Trailblazers
Clifford Ho
Clifford Ho is one young engineer paving the way to sustainable energy solutions.
Ho received the 2010 Asian American Engineer of the Year Award, which honors an Asian American engineer who has made significant, lasting and global contributions to the nation. The recipient is selected by the Chinese Institute of Engineers — USA.
Ho works for Sandia National Laboratories and investigates ways to capture and store solar energy for utility-scale electricity production using concentration solar power. He works closely with the Department of Energy to improve the performance and lower the costs of solar energy systems.
In 2000, Ho led a project to develop microchemical sensors to monitor environmental contaminants in wells, and in 2005, led research in water treatment and distribution security. In his research, which included UV disinfection, he modeled how to predict the way contaminants would move through the water distribution network.
Image: Randy Montoya/Sandia National Labs