Robert Stoner is the Deputy Director for Science and Technology of the MIT Energy Initiative, Founding Director of the MIT Tata Center for Technology and Design, and faculty co-director of the MIT Electric Power Systems Center.  He is currently a member of the MIT Energy Council, the Science and Technology Committee of the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), and the Technical Advisory Board of the Center for the Study of Science, Technology and Energy Policy. Stoner also advises numerous venture backed technology companies, and is a member of the External Advisory Committee of the venture firm EniNext.

He also serves as the secretary of the Rockefeller Foundation funded Global Commission to End Energy Poverty. Stoner is the inventor of numerous computational and ultrafast optical measurement techniques, and has built and managed successful technology firms in the semiconductor, IT and optics industries.  From 2007 through 2009 he lived and worked in Africa and India while serving in a variety of senior roles within the Clinton Foundation, including as the CEO of the Clinton Development Initiative, and Director of the Clinton Climate Initiative for Africa.  His current research interests include energy technology and policy for developing countries.  He earned his Bachelor’s degree in engineering physics from Queen’s University, and his Ph.D. from Brown University in condensed matter physics