, Professor Calel was also awarded a Ciriacy-Wantrup Postdoctoral Fellowship at UC Berkeley. He also holds a BA from the University of Cambridge and an MSc from University College London. Stephen Comello is Senior Vice President, Strategic Initiatives, at the EFI Foundation and the Co-Managing Director of its Energy Futures Finance Forum.

Prior to these roles, for almost a decade he was a faculty member at Stanford Graduate School of Business and co-lead its Rapid Decarbonization Initiative. Comello’s 23-year career has focused on the policy and business model innovations necessary to scale emerging energy and environmental technologies to successful commercialization.

Aside from technoeconomic, policy and project finance analysis of energy system, Comello has spent significant time examining corporate strategy within the energy transition, with a particular focus on open innovation and start-up/incumbent collaborations. During his time at Stanford University, he held leadership positions in multiple research initiatives coupled with industrial affiliates programs.

Comello has multiple academic, book chapter and research publications in the areas of energy policy and economics, industrial organization, development economics, innovation management and carbon accounting. Comello holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical and industrial engineering from the University of Toronto and a PhD in civil and environmental engineering from Stanford University.

Comello currently serves as a committee member on the NASEM Committee on Carbon Utilization Infrastructure, Markets, Research and Development. Brett Anitra Gilbert is the inaugural Arlene R. and Robert P.

Kogod Regional Innovation Chair, and Associate Professor of Management at American University, Kogod School of Business. Prior to receiving her PhD in entrepreneurship from Indiana University–Bloomington, and before the full emergence of the Internet, she spent five years in sales, marketing, human resources, and technical training capacities.

Her then fascination with the corporate adoption of the internet, piqued her interest in studying emerging technologies and entrepreneurship. This interest evolved into her current focus on regional innovation, entrepreneurial ecosystems in emerging economies, and emerging clean technologies.

Through these interests, she has served in a variety of leadership capacities for the entrepreneurship division of the Academy of Management, the entrepreneurship and small business track for the Africa Academy of Management, as an advisory committee member for the Texas Emerging Technology Fund.

She is a current associate editor for the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, and prior associate editor for the Small Business Economics Journal. She also currently serves on the editorial review board for the Academy of Management, Journal of Business Venturing, and Small Business Economics Journal. Her research is published in leading entrepreneurship, management and innovation journals.

Kenneth Gillingham is a Professor of Economics and Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the Yale School of the Environment, with secondary appointments in the Yale Department of Economics, School of Management, and Jackson School of Global Affairs.

He is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and has served as the Senior Economist for Energy and the Environment at the White House Council of Economic Advisers. He is an energy economist with a focus on the adoption of new energy technologies and the evaluation of policies and regulations, and has published in top journals in economics, science, management, and engineering.

He is a member of the Board of Environmental Change and Society of the National Academies. His graduate study is from Stanford University and he received a PhD in management science & engineering (minor in economics), a MS in statistics, and an MS in management science & engineering. He also holds an AB in economics and environmental studies from Dartmouth College.

Anna Goldstein is the Director of Impact at Prime Coalition, a nonprofit on a mission to unlock catalytic capital and change the future of climate finance. She leads impact measurement and management for all of Prime’s programs, including catalytic capital for climate solutions.

Goldstein was previously the founding Executive Director of the Energy Transition Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she led interdisciplinary research efforts to integrate technological innovation and social equity in the energy transition.

She was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs from 2015 to 2017, during which time she served as a consultant for a National Academies committee that evaluated ARPA-E. She holds a PhD in chemistry from UC Berkeley. Miguel Granier is Distinguished External Fellow in the Strategic Energy Institute of the Georgia Institute of Technology.

He has over 18 years of experience financing businesses from start-up to growth stage. His expertise spans traditional debt, equity, grants, and alternative financing. As the Founder/Managing Director of Invested Development (ID) and the Impact Factoring Fund (IFF), he led investments in dozens of start-ups across nine countries and three continents.

Before ID, Granier was the founding Investment Manager for First Light Ventures, a pioneer seed-stage impact investment fund. He began his career in finance as a loan officer for ACCION and has worked for the insurance giant Fidelity National Financial in New York and the Delter Business Institute in Beijing, China.

Granier holds or has held Board positions at more than a dozen start-ups, including Growing Energy Labs, Inc (acquired by Hanwha/Q-Cells), Simpa Networks (acquired by Engie), OnFarm (acquired by SWIIM Systems), and iHub (acquired by ccHub). He has also served on the boards of several non-profit organizations, including Greentown Labs, Village Capital, and Global Growers Network.

Granier earned master’s degrees from Georgia Tech in city and regional planning and sustainable energy and environmental management. In addition, he has been an adjunct faculty member at the Monterrey Institute of International Studies, Northeastern University, and Georgia Tech.

James Harris (NAE) is the James and Ellenor Chesebrough Professor, Emeritus of Electrical Engineering, Applied Physics and Materials Science at Stanford University. After finishing his PhD in electrical engineering at Stanford University, he joined the Rockwell International Science Center where he moved from Member of Staff to Group Leader to Chief Scientist to Director of Photonics.

He successfully initiated and led a number of new device projects based upon novel materials, including a SERI funded 40kW high concentration GaAs solar array that was tested at SNL-Albuquerque. At Stanford, his research focused on novel materials and the physics and application of ultra-small structures to new photonic devices.

He provided the key materials and device technologies for interdisciplinary teams to develop an implantable retinal prosthesis, record efficiency ultra-high-efficiency multi-junction solar cells and still world record solar to hydrogen generation through water splitting. He has supervised 140 PhD students and received a number of awards, including election to NAE, an IEEE Third Millenium Medal and Jun-Ichi Nishizawa Medal.

Harris has served on a number of National Academies study committees and oversight boards. Varun Rai is the Walt and Elspeth Rostow Professor in the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, with a joint appointment in Mechanical Engineering.

Through his interdisciplinary research at the interface of energy systems, complex systems, decision science, and public policy, he develops effective policy approaches to help accelerate the transition of the global energy system into a more sustainable and resilient one. He was a Global Economic Fellow in 2009.

From 2013 to 2015 he was a Commissioner for the vertically-integrated electric utility Austin Energy and from 2019 to 2021 he served as director of the UT Austin Energy Institute. In 2016 the Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management (APPAM) awarded him the David N. Kershaw Award and Prize.

He received his PhD and MS in mechanical engineering from Stanford University and a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur. Rai previously served on the National Academies’ committee on the role of net metering in the evolving electricity system.

Gamal Refai-Ahmed (NAE) currently serves as an AMD Senior Fellow, highlighting a prestigious career with significant contributions to the fields of high-performance computing (HPC), artificial intelligence (AI), and electronic packaging. Holding a PhD from the University of Waterloo, Refai-Ahmed has over 120 publications and more than 110 patents, marking him as a global technical leader.

As a Senior Fellow Engineer at AMD, he leads innovations in thermos-mechanical system-level integration and technology strategies, significantly impacting GPU, CPU, and FPGA technologies across various sectors. His work has earned him numerous honors, including the IEEE Canada R. H.

Tanner Industry Leadership Award and The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Service Award, recognizing his leadership and innovation.

Notably, Refai-Ahmed is a Life Fellow of ASME, a Fellow of IEEE, the Canadian Academy of Engineering, and the Engineering Institute of Canada, and was recently inducted into the National Academy of Engineering in 2024, in recognition of his outstanding contributions to engineering practice and education.

Subhash Singhal (NAE) became an independent consultant in the field of clean energy and advanced materials after retiring from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). At PNNL, he was a Battelle Fellow and Director-Fuel Cells, and provided senior technical, managerial, and commercialization leadership to the laboratory’s extensive fuel cell and clean energy programs.

Before joining PNNL, he worked for over 29 years, initially as a scientist and later as Manager-Fuel Cell Technology, at the Westinghouse Electric Corporation. At Westinghouse, he conducted and/or managed major research, development, and demonstration programs on advanced materials and energy systems.

He has authored over 135 scientific publications, edited 21 books, received 13 patents, and given over 345 plenary, keynote and invited presentations worldwide. Singhal is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a founding member and Past-President of the Washington State Academy of Sciences, and a Fellow of several professional societies.

He has received many national and international awards and medals including the Grove Medal for pioneering advances in fuel cell technology. Singhal received his PhD in materials science and engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh. He served on the National Academies’ Board on Higher Education and Workforce (2013-2018), and on over 20 Academies’ study committees and panels.

Kjersten Bunker Whittington is Professor of Sociology at Reed College. A quantitative and network methodologist, her research activities center on the intersection of gender and work, scientific careers and science-based organizations, networks of collaboration, and the knowledge economy.

Her primary line of research focuses on gender disparities in scientific and technical careers, with a particular focus on men’s and women’s engagement in knowledge networks and academic dissemination, and commercialization activities. A second research focus investigates regional dynamics and the science economy, and the influence of inter-organizational network structure on firm-level outputs.

Recently, Whittington served a year away from Reed as Special Assistant to the Director of the Office of Research on Women's Health (ORWH) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Whittington received a BS in physics from North Carolina State University, and an MA and PhD in sociology from Stanford University. Jeffrey G.

York is Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives, Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship, Research Director for the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship, and a Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute Fellow at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Leeds School of Business.

Previously Dr. York served as Chair of the Social Responsibility and Sustainability division, Chair of the Organizational Leadership and Information Analytics Division, and Associate Editor for the Journal of Business Venturing. Professor York’s teaching and research are focused on environmental entrepreneurship, which is the simultaneous creation of ecological and economic goods.

He is interested in how and why entrepreneurs create new products, services, and industries that reduce environmental degradation. Dr. York received his PhD from the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. Former MyNAP users: You'll need to reset your password on your first login to MyAcademies.

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