Steering Committee

Meet the team organizing MES events, workshops, and leading the development of this community.

  • Inês Azevedo is an Associate Professor of Energy Resources Engineering in the School of Earth and a Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University. Her research interests lie at the intersection of environmental, technical, and economic issues, such as how to address the challenge of climate change and to move towards a more sustainable energy system. She tackles complex problems in which traditional engineering plays an important role but cannot provide a complete answer. In particular, she has been looking at how energy systems are likely to be shaped in the future, which requires comprehensive knowledge not only of the technologies that can address future energy needs but also of the decision-making process followed by different agents in the economy. Azevedo received her M.Sc. in Innovation and Management of Technology from IST Technical University of Lisbon and her Ph.D. in Engineering and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University.

 
 
  • Prof. Amro M. Farid is the Alexander Crombie Humphreys Chair Professor in Economics of Engineering at the School of Systems and Enterprises at the Stevens Institute of Technology. He is also the Principal Systems Scientist for CSIRO’s Smart Energy Mission, a Visiting Scientist at MIT Mechanical Engineering, and CEO of Engineering Systems Analytics LLC. At Stevens, he leads the Laboratory for Intelligent Integrated Networks of Engineering Systems (LIINES) and has authored over 150 peer reviewed publications in Smart Power Grids, Hydrogen-Energy-Water Nexus , Electrified Transportation Systems, Industrial Production & Supply Chain Energy Management, Smart Cities, Regions, & Nations.

 
  • Jessica Jewell is an Associate Professor in Energy Transitions at the Department of Space, Earth and Environment at Chalmers University and the Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation at the University of Bergen. Her research focuses on the feasibility of climate action and quantifying the dynamics and mechanisms of energy transitions using a variety of disciplinary approaches and methods. She is a recipient of a European Research Council's Starting Grant as well as the Principal Investigator of a project funded by the Norwegian Research Council and a leader of work packages in collaborative research projects supported by European and Swedish funding agencies.

 
  • Dr. Benjamin D. Leibowicz is an Associate Professor at The University of Texas at Austin, where he holds the endowed Banks McLaurin Fellowship in Engineering. His primary appointment is in the Operations Research and Industrial Engineering graduate program, and he also holds a courtesy appointment in the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. In his research, Dr. Leibowicz develops mathematical models and methods to improve decision-making on energy and environmental policy and strategy. He approaches these topics from an interdisciplinary perspective that combine methods from optimization, systems analysis, economic modeling, game theory, and stochastic control. Prior to joining UT Austin, Dr. Leibowicz received both PhD and MS degrees in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University, and earned a BA in Physics with a minor in Economics from Harvard University.

 
  • Wilson Ricks is a PhD candidate in Princeton University's Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering program, and a former Macro-Energy Systems Fellow. His research focuses on the use of optimization modeling tools to evaluate the impacts of policies and technologies on the decarbonization of energy systems. Current areas of focus include next-generation geothermal technologies and Scope 2 emissions accounting.

 
  • Micah S. Ziegler is an assistant professor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and the School of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Micah evaluates sustainable energy and chemical technologies, their impact, and their potential. His research helps to shape robust strategies to accelerate the improvement and deployment of technologies that can enable a global transition to sustainable and equitable energy systems. His work informs research and development, public policy, and financial investment. Micah conducted postdoctoral research in energy systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He earned a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley and a B.S. in Chemistry from Yale University. In addition, he worked in the Climate and Energy Program at the World Resources Institute and was a Luce Scholar assigned to the Business Environment Council in Hong Kong.

 
  • Erin Baker is Associate Dean of College of Engineering and Professor and Director of Wind Energy IGERT at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She examines combining operations research methods and economics to decision making under uncertainty applied to the field of energy and the environment, with a focus on publicly funded energy technology Research and Development portfolios in the face of climate change. Other topics include evaluating the sustainability of the electricity grid in New England as well as in developing countries and evaluating the environmental costs and benefits of offshore wind energy. She has been honored with the Energy, Environment, and Natural Resources Best Publication in Sustainability and the Armstrong Professional Development Professorship. Baker received her B.S. in Applied Mathematics from U.C. Berkeley and both her M.S. and Ph.D in in Engineering Economic Syste

 
 
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  • Jesse Jenkins is an assistant professor at Princeton University with a joint appointment in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and Environment. He is also an affiliated faculty with the Center for Policy Research in Energy and Environment at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and an associated faculty at the Princeton Environmental Institute. Jesse is a macro-scale energy systems engineer with a focus on the rapidly evolving electricity sector, including the transition to zero-carbon resources, the proliferation of distributed energy resources, and the role of electricity in economy-wide decarbonization. Jesse completed a PhD in Engineering Systems (’18) and MS in Technology and Policy (’14) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a BS in Computer and Information Science (’06) at the University of Oregon.

 
  • Dr. Jeremiah Johnson is an Associate Professor at North Carolina State University’s Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering department. He joined NCSU in 2017, as a part of the Chancellor’s Faculty Excellence Program cluster hire in Sustainable Energy Systems and Policy and currently serves as the Senior Faculty Fellow for KIETS Climate Leaders Program. Dr. Johnson is also a faculty advisor for the NC State Sustainability Fund and member of the university’s Sustainability Council. His research evaluates the environmental impacts of emerging technologies and changes to infrastructure systems, using system modeling and experimental approaches in collaborative and interdisciplinary teams. Example projects include conducting life cycle assessment of sedimentary basin CO2-enabled geothermal power, integrating human health considerations into power system operations, and developing open-source energy system models to analyze decarbonization pathway. His research is supported by the National Science Foundation, the Sloan Foundation, and the Department of Energy, among other sources. Dr. Johnson teaches courses on sustainable infrastructure systems, renewable energy generation, and life cycle assessment and, in 2023, he received NC State’s university-wide Outstanding Teaching Award and was inducted into the university’s Academy of Outstanding Teachers.

    Dr. Johnson earned a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Clarkson University and a PhD in Environmental Engineering from Yale University. Upon completion of his graduate studies, he spent several years working in the energy industry, advising utility executives on renewable energy strategy. He then returned to academia as a Research Scientist and Assistant Professor at University of Michigan’s School for Environment & Sustainability. In his free time, he enjoys traveling, running, hiking, and spending time with his family.

 
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  • Patricia Levi is the Chair of the Macro-Energy Systems Workshop Steering Committee. She completed her PhD in 2021 in the energy and environment track at the Stanford University department of Management Science and Engineering. Levi was the lead author on “Macro-Energy Systems: Toward a New Discipline,” a paper published in Joule last fall that ultimately inspired this workshop. She is advised by Prof. John Weyant, and her research uses tools from economics and operations research to improve policy and reduce environmental impacts in the electricity sector.

 
  • John Weyant is Professor of Management Science and Engineering, Director of the Energy Modeling Forum, a Senior Fellow of the Precourt Institute for Energy and an affiliated faculty member of the Stanford School of Earth, Environment and Energy Sciences, the Woods Institute for the Environment, and the Freeman-Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford. His current research focuses on analysis of multi-sector, multi-region coupled human and earth systems dynamics, global change systems analysis, energy technology assessment, and models for strategic planning. Weyant was a founder and serves as chairman of the Integrated Assessment Modeling Consortium, a thirteen year old collaboratory with over 60 member institutions from around the world. He has been an active adviser to the United Nations, the European Commission, U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Department of State, and the Environmental Protection Agency. In California, he has been and adviser to the California Air Resources, the California Energy Commission and the California Public Utilities Commission.

Fellows

  • Avery Barnett

  • Arnav Gautam

    Arnav Gautam is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. He works on the optimization and simulation of power systems with distributed energy resources, to inform policy decision-making. Arnav is broadly interested in equitable decarbonization, infrastructure resilience to climate threats, and improving renewable energy adoption across the globe. A former software engineer, he applies computational and analytical tools to address questions in macro-energy systems. Arnav holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and a B.A. in Cognitive Science, both from the University of California, Berkeley.

  • Lane Smith

    Lane D. Smith is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Washington. He researches distributed energy resource interactions with large-scale energy systems and mechanism design for increasing demand-side participation. More broadly, Lane's research interests include macro-energy systems (with a particular focus on the electric grid), energy policy, optimization, and decision making under uncertainty. He holds an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Washington (2019) and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Denver (2018).

  • Zhenhua Zhang

    Zhenhua is a Ph.D. student in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, San Diego. His research focuses on understanding the role of electricity markets and political economy in decarbonizing the electric power system. Previously, he worked on battery storage at Tesla and startups for a couple of years, where he developed software apps for system-level simulations and real-time controls of commercial and industrial battery storage projects in California and China. Zhenhua holds an M.S. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Stanford University, a B.S. in Environmental Science, and a minor in Economics from Fudan University.