Sarah R. Kurtz, PhD, is a professor at the Univ. of California Merced. She obtained her PhD in 1985 from Harvard Univ. She worked at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, CO, from 1985 to 2017 and continues as a research fellow there. She is known for her contributions to developing multijunction, GaInP/GaAs solar cells, supporting the concentrator photovoltaic (PV) industry, and leading efforts on PV performance and reliability. Her work has been recognized with a jointly received Dan David Prize in 2007, the Cherry Award in 2012, C3E Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016, and induction into the National Academy of Engineering in 2020. She has published more than 250 papers and reports on solar-energy-related topics and has six patents. At the Univ. of California Merced, she is working both to help the university grow and to support the energy transition through a variety of studies, including a current study on long-duration energy storage.