Speakers
2019 Speakers
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Reza Abbaschian
Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering, and Winston Chung Endowed Professor in Sustainability at University of California Riverside. Director, Winston Chung Global Energy Center
Reza is Distinguished Professor, and Winston Chung Endowed Professor in Sustainability at University of California Riverside (UCR). He is presently Director of Winston Chung Global Energy Center (WCGEC), which is a multi-disciplinary research center to advance solutions for today’s energy demands, while developing advanced energy storage, generation and distribution research and energy-use strategies for tomorrow’s applications.
Dr. Abbaschian received his PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, MS from Michigan Technological University, and BSc from University of Tehran. He has published more than 250 scientific articles including eight books on subjects ranging from metal processing to composites and high temperature-high pressure growth of jewelry diamonds. His research has led to the introduction of man-made diamonds to the market by Gemesis Diamond Company. He also holds five patents and eight patent disclosures held by Gemesis Inc. Dr. Abbaschian is a past President of ASM International, and has been elected a Fellow of ASM, TMS and AAAS. His awards include the TMS Educator Award, Structural Material Division’s Distinguished Scientist/Engineer Award, TMS Leadership Award, ASEE Donald E. Marlowe Award, Davis Productivity Award of the State of Florida, and the 2016 Albert Sauveur Achievement Award of ASM. In 2017, he received the AIME Honorary Membership, an honor bestowed on only 1/10th of 1% of its membership, in recognition of being an "outstanding scientist and researcher in solidification fundamentals and materials processing, educator and leader in advancing the materials profession."
He began his tenure as UCR in September 2005 as Dean of Bourns College of Engineering (BCOE), a position that he held until July 2016. He also held the William R. Johnson, Jr. Professor until July 2017. During his tenure as Dean, BCOE steadily grew in prestige, research productivity, and student success, landing in the top 50 public engineering schools in the nation. With around 125 faculty, 2,400 undergraduates (100 BS/MS), 750 graduate students, and annual research expenditures of more than $40 million, BCOE now houses seven departments/programs and offers nine degrees in addition to a self-supporting Online Master’s Degree Program in Engineering.
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Farrokh Albuyeh
Senior Vice President, Smart Grid Projects Open Access Technology International, Inc. (OATI)
Farrokh Albuyeh received B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical &Computer Engineering from University of Wisconsin-Madison and has over 35 years of experience in the electric power industry. Dr. Albuyeh is Senior Vice President, Smart Grid Projects, at Open Access Technology International, Inc. (OATI). In this role, he is involved in the development and deployment of solutions and services for the management of grid-edge and distributed energy resources in support of distribution grid operations. Dr. Albuyeh has specific experience with technical analytical studies, application software development, providing consulting services, managing, and delivery of large-scale projects. He is a Life Senior Member of IEEE and a member of a number of IEEE committees and subcommittees with focus on grid renovation, smart grid, as well as transmission and distribution. Before joining OATI in 2004, he worked with Alstom T&D from 1999 to 2004 as the Director Energy Management and Markets where he was involved in the creation and management of AREVA T&D’s Market Participants Business Unit in California, and was involved in the deployment of CAISO, MISO, and ERCOT market applications and solutions. From 1985 to 1999 he was employed by ABB Energy Information Systems as Director, Strategic Business Development where he was involved in development of energy management system applications as well as market applications and project deployment.
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Manuel Avendaño
Senior Engineering Manager of Emerging Technologies Evaluation
Southern California EdisonDr Manuel Avendaño is the Senior Engineering Manager of Emerging Technologies Evaluation at Southern California Edison, the primary electricity supply company for much of Southern California. He is responsible for leading SCE’s effort to understand and test emerging transmission and distribution grid technologies and determine their feasibility for demonstration projects and their potential impact to SCE’s Grid Modernization plan. Dr Avendaño earned a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in Electrical Engineering in Mexico and the PhD in Electrical Engineering in United Kingdom. Dr Avendaño currently serves as the Chair of the IEEE Distribution Subcommittee and Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery.
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Karyn Boenker
Public Policy Manager
SunrunKaryn Boenker is a Public Policy Manager at Sunrun (Nasdaq: RUN), the nation’s leading residential solar, storage and energy services company. She focuses on western states, storage technology, soft cost reduction, and low/moderate-income programs. Karyn holds a B.S. from Arizona State University and an M.S. from the University of Washington, where she studied global climate change science and policy.
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Sarah Busch
Manager, Membership Development and Emerging Technology Programs
California Energy Storage Alliance (CESA)Sarah Busch is a Manager at the California Energy Storage Alliance (CESA), where she develops emerging technology programs and other policy initiatives to advance the energy storage industry. Sarah advocates a technology-neutral approach toward storage market development, and her policy domains are the California Energy Commission and California State Legislature.
Sarah has a background creating innovative renewable energy and GHG management strategies for North America’s largest utilities and corporate buyers. At the Center for Resource Solutions, Sarah expanded the use of ‘third-party certified’ clean energy and carbon offsets sold and purchased on a voluntary basis. Her expertise in GHG accounting and renewable energy routinely intersects with energy storage as California moves toward a GHG-free electric system relying on increasing amounts of storage.
During undergrad, Sarah worked for the Energy Team at Environment America and Van Jones’ Energy Opportunity Initiative at the Center for American Progress. Sarah holds a B.A. in Government from Smith College.
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Raymond H. Byrne
Manager, Electric Power System Research Department, Sandia National Laboratories
Ray Byrne is manager of the Electric Power System Research department at Sandia National Laboratories, where he has been employed since 1989. He holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of New Mexico, an M.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and a B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Virginia. He also completed an M.S. in financial mathematics at the University of Chicago. Previously, he was a distinguished member of the technical staff at Sandia. Awards include Time Magazine Invention of the Year in 2001 for a miniature mobile robot, the IEEE millennium medal, and the Prize Paper award at the 2016 IEEE Power and Energy Society general meeting. He was elevated to IEEE Fellow in 2017 for contributions to miniature robotics and grid integration of energy storage. He serves as team lead for the Equitable Regulatory Environment thrust area of the Sandia energy storage program. He has been active with the Albuquerque IEEE section since 1991, serving as chair in 1993, 2007-2008, and 2010-2011.
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Achilles Chiotis
Achilles Chiotis, Ph.D.
VP, Consumer Market Segment Bourns, IncAchilles Chiotis is the Vice President of the Consumer Market Segment at Bourns, Inc. He is responsible for identifying unmet Consumer and Automotive electronics market needs enabling Bourns to lead with new product definitions, state-of-the-art product development and growth through innovation.
Prior to Bourns, Achilles spent several years as a member of the senior leadership team of the Raychem Circuit Protection business unit of TE Connectivity.
Achilles received his Ph.D. degree in Materials Science from the CNRS (Centre National de Recherche Scientifique) in Strasbourg, France. He also has a MSc in Materials Science from the University Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg, France, and a MSc degree in Chemical Engineering from the National Technical University in Athens, Greece.
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Aman Chitkara
Aman Chitkara is a Manager with RMI where he works with government and private sector clients on identifying strategies to transition to a clean energy system. He has led multiple thought papers and research projects on mobility systems, electricity generation and distribution, and global climate change.
Most recently Aman has been working with various government and private sector stakeholders in India to identify actionable pathways towards a shared, electric and connected mobility future. Prior to his work on India’s mobility sector, Aman worked with RMI’s eLab where he supported work on New York’s Reforming the Energy Vision initiative, and Fort Collins’ Climate Action Plan.
Through his 10+ years of experience at organizations including ICF International, Gade Environmental Group and the Center for Robust Decision-making on Climate and Energy Policy (RDCEP), Aman has worked in diverse geographies spanning North America, South Asia and Europe.
Aman holds a Masters in Public Policy and Economics from the University of Chicago.
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Bruce Dunn
Department Chair and Nippon Sheet Glass Professor - University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
Bruce Dunn is the Nippon Sheet Glass Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at UCLA. Prior to joining UCLA, he was a staff scientist at the General Electric Research and Development Center. His research interests concern the synthesis of inorganic and organic/inorganic materials, and characterization of their electrical, optical, biological and electrochemical properties. A continuing theme in his research is the use of sol-gel methods to synthesize materials with designed microstructures and properties. His recent work on electrochemical energy storage includes three-dimensional batteries and pseudocapacitor materials. Among the honors he has received are a Fulbright research fellowship, the Orton Lectureship from the American Ceramic Society, awards from the Department of Energy and invited professorships in France, Japan and Singapore. He is a Fellow of the Materials Research Society, the American Ceramic Society, and a member of the World Academy of Ceramics. In addition to the Board of Reviewing Editors at Science, he is a member of the editorial boards of Energy Storage Materials, Advanced Energy Materials, Solid State Ionics, and Journal of the American Ceramic Society.
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Amir Faghri
Distinguished Professor of Engineering and
Distinguished Dean Emeritus of Engineering
University of ConnecticutAmir Faghri currently holds the titles of Distinguished Professor of Engineering and Distinguished Dean Emeritus of Engineering at the University of Connecticut. He joined the University of Connecticut in 1994 and served as Head of the Mechanical Engineering Department from 1994-1998, and as the Dean of the School of Engineering from 1998-2006. He has authored five books, more than 350 archival technical publications (including over 250 journal papers), and thirteen U.S. patents. He has served as a principal investigator conducting research in the area of thermal management and multiphase transport phenomena for applications ranging from advanced cooling systems to alternative energy systems, including heat pipes, fuel cells, solar energy systems and thermal energy storage devices. He has received many honors and awards, including the American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics (AIAA) Thermophysics Award in 1998, the American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME) Heat Transfer Memorial Award in 1998, the ASME James Harry Potter Gold Medal in 2005, the ASME/AIChE Max Jakob Memorial Award in 2010, and the George Grover Medal in 2018. He has served as a consultant to several major research centers and corporations, including the Los Alamos and Oak Ridge national laboratories, Exxon Mobil, and Intel Corporation. He presently serves on the boards of directors of both publicly-traded and private companies.
Dr. Faghri received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California at Berkeley, and a B.S with highest honors from Oregon State University.
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Angelina M. Galiteva
Founder and Board President at Renewables 100 Policy Institute,
Vice Chair California Independent System OperatorAngelina M. Galiteva is the Founder and Board Chair of Renewables 100 Policy Institute, an organization dedicated to accelerating global transition to 100% renewable energy. Ms. Galiteva serves as the Vice Chair of the California Independent Systems Operator Board (CAISO), which is one of the largest transmission operators in the World. Ms. Galiteva also serves as Chairperson of the World Council for Renewable Energy (WCRE) and is a Founding Board Member of the Global Clean Energy Desalination Alliance. Ms. Galiteva is an expert in strategic issues related to renewable energy, the environment, new technologies, optimizing system efficiency and overall sustainable policy programs for public and private entities. As such she is frequently sent as a US State Department representative expert on renewable energy and grid issues. In addition, Ms. Galiteva is founder and principal of NEOptions, Inc., a renewable energy product development firm. Previously, Ms. Galiteva was the Executive Director of Strategic Planning for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), overseeing the utility's renewable energy program. Ms. Galiteva is an attorney with a JD Degree and Master’s in International and Energy Law.
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Tilak Gopalarathnam
Director, Energy Technology Partnerships - LG Technology Center of America
Tilak Gopalarathnam is currently the Director of Energy Technology Partnerships at LG Technology Center of America, a division of LG Corp. In this role, he is responsible for open innovation, partnerships and new business development in solar photovoltaics, energy storage and grid edge technologies. He works across business units and develops the technology strategy for new solutions in partnership with startups as well as established companies. One of his focus areas is the development of solar + storage solutions for the residential, commercial and utility markets.
Tilak has been working on various aspects of renewable energy and energy efficiency for the past 20 years. Most recently, he was responsible for innovations in solar module manufacturing at Flex. In prior roles, he managed the development of power conversion solutions for solar power plants at SunEdison, and designed power electronics for hybrid electric vehicles at General Motors. He has an MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Texas A&M University and a B. Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology - Madras.
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JT Guerin
Director of High Voltage Battery Systems Engineering at Faraday Future
JT Guerin has 20 years of experience in battery engineering, working both in the automotive and the consumer electronics industries including ten years as the lead high voltage battery system engineer at General Motors. During his tenure at GM, he was responsible for the battery system design and execution for GM’s first Li-Ion battery pack and played parts in several other GM electric vehicle programs, including the Chevrolet Volt, Spark-EV, Bolt-EV, and Malibu Hybrid. JT is presently the Director of High Voltage Battery Systems Engineering at Faraday Future, where his team is responsible for cell engineering, battery pack hardware design, battery management software, validation testing, and pack integration of FF’s 130kWh battery.
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Juchen Guo
Associate Professor, University of California, Riverside- Chemical and Environmental Engineering
Juchen Guo earned his Bachelor degree from Zhejiang University in 1999 and his Ph.D. from University of Maryland in 2007, both in Chemical Engineering. From 2007 to 2012, he worked as postdoctoral researcher at University of Maryland (2007 to 2011) and Cornell University (2011 to 2012). He joined the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at University of California, Riverside as an Assistant Professor in summer 2012. His research interests are interfacial phenomena and material properties in electrochemical systems including Li-ion, Li-S, and multivalent ion batteries. He is the recipient of 2014 Hellman Fellowship and 2018 NSF CAREER Award.
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Waqar Hashim
Vehicle Line Executive and Vice President of Program Management
Faraday FutureWaqar Hashim is the Vehicle Line Executive and Vice President of Global program management at Faraday Future. Prior to joining Faraday in 2018, he worked at General Motors as the Chief Engineer of new Chevrolet Blazer and Holden Acadia. He has held various global roles in engineering and development at GM during a career that spanned 24 years. Waqar is a Mechanical Engineer with an MS Degree in Engineering as well as an MBA degree. He is the author of several technical papers and holds three patents on mechanism design. Prior to working at GM, Waqar spent two years as a research student at NASA Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio.
He is a global leader focused on creating value by developing effective teams to produce exceptional results in a challenging environment. He is experienced in streamlining operations and increasing organizational efficiency that produces first-time quality. He has launched major vehicle programs with $0.5B budget successfully on time and turned around major products struggling in the market that required significant re-engineering and re-contenting / re-branding with urgency.
He has been following the evolution of the global automotive business for many years and has moved to California recently to be in midst of all the technological evolution.
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Hossein Akhavan Hejazi
University of California, Riverside-Winston Chung Global Energy Center (WCGEC)
Dr. Akhavan Hejazi’s research is generally focused on developing models, mathematical tools, and performing analysis in the application area of smart grid. His efforts have been dedicated to power system analysis, algorithm and programming, optimization techniques, statistical analysis, stochastic optimization, and time-series analysis. He has performed research on incorporating these techniques to solve problems related to operation and integration of distributed energy resources, including renewable generation, demand response, and in particular energy storage systems (ESSs). He works on various practical challenges/opportunities in developing effective designs for operation and planning of ESSs.
Dr. Akhavan Hejazi has engaged with a broad range of research topics and projects, including on topics such as operational issues and opportunities with the operation of smart inverters in applications of solar and storage operation, advanced power system metering with the use of distribution-level uPMUs, analysis of power system big data, operation management of storage systems by considering the device-level characteristics, and data-driven methods for energy efficiency and demand response for specific building types and demands. He also has performed research on task allocation and planning methods for systems in the abstract form and in applications beyond the context of smart grid.
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George Hernandez
Principal Technical Advisor, Buildings to Grid Integration and Buildings Controls Research Program Manager, Pacific Northwest Laboratory
George joined Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in 2009 and works in the Electricity Infrastructure & Buildings division. He is a Technical Advisor and senior demand-side management professional. He co-authored the “High Performance RTU Challenge,” “Buildings Performance Database, the Low Cost Wireless Metering Challenge,” “Energy Information Handbook,” “Portable Sensor Suitcase,” “Open Source Small Building Control System,” and “Transactional Network” project. He has championed development and commercialization of an open source software platform called VOLTTRON™, used to deploy transactional control strategies for buildings-to-grid integration. As part of the commercialization effort, VOLTTRON was migrated to the Eclipse Foundation as an open source project and is now know as Eclipse VOLTTRON. Most recently, performing as Co-PI for Grid Modernization Lab Consortium residential RDS project. He has extensive knowledge, skills, and capabilities derived from a substantial career in demand-side utility management across a wide variety of commercial and industrial sectors and utilities as both a corporate employee and an independent consultant. George received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from California State University and his Masters in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley. He is a Licensed Professional Engineer by the State of California
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Eric Kim
Infrastructure and Regulatory Policy Specialist
California Independent System OperatorOver the last decade, the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) has made significant advances in its energy market participation models to manage and facilitate energy storage and distributed energy resources. Eric Kim has been the lead market policy designer for the integration of energy storage and distributed energy resources at the California ISO. In 2017, he led a joint report with the three major California utilities detailing the coordination efforts needed at the transmission and distribution interface to prepare for a high DER future. Most recently, as the lead policy developer for the Energy Storage and Distributed Energy Resources Phase 3 initiative, Mr. Kim designed enhancements to its demand response and energy storage participation models. Additionally, he created a load shift product for behind the meter energy storage resources. Outside of market policy design, he represents the CAISO’s regulatory policy in the CPUC’s energy storage and demand response proceedings. Mr. Kim has provided subject matter expertise in multiple forums on market integration of DER and energy storage to international regulators, grid operators, and developers.
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Stephen Kelley
Senior Vice President ENGIE Storage
Stephen Kelley is the Senior Vice President at ENGIE Storage. He brings more than 25 years of domain experience, specializing in the renewable energy and high-tech sectors. Prior to ENGIE Storage, Steve spent six years in the solar industry in leadership roles for SoCore Energy, DRI Energy, and SunPower. Steve’s prior sales management experience includes management positions at Solectron, Oracle, Visa, and IBM. Steve received his bachelor’s degree from UC Berkeley
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Thomas Kirk
Senior Solutions Engineer
OPAL-RT TechnologiesThomas Kirk is a senior solutions engineer with OPAL-RT Technologies based out of Vancouver, BC, Canada. Since 2015, he has worked closely with world leaders within the energy, aerospace, defense and academic sectors in selecting real-time testing solutions for R&D, production and certification purposes. Also, he is OPAL-RT’s specialist in creating test setups for cybersecurity and vulnerability of grid operational technology, as well as Power Hardware-in-the-Loop. Prior to OPAL-RT, he worked at Bechtel Corporation at the Aluminum Center of Excellence (ACE) in Montreal, on simulating the performance and safety of mining facilities during the design phase. He has his Master’s in Applied Science from the University of Waterloo (2014) and his Bachelors in Engineering from McGill University (2010).
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Peter Lilienthal
CEO HOMER Energy
Dr. Peter Lilienthal is the CEO of HOMER Energy. Since 1993, he has been the developer of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s HOMER® hybrid power optimization software, which has been used by over 200,000 energy practitioners in 193 countries. NREL has licensed HOMER Energy to be the sole world-wide commercialization licensee to distribute and enhance the HOMER model.
Dr. Lilienthal was the Senior Economist with International Programs at NREL from 1990 – 2007. He was one of the creators of NREL’s Village Power Program. He has a Ph.D. in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University. He has been active in the field of renewable energy and energy efficiency since 1978. This has included designing and teaching courses at the university level, project development of independent power projects, and consulting to industry and regulators. His expertise is in the economic and financial analysis of renewable and micro-grid projects.
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Hamed Mohsenian-Rad
Associate Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering; Associate Director, Winston Chung Global Energy Center; University of California, Riverside-Winston Chung Global Energy Center (WCGEC)
Dr. Hamed Mohsenian-Rad is an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Associate Director of Winston Chung Global Energy Center at UC Riverside. He is also the founding Director of the UC-National Lab Center for Power Distribution Cyber Security, a new cyber-security research initiative across four University of California campuses and two U.S. Department of Energy National Laboratories. His research interests include developing hybrid data-driven and model-based techniques for monitoring, control, and optimization of power systems and smart grids. He has received the National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award, a Best Paper Award from the IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES) General Meeting, and a Best Paper Award from the IEEE International Conference on Smart Grid Communications. Two of his papers are currently ranked as the two most cited journal articles in the field of smart grids. He has served as the Lead Primary Investigator (PI) for over $10 million research projects. Dr. Mohsenian-Rad received his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada in 2008. He currently serves as an Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, an Editor of the IEEE Power Engineering Letters, Vice-Chair of the IEEE Smart Grid Communications Smart Grid Communications Technical Committee, and co-Chair of the IEEE Power and Energy Society Working Group on Big Data Access and Research Integration. Dr. Mohsenian-Rad received the UC Riverside Bourns College of Engineering Distinguished Teaching Award in 2017.
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Hamidreza Nazaripouya
Research Assistant Professor, University of California, Riverside-Winston Chung Global Energy Center (WCGEC)
Hamidreza Nazaripouya is a Research Assistant Professor at the University of California, Riverside (UCR). He received the M.S. degree in power electronics from the Sharif University of Technology in 2010, and the M.S. degree in power systems from Louisiana State University in 2013. He obtained his Ph.D. degree from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). His research on integration and control of distributed renewable energy resources and battery storage systems has led to multiple publications and patents in the field. His patented technology won the NSF grant award with him as the entrepreneurial lead to investigate the commercialization of the technology. Dr. Nazaripouya is an experienced power system engineer with industry background. In particular, he has worked for Entergy Corporation, owner and operator of power plants with approximately 30,000 MW of electric generating capacity. He has conducted several projects for utility companies during his career. His research interests include control and integration of DERs, application of power electronics in power system, microgrid technologies, Electric Vehicles and battery energy storage systems.
Dr. Nazaripouya has received several honors and awards, including IEEE SFV Section Rookie of the Year Award, IEEE IAS and PES Presentation Awards, and the UC Dissertation-Year Fellowship Award.
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Cengiz Ozkan
Professor in the Department of Materials Science & Engineering, Mechanical Engineering - University of California, Riverside (UCR)
Cengiz Ozkan is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering at the University of California, Riverside since 2009. He received his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Stanford University in 1997. His areas of expertise include nanomaterials for energy storage; synthesis of 2D materials including graphene; novel battery and supercapacitor architectures; nanoelectronics; biochemical sensors; and nanopatterning for beyond CMOS. He has been a member of several prestigious Centers including the DARPA-SRC C-SPIN (Center for Spintronic Materials, Interfaces and Novel Architectures, University of Minnesota); the DARPA-SRC FENA (Center for Functional Engineered Nano Architectonics, UCLA); the NSF MRSEC for Polymers (Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, University of Massachusetts at Amherst); and the NSF NSEC for Hierarchical Nanomanufacturing (Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center, University of Massachusetts at Amherst). He organized and chaired over 35 scientific and international conferences, including the symposium titled “Interfaces in Advanced Electrochemical Energy Storage” at the MRS Fall 2017 Meeting in Boston. He served as conference president for the Graphene-Turkey series between 2014–2016. He is currently organizing the symposium titled “Battery Technologies for Next Generation Electric Vehicles and Grid Storage Applications”, for the Fall 2019 MRS Meeting in Boston, MA. Dr. Ozkan is a founding faculty member of the Materials Science and Engineering Program at UCR and served as Graduate Advisor between 2009–2016; and he recruited over 100 graduate students into the program. He has more than 300 technical publications including journal papers, conference proceedings, abstracts and book chapters; over 80 patent disclosures, has given more than 140 presentations worldwide, and has 15 patents licensed by the industry. Most recently, he is the recipient of the European Advanced Energy Materials Award and the John J. Guarrera Engineering Educator of the Year Award. His work on developing Li-ion batteries using nature abundant renewable resources including beach sand, recycled glass and plastics, brought the “Top 100 Author award” from the Nature publishing group. Dr. Ozkan participated in several televised interviews on the progress and future of energy storage technologies, and his research received significant media attention over the years and related press releases have been published by a large number of news outlets including The Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, Fast Company, Science Channel, Discovery News, MTV News, Ecouterre, Physics Today, Materials Today, Popular Science, and many more.
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Farrokh Rahimi
Senior Vice President, Market Design & Consulting
Open Access Technology International, Inc. (OATI)Farrokh Rahimi has a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from MIT, along with over 45 years of experience in the electric power industry. In his current role as Senior Vice President, Market Design and Consulting at Open Access Technology International, Inc. (OATI), Dr. Rahimi oversees development of market design and consulting activities of OATI and is also a key contributor to OATI’s Smart Grid and Grid Modernization products and services. He is a Life Member of IEEE and a member of a number of Smart Grid and Grid Modernization task forces and committees collaborating with IEEE, NERC, NIST, NAESB, WECC, IRC, and GWAC among others.
Before joining OATI in 2006, he collaborated with California ISO, Folsom, CA for eight years, where he was engaged in market monitoring and design. His prior experience included eight years with Macro Corporation (subsequently KEMA Consulting), five years with Systems-Europe, Brussels, Belgium; one year with Brown Boveri (now ABB), Baden, Switzerland; ten years, as a university professor, researcher, and consultant in power and industrial control systems, and two years with Systems Control, Inc. (now ABB Systems Control, Santa Clara, CA), where he started his professional career.
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Ahmed Saber
Principal Power Engineer
ETAP, Irvine, CAAhmed Saber received the Ph.D. degree from University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa, Japan, in 2007. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Missouri University of S&T, Rolla from 2008 to 2010. He is currently Principal Power Engineer (R&D), ETAP, USA. He develops tools for operation, optimization and control of intelligent distribution systems in ETAP using both deterministic and intelligent methods. His timely researches have been funded nationally and internationally including DoE. He won the IEEE Outstanding Engineer Award in Southern California, USA among more than 12,000 engineers for his contributions on smart-grid in 2012. He has published over 75 technical papers and holds 2 patents on power system. His research interests include smart-grid, storage, renewables, power system optimization-forecasting, cyber-physical systems, real-time systems, and operations research.
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Arthur Salyer
President at Salyer Advisors
Executive In Residence
University of California, RiversideArt Salyer is a business leader with broad “C” level experience. He has “hands-on” experience effectively managing businesses with operations in North America, Latin America, Asia, Eastern and Western Europe.
His was the COO of SDI Media. SDI Media is one of the largest independent dubbing and subtitling entertainment company. Art’s responsibilities included operating 38 locations around the world involved in 60 different languages.
Prior to SDI Media, Art was the successful CEO of Palladium Energy. Palladium is one of the largest independent producer of lithium batteries and power supplies for consumer and industrial applications. Art took over leadership of the business on behalf of the private equity owners. Art was responsible for the successful transition of this business unit into a growing independent company with manufacturing and technology centers in Europe, China, Brazil and the United States.
Art served as the de facto COO of the Technicolor Company, the premiere post production company in the entertainment business. He was responsible for worldwide film duplication and delivery as well as post production for the company
Art has had a number of increasingly responsible roles of businesses of large and smaller businesses including: technology post startups, battery and power supplies, retail consumer electronics, entertainment and media, consumer and office products, and food. The focus of his work has typically been in the operations/manufacturing/services areas.
Art operates a consulting practice: Salyer Advisors LLC. This boutique consulting firm specializes in shorter-term executive assignments, private equity and venture capital operations support, turnaround leadership, special projects, and executive coaching/development. His focus is both US-based and global assignments.
Recently Art was appointed as an Entrepreneur in Residence at the University of California. In this role he is active teaching and mentoring various University entrepreneurial and business startup programs. He also is active in strategic advising related to University intellectual property and inventions. This last year he was appointed as mentor with the National Science Foundation. He also serves as a mentor at California State University.
Art serves on several advisory boards for startup companies. He is active with several venture capital and private equity firms. Currently he is particularly excited about working on the launch of a revolutionary battery operated hair dryer.
Art has B.S. Degree in Engineering from California State University and an MBA from Pepperdine University.
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Fred H. Schwartz
Adjunct Professor
York University Faculty of Environmental Studies
International Renewable Energy AcademyFred is a senior executive with over 40 years in the fields of renewable energy, energy efficiency and environment. He is an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University in Toronto, and is the Executive Director of the International Renewable Energy Academy. He obtained his Bachelor’s Degree in Education from McGill University in 1970, and a Masters Degree in Environmental Studies from York University in 1973. Fred has worked on Inuit Land Claims in the Arctic, and in Northern Labrador and in 1980 he consulted on the Arctic to National Geographic Magazine. From 1981 to 1986 he founded and managed the Remote Power Unit in the Ontario Ministry of Energy where they installed over 20 hydro, wind, solar and biomass installations. In 1990 Fred moved to California and from 1991 to 1995 he was Manager of the PG&E EnergyWise Showcase Home Program. In 1991 he won both the PG&E Chairman’s Award, and the President’s Conservation and Environment Challenge Award from George H. W. Bush. From 1996 to 1999, Fred was Manager of Business Development for Trinity Flywheel, where they developed a high-speed flywheel for energy storage and power quality, and delivered one for residential solar energy storage to the CEC. From 2001 to 2005 he was Manager of Renewables and Advanced Generation for the City of San Francisco. In 2004 he won a Green Power Award from US EPA for the Moscone Convention Center solar project. In 2005 he was featured in a film, The Power of the Sun. From 2005 to 2009 he was Vice-President of Intellergy Corporation, producing hydrogen from organic waste. From 2009 to 2014 he was Senior Director of Business Development for Northland Power Inc. where he acquired a MATOC to deliver wind power to the US Army. He has operated a California Corporation Fred Schwartz Renewables, Inc. from 2012. He currently works with CE-CERT and SC-RISE at UC Riverside where he was on the organizing committee for the 2019 Solar Conference.
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Jordan Smith
Senior Engineer Southern California Edison Company (SCE), Grid Technology and Modernization
Jordan W. Smith is Senior Engineer for Emerging Technologies & Valuation in SCE’s Grid Technology and Modernization organization. He has been evaluating advanced technology vehicles, energy storage, and charging infrastructure for 20 years at SCE’s EV Technical Center. In 2011, California adopted battery charger efficiency standards in its appliance code, based in part on prior work by Smith at SCE, work which later led to him to chair the SAE J2894 task force on EV charger power quality. In 2013 he developed and executed the SCE test plan which enabled connection of the first vehicle to grid systems in the L.A. Air Force Base V2G pilot – the first V2G systems aggregated to engage in the California ISO ancillary services market. Mr. Smith represents SCE in U.S. DRIVE, Driving Research and Innovation for Vehicle efficiency and Energy sustainability, Grid Integration Technical Team, the U.S. collaboration with the automobile industry, federal government, and electric utilities on vehicle-grid integration. Mr. Smith received a B.S. degree in mechanical engineering and an M.S. degree in engineering management from California State Polytechnic University and is a licensed professional engineer in California.
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Candace Suh-Lee
Senior Technical Leader - Cyber Security, Power Delivery and Utilization Sector
Candace Suh-Lee is a Principal Technical Leader – Cyber Security in the Power Delivery and Utilization (PDU) Sector at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). She has more than seventeen years of experience in information and technology security in the energy sector with hands-on OT/IT technical skills.
Candace leads several research projects in cyber security program including Cyber Security Metrics for the Electric Sector, Security Architecture for Power Delivery Systems and Cyber Security for DER Integration. She also leads a taskforce to address cybersecurity for DER and grid-edge systems.
Candace participates in several California Energy Commission sponsored initiatives as the cybersecurity lead, including Impact Assessment & Secure Implementation of CA Rule 21 Phase 3 Smart Inverter Functions to Support High PV Penetration, and Research Roadmap for System Transformation to Enable High Penetration of Distributed Energy Resources.
Prior to joining EPRI, Candace worked for various electric and gas utilities in North America both in technical and strategic levels, specializing in industrial control system security, NERC-CIP, smart grid security, security information and event management, vulnerability assessment, and risk management.
Candace holds an M.Sc. Computer Science from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and Hon. B.Sc., Computer Science from the University of Toronto.
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Rexford Wait
President, the Nevada Hydro Company
Rex is President of Control Technology, Inc. and President of The Nevada Hydro Company. He is also Vice-President of the International Consortium of Energy Management.
Rex is a hands-on applied Engineering Consultant, and Contractor. Since the inception of Control Technology Inc. in 1985; this firm completed over 6,500 projects around the world.
Projects include, for example, HVAC design, comprehensive conservation review, cogeneration plant design and consulting, power production control systems, thermal energy storage systems, engine-driven chillers, absorption chillers, variable speed chillers, turbine and steam driven chillers, ammonia cooling systems, boilers, large scale central cooling plants, fuel cell design and installation, and manufacturing/process automation.
In addition, Rex is responsible for the development of large hydroelectric facilities and transmission through The Nevada Hydro Co, a utility holding of Control Technology Inc, and is currently the largest private developer of pumped storage projects in the United States. These assets are regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, (FERC). Current projects under review by FERC are, the 500 MW Lake Elsinore Advanced Pumped Storage Project, and 500 kV Telega-Escondido/Valley-Serrano Interconnect Project, (FERC Dockets P-14227/ER06-278/ER08-654). In addition, FERC granted, new Preliminary Permits for the 450 MW Blue Diamond Pumped Storage Project South of Las Vegas, (Docket P-14344).
The last holding is ICEM; located in Riyadh, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This holding specializes in extremely large central cooling, and storage projects. Currently, Control Technology Inc is the Prime Engineering Contractor, in Joint Venture with ICEM, to Saud Consulting, and responsible for the Electro-Mechanical design, at the King Saud University Central Energy Plant. The university has 75,000 students, and the central plant serves its energy requirements through three tunnel systems, totaling 17 km. Phase I, was to upgrade the existing 35,000 ton Cooling Facility. Phase II, is to double again the Central Plant Capacity, totaling 65,000 tons. This project was completed in 2015.Rex holds membership in Association of Energy Engineers, American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Instrument Society of America, National Hydro Power Association, and is a Founding Member of the Western Independent Transmission Group.
He holds a California Class C10, Electrical Contractors License, 481744, Underwriters Laboratories, UL508A Certification, FAA; Airplane Single Engine Land and Sea, Airplane Multi Engine Land, Instrument, Certificate Number 2896137
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Richard Wirz
Director, UCLA Energy Innovation Laboratory; Professor, UCLA Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering; Chief Scientist, Element 16 Technologies, Inc.
Professor Richard E. Wirz is Director of the UCLA Energy Innovation Laboratory and Co-Founder and Scientific Advisor of Element 16 Technologies, Inc., an energy storage start-up based on his research at UCLA. He is an expert in large-scale energy generation and storage via solar, wind, and ocean sources. Prof. Wirz had a long history in renewable energy. He received two B.S. degrees, Aerospace and Ocean Engineering, at Virginia Tech, and then became the Technical Lead for Ocean Energy Technologies at SeaSun Power Systems in Alexandria, VA. Later, he became Technical Lead, then Manager, for Renewable Energy at Gibbs & Cox, Inc. in Crystal City, VA. After receiving his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) he joined NASA/JPL as a Senior Engineer and then assumed his current roles at UCLA and Element 16. He is also the Chief Scientist for WindStream Technologies, Inc., a company specializing in distributed wind and solar. He has several patents and pending patents, and has authored over 150 journal and conference publications, and two NASA Tech Briefs. In addition to his work in renewable energy, he is a semi-professional musician/songwriter and the Director of UCLA’s Plasma & Space Propulsion Laboratory.
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Iryna Zenyuk
Assistant Professor, University of California, Irvine; Associate Director of National Fuel Cell Research Center
Professor Iryna Zenyuk holds a B.S. (2008) in mechanical engineering from the New York University Tandon School of Engineering. She continued her studies at Carnegie Mellon University, where she earned M.S. (2011) and Ph.D. (2013) under supervision of Prof. Shawn Litster. Her graduate work focused on fundamental understanding of electric double layers in electrochemical energy-conversion systems. After a postdoctoral fellowship at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Electrochemical Technologies Group with Dr. Adam Z. Weber Prof. Zenyuk joined the faculty of the Mechanical Engineering Department at Tufts University in 2015. In July 2018 she joined Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at University of California, Irvine, where she is also an Associate Director of the National Fuel Cell Research Center. At UC Irvine, Prof. Zenyuk’s group works on enabling energy solutions by researching low-temperature hydrogen fuel-cells, Li-metal batteries and electrolyzers. Prof. Zenyuk works on design strategy encompassing novel materials, diagnostic tools and device-level testing. She is a recipient of the NSF CAREER award (2017), Interpore society Fraunhofer Award for Young Researchers (2017), Research Corporation for Science Advancement, Scialog Fellow in Advanced Energy Storage (2017, 2018) and ECS Toyota Award (2018). Prof. Zenyuk published over 40 journal publications and delivered more than 50 invited presentations on topics of energy conversion and storage.
2018 Speakers
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Erik Bakke
Sr. Account Executive, EnerNOC, an Enel Group Company
Erik develops renewable energy assets leveraging energy storage technologies for projects “behind the meter” in commercial, industrial and multi-tenant buildings.
Prior to joining Enel, Erik led solar project development in the Western U.S., providing technology and capital for distributed energy projects at EnSync Energy Systems. His expertise in power generation began with GE Energy in 1991. He has held leadership roles in the solar industry since 2006 with GE Solar, SMA, Conergy and with Sol Systems, a preeminent solar finance and development company.
As the Sales Leader for Commercial projects with SMA Solar, Erik launched large project inverter sales while creating the market for integrated power platforms on the first utility scale solar projects in Canada and the United States. As early as 2006, as the Regional Manager of Conergy’s US SunTechnics division, Erik built and led sales, engineering and project management teams to deliver turnkey solar PV systems up to 1.2 MW including the first solar-powered grocery store portfolio in California.
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Richard J Bravo
Senior Engineer, Southern California Edison (SCE)
Richard is a Senior Engineer in Integrated Innovation and Modernization at Southern California Edison. He has worked on various projects including the upgrade of motor control centers for oil exploration, control systems upgrades for pipelines and truck loading racks, SCE satellite communications, SCE's Delayed Voltage Recovery project, load performance during transient conditions, and SCE solar PV inverter generation performance in distribution system. Richard graduated from California State University, Long Beach with both BSEE and MSEE. He earned a Power Systems Sequential Program Certificate from University of California in Los Angeles and holds Professional Engineer license in electrical engineering from the State of California.
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Rahul Chopra
Sr. Advisor/Program Development Specialist, Energy Technologies Area, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Leader, Grid Integration Group, Energy Storage & Distributed Resources Division, Lawrence Berkeley National LaboratoryRahul is a serial entrepreneur and a partner at Ventus Partners and advises leading Venture Capital Funds, technology incubators, and new startups in the fields of energy and telecom infrastructure, healthcare IT, and technology related business models and markets. At Lawrence Berkeley, Rahul is a Sr. Advisor for Energy Technologies Area where he focuses on Public Private Partnerships, business development, new business ideas and models, and strategic alliances across the area. As a Rockefeller Fellow and as an Advisor to the City of San Francisco's Mayor and Board, Rahul chairs the P3 Committee on Fiber Everywhere where he is responsible for fundraising and revenue for citywide fiber asset P3. In addition to serving on the Boards of multiple technology firms, start-ups, foundations and various local governments advising on city infrastructure, Rahul works closely with the leading venture and PE firms as an advisor on the west coast in diverse industries that span energy, wireless, and healthcare infrastructures creation and optimization. Having founded 2 high-tech startups and raised over $200M in capital and completed over $1Billion in transactions, Rahul has over 20 years of financial, transactions, corporate development and strategy expertise in launching and growing disruptive, high-tech businesses. Prior to startups, Rahul ran multiple hundred million dollar businesses at 3COM and NORTEL. Rahul is a Graduate of Columbia University and the University of California Berkeley. Patents: 2 in MIMO for wireless and Dynamic Call Control for Unified Messaging (aka Apple Visual Mail, Google Voice etc.)
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Marcel Christians
Chief Technology Officer, Ice Energy
Marcel serves as Ice Energy’s Chief Technology Officer.
He joined Ice Energy in the summer of 2015. Under Marcel’s guidance, the Ice Energy product development team has expanded the product portfolio to include the Ice Bear 40, the residential Ice Bear 10 and Ice Bear 20, as well as the Polar Bear product line for refrigeration applications.
At Ice Energy, Marcel also leads efforts to promote and educate on engineering best practices, process improvements and quality standards. In addition to product development and new application efforts, he and the R&D team have extended the storage capacities of existing products while reducing product cost and footprint. Marcel is dedicated to a strategy of exhaustive innovation ensuring Ice Energy's intellectual property is fully realized to produce a comprehensive suite of energy storage, cooling and heating solutions for global residential and C&I markets.
Prior to joining Ice Energy, Marcel worked at UTC Carrier Corporation’s Technology and Components Division where he designed and developed disruptive heat transfer technologies and systems for the chiller market.
Marcel holds a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, in Switzerland, where he studied under the tutelage of world-renowned heat transfer expert Prof. John Thome. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Pretoria, in South Africa with a M.Eng. in Mechanical Engineering.
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Ed Cortez
Principal Electrical Engineering, City of Riverside – Public Utilities Department
Ed Cortez has over 25 years of experience in electric transmission and distribution system capital improvement, reliability, automation and power quality projects. He is responsible for managing the Communications, System Planning, Substation Engineering and Protection groups for Riverside Public Utilities. Mr. Cortez directs and supervises the deployment and integration of electric systems to support the business processes related with advanced grid technologies and system reliability. He is also responsible for the development and implementation of goals, objectives, policies and priorities of Riverside Public Utilities.
He previously worked for DNV GL and was the technical lead in providing engineering and application support utilizing the Synergi Electric software products on a global basis. He has broad integration experience in the delivery of implementation services for GIS, CIS, OMS, SCADA, and AMI projects. He began his career with the City of Anaheim – Public Utilities, where he evaluated and recommended infrastructure improvements that met current and future needs. He graduated from California State Polytechnic University at Pomona with a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering.
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Daniel Elliott
President & CEO, EnerBlue, Inc.
Daniel Elliott is the President and Chief Executive Officer of EnerBlu, Inc. a high-power electrical energy storage solution company bringing innovative technologies and products benefiting from EnerBlu’s lowest manufacturing cost eLTOTM battery technology. Mr. Elliott is leading the development of a state-of-the-art gigawatt eLTO manufacturing plant on a 144-acre campus located on reclaimed coal mine land in Pikeville, Eastern Kentucky to produce systems and vehicles. These include pre-engineered hybridization and microgrid systems for stationary, utility grade grid energy storage systems, all-electric trucks, school buses and shuttle buses. Mr. Elliott is a recognized leader in business development and strategy in the sustainable energy sector. Mr. Elliott has worked with leading battery technologies for mobile and grid based systems including Ford Motor Company, DaimlerChrysler, Honda R&D, Nissan, Mitsubishi, SiemensVDO, Delphi, Magna Steyr, Bosch, Hyundai Heavy Industries, Toshiba, Coslight, Yintong Energy and others. Mr. Elliott has worked globally to identify and commercialize leading edge technologies and has led corporate M&A transactions, capital raising, technology validation, manufacturing plant construction, strategic partnership developments and other key activities associated with business success and growth. In 2008, Mr. Elliott advised President GW Bush on renewable energy for transportation; he has also won the Department of Energy’s “Energy Innovators Award” for his work in rapid charging and high C rate battery technology commercialization.
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Mike Gravely
Team Leader for Energy Technology Systems Integration for the Energy Research and Development Division, California Energy Commission (CEC)
Mike Gravely is the Team Leader for Energy Technology Systems Integration for the Energy Research and Development Division at the California Energy Commission. In this role, he oversees the full spectrum of research activities to improve the California Electric Grid including: implementing the California Smart Grid, assessing future energy storage needs for California, determining the benefit and value of microgrids and distributed energy resources, addressing the grid related issues associated with integrating higher concentrations of renewables, evaluating new advanced generation systems, expanding demand response solutions for California, and addressing natural gas infrastructure safety and reliability. His team is managing over $150 million in microgrid and energy storage research and demonstration projects.
In his over 15 years at the California Energy Commission, he has held key roles as a scientist, supervisor, office manager, deputy division chief and senior engineer addressing the wide range of energy issues facing California and the Nation. Over his years with the Commission, he has worked on addressing the challenges facing the electric grid as California transitions to a new world of higher and higher concentration of renewables. He has also worked actively with the government offices of the Department of Energy, Department of Defense, Department of Transportation and other state energy offices such as New York, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Washington to share information and develop partnerships. He has had the pleasure of overseeing hundreds of research grants to move energy technologies from the laboratory to the field and eventually to commercial success.
Mike has over 30 years of engineering and integration experience in the energy, aerospace and communications fields. Prior to the Energy Commission, Mike served in executive positions in the Federal Government and private industry including managing research, testing and fielding of distributed generation and energy storage systems for the Department of Defense, addressing the business challenges of a startup energy storage company and overseeing a staffing and training company that specialized in serving the utility industry. Mike Gravely has a BSEE from the Virginia Military Institute and an MSEE from California State University at Sacramento.
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Matt Gregori
Technology Development Manager, Southern California Gas Company
Matt Gregori serves as a Technology Development Manager for Low Carbon Resources in the SoCalGas Research, Development, and Demonstration (RD&D) group. In this role, he seeks out new clean energy technologies that are ready for deployment at the pilot or demonstration scale. His current focus is on technologies that convert woody biomass or renewable electricity into Renewable Natural Gas for injection into the natural gas grid.
During his career in the clean energy field, Matt has built and operated various types of clean energy projects, from biodiesel production facilities to food waste anaerobic digesters.
Matt earned a B.S. in Chemistry at The California Institute of Technology and an MBA at the Anderson School of Management at UCLA.
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Juchen Guo
Assistant Professor, University of California, Riverside- Chemical and Environmental Engineering
Juchen Guo earned his Bachelor degree from Zhejiang University in 1999 and his Ph.D. from University of Maryland in 2007, both in Chemical Engineering. From 2007 to 2012, he worked as postdoctoral researcher at University of Maryland (2007 to 2011) and Cornell University (2011 to 2012). He joined the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at University of California, Riverside as an Assistant Professor in summer 2012. His research interests are interfacial phenomena and material properties in electrochemical systems including Li-ion, Li-S, and multivalent ion batteries. He is the recipient of 2014 Hellman Fellowship and 2018 NSF CAREER Award.
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Pirouz Kavehpour
Professor and Vice chairman of MAE Dept., University of California, Los Angeles
Prof. H. Pirouz Kavehpour is professor and vice chairman of graduate studies in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at UCLA. He is also director of the Complex Fluid & Interfacial Physics Laboratory. He received his B.S from Sharif University of Technology (Tehran, Iran) in 1991, and his M.S. in 1997 at the University of Rhode Island where he investigated the heat transfer and fluid mechanics of gaseous flows in microchannels. Dr. Kavehpour performed his Ph.D. research at MIT (2003) in the Hatsopoulos Microfluids Laboratory. He stayed at MIT for his post-doctoral research on the lubricity and rheology of complex fluids in microfluidic devices and in high-speed fiber-coating processes. Prof. Kavehpour’s research includes energy storage, CHP/CCHP, Microgrids and intergration of renewables for low income communities. Prof. Kavehpour is fellow of ASME, and recipient of L. E. Scriven young investigator award from the International Society of Coating Science and Technology. He is also a recipient of the Army Young Investigator award (YIP) for his research on interfacial properties of the ionic liquids with application to batteries.
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GJ la O'
VP Technology, Primus Power
GJ la O’ is a VP of Technology at Primus Power. He received the B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from UC Berkeley in 2001 and the Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from MIT in 2008. He joined Primus Power in 2009 and has been instrumental in leading the technology development of a low-cost, high-power and robust flow battery system. Primus Power's proprietary EnergyPod® flow battery employs only one tank of electrolyte solution and one pump (vs. two for others), a patented bromine electrode and zinc electrode and no separator (which typically need to be replaced in 5-10 years) – together these lower footprint, increase lifetime and reduce cost. He has published over a dozen articles in refereed journal articles in the field of electrochemistry and electrochemical energy sources and has presented at over thirty conference and industry presentations. He has 23 patents issued.
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Michael Lee
Technologist, Electrochemical Technologies Group, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (CA Institute of Technology)
Michael Lee is a Business Development Manager at Smarter Grid Solutions. He is a 10-year veteran of the renewable energy markets, including domestic and international project development. Prior to joining SGS, he participated in renewables + storage projects at First Wind for 15 and 10 MW batteries to integrate wind in Hawaii. At SunEdison, he worked on several DG solar + storage projects as part of the first California SGIP tranche. Michael holds a degree in finance from Ohio State University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
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Seyed H Madaeni
Senior VP of Product Strategy, Advanced Microgrid Solutions
Dr. Seyed Madaeni is Senior Vice President of Product Strategy at AMS where he leads product, engineering and R&D organizations focused on optimizing AMS's portfolio of energy assets in global wholesale electricity markets. Prior to AMS, Seyed worked at Tesla where he led electricity market participation and trading, and successfully built and operationalized the trading platform for integrating the world's largest li-ion ion battery in Australia's wholesale electricity market. Seyed has also held Principal positions at SolarCity and Pacific Gas & Electric which he has collaborated with utilities, regulators and other stakeholders to identify opportunities to effectively integrate and leverage distributed energy resources to benefit the grid and its customers.
Seyed has published numerous academic papers in prestigious journals such as IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, Proceedings of IEEE, Energy Systems, as well as technical reports for National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Seyed holds a B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from University of Tehran and Ph.D. in. Systems Engineering (Operations Research) from The Ohio State University.
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Jin Noh
Policy Manager, California Energy Storage Alliance (CESA)
Jin Noh is CESA's Policy Manager and manages policy and regulatory affairs for CESA at various proceedings and initiatives at the CAISO, CPUC, and CEC. Jin currently leads CESA’s efforts in energy storage planning and procurement, including market and program designs to enable utility-scale and customer-sited energy storage services. Prior to CESA, Jin worked for four years as a Research Analyst at SRI International working on a range of science, technology, and innovation consulting projects for public and private sector clients, such as the New York State Energy & Research Development Authority (NYSERDA). Jin has also worked previously with other various energy sector clients, such as Sfuncube, Sonoma Clean Power, and the Department of Energy. Jin received a B.A. in Public Policy Studies and Economics from Duke University and a M.P.P. from the University of California, Berkeley.
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Mihri Ozkan
Frontier Fellow of National Academy of Engineering; Medalist for Engineering Science, University of California, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California-Riverside
Prof. Mihri Ozkan is a faculty at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in UCRiverside. She completed her graduate studies at Stanford University and at UC-San Diego. She is “the Climate Action Champion" and “Change Maker Professor” of UC-Riverside. Ozkan believes that adaptation of electric vehicles by 2040 depends on improvements on affordability, battery storage capacity, and battery durability. In addition, she says this requires breakthroughs in raw materials, new battery technologies, material processing and battery manufacturing. Hence, Ozkan aims to reduce the cost of anode and cathode raw materials, use new robust and safer battery architectures and performance increase in Li-ion batteries by using renewable and recyclable resources. Her work on developing batteries using in-expensive and abundant renewable resources such as mushrooms, beach sand and diatomite fossils and waste materials such as recycled glass and plastics won Ozkan “the Top 100 Author award” from the Nature publishing group. Furthermore, her battery research is featured many times in popular news outlets such as Forbes, Guardian, New York Times, Time, BBC, TBS, Discovery News, Popular Science, Huffington Post and more. Ozkan advised about 70 graduate students, mainly PhDs. She published about 300 technical papers (Citations: 6580, H-Index: 41, i10-index: 106). She has about 12 UC patents and more than 67 patent disclosures. About 20 of her patents are licensed by the industry. She received national and international honors including; “the National Medal for Engineering Science Award” from the Society of Engineering Science, “the Frontiers of Engineering Honor” by the National Academy of Engineering, “Engineering Educator of the Year Award” by the National Engineers Council, “Young Investigator Award” by the Army Research Laboratories and “the Emerging Scholar Award” by the American Association of University Women.
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Kent Redwine
EVP, Special Projects and Development, EnerBlu, Inc.
Kent Redwine is the EVP of Special Projects and Development at EnerBlu, Inc. a high-power, electrical energy storage solution company bringing innovative technologies and products benefiting from EnerBlu’s lowest manufacturing cost eLTO™ battery technology. EnerBlü is building a state-of-the-art gigawatt scale, eLTO manufacturing plant on a 144-acre campus located on reclaimed coalmine land in Pikeville, Eastern Kentucky to produce systems and vehicles. These include pre-engineered hybridization and microgrid systems for stationary, utility grade grid energy storage systems, all-electric trucks, school buses and shuttle buses. Mr. Redwine began his career as an investment banker at Bank of America and Thomas Weisel Partners focused on technology M&A, where he executed nearly $20 billion in transaction volume. Since 2007, he has been focused almost exclusively on the commercialization of battery technologies and systems, including development of eLTO material production. Mr. Redwine received a BA in Chemistry and Economics from Claremont McKenna College and was a summer associate at Lawrence Livermore National Labs.
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Sarah Tolbert
Professor, UCLA – Departments of Chemistry & Biochemistry and Materials Science & Engineering
Sarah H. Tolbert is a professor in the Departments of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Materials Science and Engineering at UCLA. Prior to joining the faculty at UCLA, she received a B.S. from Yale University, a Ph.D. from U.C. Berkeley as an NSF graduate fellow, and was an NSF postdoctoral fellow at U.C. Santa Barbara. Her research focuses on controlling nanometer-scale architecture in solution-processed nanomaterials to generate unique optical, electronic, magnetic, structural, and electrochemical properties. She has published over 150 scholarly research article. Her group specifically focuses on electrochemical energy storage (including both pseudocapacitors and batteries), solar energy harvesting, electrocatalysis, nanomagnetics, and new ultra-hard materials. She also leads a program aimed at bringing nano-concepts to schools throughout the greater LA area. Professor Tolbert is the recipient of a number of awards and honors including Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the American Chemical Society R.A. Glen Award, Closs and Barrer Lectureships at the University of Chicago and Penn. State, respectively, an Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award, an NSF CAREER Award, a Beckman Young Investigator Award, and a Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship. She serves on the editorial advisory boards of Chemistry of Materials, ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, and Nanoscale Horizons.
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Antonio Tong
R & D Engineer, University of San Diego - Center for Energy Research
Antonio Tong is a senior engineer at the University of California San Diego. His work is focused on battery energy storage system modeling, management, control, and their integration in conjunction with smart grid, solar PV and electrified transportation. He is serving as the principal investigator for the DoE funded ARPAe CHARGES project, validating advanced energy storage technologies for the future utility grid. He is also affiliated with many energy storage deployments and research projects on the campus, including the BMW second life EV battery stationary storage system, the first of its kind to be deployed in the United States. Prior to that, he worked at the University of California Davis as a graduate researcher. He developed one of the first pilot systems that reuse EV batteries in a solar-storage smart home. He also led the creation of the community scale microgrid at the UC Davis Robert Mondavi Institute utilizing PV plus storage to provide renewable energy for viticulture and brewery research. He has over ten publications in battery management, smart grid, electrified vehicles, fuel cells. Antonio Tong received his Ph.D. from the University of California-Davis and Bachelor of Science from Zhejiang University in China, both in mechanical engineering.
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Will West
Technologist, Electrochemical Technologies Group, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (CA Institute of Technology)
Dr. Will West is a Technologist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where he works as Principal Investigator, Co-Investigator, or Task Manager for research and technology development programs related to electrochemistry and energy storage/conversion. In addition to his ongoing R&D activities, he presently serves as Cognizant Engineer for the rover and descent stage batteries on the JPL’s Mars 2020 mission. He received his B.S.E. degree in Chemical Engineering, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Materials Science Engineering from Arizona State University. After completing his Ph.D., Dr. West served as a Postdoctoral Scholar at Caltech and JPL. He has worked as Prototyping Co-Lead at the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (Caltech), consultant for numerous research and development firms, expert witness for the U. S. Department of Justice, lecturer at California State Polytechnic University-Pomona, and as Associate Professor at Nagoya University (Japan). He holds 31 U.S. and international patents, and is author/co-author on approximately 60 journal articles and 90 conference presentations, and co-edited/co-authored the Handbook of Solid State Batteries.