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High energy CAFNR alumnus and policy maker to speak at Missouri Energy Summit

The next few years promise to be a time for change for the United States as the nation re-evaluates how it gets and uses energy. Future headlines will be dominated by talk about hybrid cars, hydrogen fuel cells, cap and trade legislation, the environment, and spikes in oil prices.

To better understand the implications of these changes, the four-campus University of Missouri System will hold its first-ever Missouri Energy Summit April 22-23 in Columbia, Mo. The event brings together faculty, researchers, businesses, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists — along with federal and state agencies — to explore and showcase Missouri's cutting-edge energy research and development efforts.

Environmental expert

Robert Dixon, a University of Missouri College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources alumnus, is a featured speaker at the summit. Now the leader of the Climate Change and Chemicals Team at the Global Environment Facility in Washington, D.C., Dixon earned his bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in forestry from the University of Missouri.

In 1989, Dixon joined the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Research and Development as a senior scientist to support the Clean Air Act and amendments. He has led or developed energy and environment projects for bilateral and multilateral organizations in more than 80 countries worldwide, including working on energy science and policy for the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Dixon has a wealth of experience in the White House. He was part of a task force on energy security and climate change for the National Security Council. He served as associate director for international affairs for the Council on Environmental Quality. He also contributed to the 2007 Energy Security Act and worked in several positions at the Department of Defense, eventually becoming deputy assistant secretary.

Dixon was head of the Energy Technology Policy Division of the International Energy Agency in Paris, working with members of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change who were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

International educator

Dixon has taught or lectured at the University of Minnesota, Auburn University, Columbia University, Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins University, Oxford University in England, Humboldt University in Germany and Delhi University in India. He is the recipient of an Exxon Fellowship and Smithsonian Fellowship.

Dixon has served as executive director of the International Partnership for the Hydrogen Economy in Washington, D.C., and as deputy assistant secretary for power technologies.

The summit promises to be a content-rich two days with national, state and local speakers, including T. Boone Pickens, founder and chairman of BP Capital Management, which manages one of the nation's most successful energy-oriented investment funds.

For more information, go to: www.umsystem.edu/summits/

Posted: April 9, 2009
Story by: Randy Mertens and Karen Pojmann