Michael J. Aziz received his B.S. from Caltech and his Ph.D. from Harvard, both in Applied Physics. He spent two years at Oak Ridge National Laboratory as Eugene P. Wigner Postdoctoral Fellow. He has been a member of the faculty at what is now the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences since he joined in 1986 and is now Gene and Tracy Sykes Professor of Materials and Energy Technologies. Aziz has made significant contributions to a number of fields in applied physics and materials science including the kinetics of rapid solidification; pressure and stress effects on kinetics of diffusion and growth; nonequilibrium surface pattern formation during ion irradiation; and applications of materials synthesized utilizing nonequilibrium kinetics.
His recent research interests include novel materials and processes for energy technology and greenhouse gas mitigation. He is co-inventor of the organic aqueous flow battery and directs a multi-investigator research program on stationary electrical energy storage. He is the Faculty Coordinator for Harvard's University-Wide Graduate Consortium on Energy and Environment, for which he developed a quantitative course on Energy Technology for a group of students in diverse disciplines. He is co-authoring a textbook, "Introduction to Energy Technology: Depletable and Renewable".