Professor Wetzel is a recognized leader in the research and development of LED-based solid-state lighting, and a productive member of the Physics community at Rensselaer. His research spans materials physics and epitaxial growth of wide bandgap group-III nitrides, their device design and metrology. His work has contributed to substantial worldwide energy savings by means of higher efficiency lighting technology and emerging power electronics. With a PhD from Technical University Munich, Professor Wetzel has held research appointments at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Meijo University, Japan, working in the labs of the 2014 Nobel Prize winners in Physics. Before joining Rensselaer’s Department of Physics, Applied Physics and Astronomy and the Rensselaer Future Chips Constellation in 2004, Professor Wetzel worked in industry as a project manager pursuing the goal of high efficiency green LEDs. Since then, Professor Wetzel has chaired numerous conferences on the topics of his work, received recognizing awards from the U.S. Department of Energy. He also serves as an active officer in several academic societies. At Rensselaer, Christian has to date graduated eight doctoral students including one who has since been appointed Associate Professor at Xi'an Jiaotong University. Professor Wetzel is an active member of the Smart Lighting ERC and pursues new research initiatives in energy efficiency topics with faculty across the Troy campus.