Michael Graetzel (1944-present)
Michael Graetzel was born on May 11, 1944, in the city of Dorfchemnitz, in Saxony, Germany. He went to the Technical University of Berlin, and majored in Natural Science, receiving a doctor’s degree. In 1998, he invented a nanostructured junction dye-sensitized solar cell, which works on the same principle as photosynthetic cells in plants. This allows a cheap, effective source of solar energy with a greater efficiency than anything that had been used up to that point. He currently resides in Switzerland with his wife, who is a doctor and three children.