Paul Wright was director of CITRIS and the Banatao Institute from 2007–14. He then became director of the Berkeley Energy and Climate Institute (BECI).
Wright is a professor emeritus in the UC Berkeley Department of Mechanical Engineering, where he held the A. Martin Berlin Chair. He also co-directed the Berkeley Manufacturing Institute (BMI) and the Berkeley Wireless Research Center (BWRC). From 1995–2005, Wright was the co-chair of the UC Berkeley Management of Technology Program, a joint program with the Haas School of Business.
Born in London, he obtained his degrees from the University of Birmingham, England, and came to the United States in 1979 following appointments at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and the University of Cambridge University, England.
He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and a fellow of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers.
Research Interests:
Energy scavenging and storage; smart materials; design and manufacturing for micro-integration of ‘intelligent objects’; design of wireless sensor systems.
Application areas include: energy efficiency and demand response; first-responder applications; medical products. He is credited for the invention of the first open-architecture control of manufacturing systems, and in the “CyberCut/CyberBuild” project during the 1990s for the development of internet-based CAD/CAM systems.