March 14, 2011

General Motors technology researcher to talk about future of automobile

A General Motors researcher will discuss advances in automobile technology, including the advantages and drawbacks of lithium-based batteries and fuel cells, at a Monday, March 28, lecture on the Homewood campus.

Frederick T. Wagner, lab group manager of advanced electrodes for General Motors Fuel Cell Activities, will speak on “Electrochemistry and the Future of the Automobile” at 4 p.m. in Mason Hall Auditorium.

Wagner will deliver the fourth annual Billig-Croft Lecture. The event was established by Gordon Croft, a 1956 Johns Hopkins engineering graduate who now manages the Croft Leominster Investment Co. in Baltimore. The lecture series honors Croft’s late friend, Frederick Billig, who in 1955 earned an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from Johns Hopkins and then went on to a distinguished career at the university’s Applied Physics Laboratory.

At the lecture, Nick Jones, the Benjamin T. Rome Dean of the Whiting School of Engineering, will welcome the audience. The speaker will be introduced by Jonah Erlebacher, an associate professor of materials science who is the L. Gordon Croft Investment Management Faculty Scholar. To assist with planning, those who expect to attend are asked to place a reservation by calling 410-516-8723 or e-mailing
engineering@jhu.edu.