Don Siegel is Professor and Chair of the Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin (UT). At UT he is a Temple Foundation Endowed Professor and holds a Cockrell Family Chair for Departmental Leadership. He is a Core Faculty Member in the Texas Materials Institute and in the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences. Prior to joining UT in 2021, Prof. Siegel spent 12 years as a faculty member in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan (UM), where he served as Associate Chair for Graduate Education. Prior to joining UM, he was a Technical Expert at Ford Research and Advanced Engineering in Dearborn, MI.
Siegel is a computational materials scientist whose research targets the development of energy storage materials and lightweight alloys. Recent projects have focused on electrical energy storage (batteries), thermal energy storage, and materials for gas capture and storage (H2 and natural gas storage; CO2 capture). Prof. Siegel has authored more than 100 publications, delivered approximately 110 invited lectures, and has been awarded several patents. He is a recipient of the NSF Career Award, U.S. Department of Energy-Secretary of Energy’s Achievement Award, and a Gilbreth Lectureship from the National Academy of Engineering. Prof. Siegel has been active in providing input to the U.S. Department of Energy on issues related to energy storage, having served as co-Chair for the FreedomCAR Hydrogen Storage Technical Team, a Reviewer for the Hydrogen and Vehicle Technologies Program, and as a member of the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR) Directorate.
A physicist by training, Prof. Siegel received a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His postdoctoral training was performed at Sandia National Laboratories and at the U.S. Naval Research Lab. During the 2015-2016 academic year he was a VELUX Visiting Professor in the Department of Energy Conversion and Storage at the Technical University of Denmark.