Klaus S. Lackner

Dr. Lackner is Professor of Geophysics in the Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering at Columbia University and also works at Columbia University’s Earth Institute.
He was formerly with the Theoretical Division at Los Alamos National Laboratory, after postdoctoral positions at the California Institute of Technology and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.
He is a founder of the Zero Emission Coal Alliance, an industry-led effort to develop coal power with zero emissions in the atmosphere.
His recent work is on environmentally acceptable technologies for the use of fossil fuels and on innovative approaches to energy uses of the future.
Dr. Lackner received his Ph.D.
in theoretical particle physics, summa cum laude, from the University of Heidelberg, Germany in 1978.
He was awarded the Clemm-Haas Prize for outstanding Ph.D.
thesis.
His scientific career started in the phenomenology of weakly interacting particles.
Later searching for quarks, he and George Zweig developed the chemistry of atoms with fractional nuclear charge.
Over the years, he has published on the behavior of high explosives, novel approaches to inertial confinement fusion, and numerical algorithms.
His interest in self-replicating machine systems has been recognized by Discover Magazine as one of seven ideas that could change the world.