IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2021 - 25

The National Research Council 2001
study " Energy Research at DOE: Was it
Worth it? " found that DOE energy-efficiency
programs had hit some real home runs,
including many innovations that are still
in use today, such as low-emissivity glass,
programmable thermostats, and more advanced
refrigerators. Moving lighting from
a mechanical ballast to an electronic ballast
was another success. Since then, electronic
ballasts have been in all fluorescent
lighting. Under Savitz's leadership, the
DOE developed the curlicued compact fluorescent
lights that are 75% more efficient
than their incandescent cousins. More recently,
the DOE partnered with industry
for the development of LED lamps, which
produce 125 lumens per watt as opposed to
40 lumens per watt.
The U.S. Congress passed legislation
in the 1990s that still exists today,
such as the Weatherization Assistance
Program, which helps weatherize lowincome
homes to improve efficiency and
lower energy costs. It launched the yellow
EnergyGuide labels for appliances so that
consumers would see up-front energy usage
and costs, and they set standards for
appliance efficiency.
Savitz's portfolio of projects also included
the transportation sector, where
the DOE looked at various new power
plants for propelling the automobile.
They had their eyes on electric vehicles
and the initial 1970s battery work started
under this program. This initiative helped
lay the groundwork for the goals presented
in President Joe Biden's infrastructure
plan: two percent of new cars sold in the
United States today are electric, and under
the Biden plan, that number will need
to grow to between 40 and 50% by 2030
to meet emission goals.
The DOE also had a gas turbine program
that aimed to take aerospace turbine
technology and put it into automobiles. The
thinking was that it could be more efficient
and have multifuel capabilities. This led to
the development of new materials, chief
among them silicon nitride, a material that
allowed for higher temperatures on the
Savitz was elected to the
American Academy of Arts
and Sciences in 2013.
small turbine engines. Savitz became interested
in new materials that could reach
higher temperatures, and she hoped to investigate
how they compared with metals
and how they could be put to use.
When she left the government, she
joined Garrett Corporation, the aerospace
company that would become Allied Signal
and then, eventually, Honeywell. Garrett
had been working on the gas turbine program
at the DOE, and even though the
DOE program was winding down, Garrett
was still interested in pursuing ceramic
turbine technology for the small engines
on planes that provide the environmental
control systems and start-up functions.
Any silicon nitride being used in aerospace
at the time was predominantly supplied
by Japan. In the mid-1980s, Japan
had initiated an R&D program that followed
that of the United States. Garrett
was concerned about the eventual competition
that would surely come for the
turbines and aerospace parts, and so they
decided to set up their own division to
make silicon nitride components within
the United States. " I had a lot of flexibility
in bringing people from within the company
who were good material scientists
and hiring people with experience who
were working in industry, " Savitz says.
With the team assembled, they got to
work. The issue with a ceramic such as silicon
nitride is that it breaks easily- " You
DECEMBER 2021
drop it and it breaks, " Savitz explains-
and so her team not only succeeded in
bringing silicon nitride development to
the United States, but with the corporate
research laboratory, they also developed
a higher strength and tougher silicon nitride.
" We ended up going from a startup
to having one of the best materials, "
she says.
Shaping National Policy
Through Leadership
PCAST was commissioned by President
George H.W. Bush in 1990 to provide
advice and policy recommendations in
the areas of science and technology. Under
President Bill Clinton, John Holdren,
who became the science advisor and head
of the Office of Science and Technology
Policy under President Barack Obama,
was a member of PCAST.
Coming out on the other side of what
had been a substantial amount of turmoil
at the DOE in the 1990s, PCAST
was concerned about a balanced R&D
agenda. Holdren brought Savitz in as
an external member of the committee
to help determine what the energy
budget should be for energy-efficiency
programs. She compiled the budgets for
energy efficiency-budgets that would
increase in the Clinton administration
but not under the George H.W. Bush
administration before being reviewed
IEEE WOMEN IN ENGINEERING MAGAZINE
25
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2021

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