Groth Honored With C3E Award

University of Maryland Professor Katrina Groth was named the 2025 recipient of a Catalyzing Energy Education & Excellence (C3E) award for fundamental and applied research. A professor of reliability engineering and mechanical engineering, Groth is also the director of the Reliability Engineering graduate program and the university’s Center for Risk and Reliability.

The C3E Awards, which celebrate mid-career professionals whose accomplishments demonstrate vision, excellence, and commitment to progress in energy, are given annually by the C3E Initiative, the U.S. Department of Energy, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, and Arizona State University.

Groth specializes in reliability and risk analysis of energy systems and has defined key engineering methods used to advance the reliability and safety of hydrogen fueling stations, electrolyzers, gas pipelines, nuclear power plants, and more. Her current research includes developing quantitative risk assessment methods to understand dominant failure causes in novel hydrogen systems, investigating prognostics and health management (PHM) techniques to support diagnosis and reliability monitoring in complex systems, and creating reliability data collection frameworks and algorithms for emerging energy technologies. Before becoming a professor, she was a Principal R&D Engineer at Sandia National Laboratories.

She has published more than 175 papers and technical reports, one textbook, and multiple software packages. Her notable hydrogen activities include inventing the U.S. Department of Energy’s Hydrogen Risk Assessment Models (HyRAM) toolkit and the Hydrogen Component Reliability Database (HyCReD), being an expert witness on hydrogen equipment failure investigations, and leading a working group within ISO 19880-1. She has received many awards, including a National Science Foundation CAREER Award and the David Okrent Award for Nuclear Safety, and was selected to take part in the 2021 U.S. Frontiers of Engineering symposium. In 2025, Groth received the University System of Maryland Board of Regents Faculty Award for Excellence in Research.

Groth holds Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in reliability engineering and a B.S. in nuclear engineering, all from the University of Maryland.

Published October 16, 2026