Shaffiq Jaffer holds Chemical Engineering degrees from the University of Alberta (B.Sc.) and McMaster University (Ph.D.). His primary area of study was experimental fluid dynamics and fluid mixing.  He joined TOTAL SA six years ago and previously worked for Koch-Glitsch, Inc. and The Procter and Gamble Company (P&G). A major contribution at P&G was to help design novel processes to enable mass customization of consumer products. He currently is the Vice President of Corporate Science and Technology Projects in North America, with the mission to find novel ideas and technologies across the research community: academia, government including defense research organizations and private research companies, that will lead to breakthroughs in energy (production, conservation, efficiency), materials (PV, Catalysts, biomaterials) and manufacturing processes. A significant part of his effort these last few years has been to help TOTAL SA succeed with its PV investment in SunPower Corporation, to find researchers that would be able to address some of the key challenges facing PV.  In addition, a large effort was placed on the research required to improve the understanding of the shale gas/oil resources to improve the recovery and operation. These efforts have lead to partnerships between TOTAL and MIT in energy storage and shale gas.