Mark Johnson

[[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”media_large”,”fid”:”1150377″,”field_deltas”:{},”link_text”:null,”attributes”:{“alt”:”Photo of Mark Johnson.”,”height”:1200,”width”:960,”style”:”width: 160px; height: 200px; float: right;”,”class”:”media-image caption media-element file-media-large”,”data-delta”:”1″},”fields”:{}}]]Mark Johnson, Ph.D., is the former Director of the Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO) in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE).  AMO is focused on creating a fertile innovation environment for advanced manufacturing, enabling vigorous domestic development of new energy-efficient manufacturing processes and materials technologies to reduce the energy intensity and life-cycle energy consumption of manufactured products. 

Previously, Mark served as a Program Director in the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) where he had the longest tenure in that post—from ARPA-E’s formation in 2010 to mid-2013.  At ARPA-E, Mark led initiatives to advance energy storage and critical materials, as well as projects in small business, advanced semiconductor, novel wind architectures, superconductors and electric machines.  

He also served as the Industry and Innovation Program Director for the Future Renewable Electric Energy Delivery and Management (FREEDM) Systems Center. This is a National Science Foundation Gen-111 Engineering Research Center targeting the convergence of power electronics, energy storage, renewable resource integration and information technology for electric power systems.

Mark joined EERE on assignment from North Carolina State University, where he was an Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering.  His research has focused on crystal growth and device fabrication of compound semiconductor materials with electronic and photonic applications.  Mark also taught in the Technology, Entrepreneurship and Commercialization program jointly between the NC State Colleges of Management and Engineering.  In addition to his academic career, Mark is an entrepreneur and early stage leader in Quantum Epitaxial Designs (now International Quantum Epitaxy), EPI Systems (now Veeco) and Nitronex (now GaAs Labs). 

Mark has a bachelor’s degree from MIT and a Ph.D., from NC State, both in Materials Science and Engineering.