Sam Miles

Sam Miles is a Ph.D. stu­dent in the Energy and Resources Group, and in the Renew­able and Appro­pri­ate Energy Lab at the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, Berkeley.

His research focus is at the inter­sec­tion of the scal­a­bil­ity chal­lenge for elec­tric­ity mini-​​grids and the socio-​​economic char­ac­ter­is­tics of urban­iza­tion in Africa, par­tic­u­larly for the arti­sans and entre­pre­neurs who con­sti­tute the ‘pro­duc­tive’ users of such energy sys­tems. He will engage with these ques­tions as an INFEWS (Inno­va­tions at the Nexus of Food, Energy, and Water Sys­tems) NSF scholar.

Pre­vi­ous to life at ERG, Sam worked as a free­lance writer cov­er­ing tech­nol­ogy in emerg­ing mar­kets, an edu­ca­tor at the African Lead­er­ship Uni­ver­sity in Mau­ri­tius, and as an inter­na­tional devel­op­ment con­sul­tant based in West Africa. He holds an MA in Inter­na­tional Energy from Sci­ences Po — Paris and a BA in Ethics, Pol­i­tics, and Eco­nom­ics from Yale.

Annelise Gill-​​Wiehl

At ERG Annelise has con­tin­ued the study of com­mu­nity energy solu­tions, with both cook­ing and com­mu­nity exten­sion ser­vices focal areas for her ana­lytic and field studies.

Annelise Gill-​​Wiehl stud­ied envi­ron­men­tal engi­neer­ing and inter­na­tional devel­op­ment stud­ies at the Uni­ver­sity of Notre Dame.  There, she worked with the Keough School of Global Affairs’ Asso­ciate Dean for Pol­icy and Prac­tice, Sara Siev­ers, through the Kel­logg Inter­na­tional Schol­ars Pro­gram. They inves­ti­gated how to incor­po­rate the pref­er­en­tial option for the poor into pol­icy. Gill-Wiehl’s own research inves­ti­gates energy infra­struc­ture and the bar­ri­ers to tech­nol­ogy adop­tion. Gill-​​Wiehl and Pro­fes­sor Siev­ers piloted a Com­mu­nity Tech­nol­ogy Pro­gram in Shi­rati, Tan­za­nia through a Kel­logg Research Grant.

While an under­grad­u­ate she interned for the Foun­da­tion of Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment in Masaka, Uganda. Addi­tion­ally, Gill-​​Wiehl con­ducted roughly 200 house­hold energy sur­veys through an Expe­ri­enc­ing the World Fel­low­ship to inves­ti­gate energy infra­struc­ture in Shi­rati. Her research inter­ests are at the inter­sec­tion of engi­neer­ing and pol­icy in the East African con­text. She hopes to pur­sue a PhD to fur­ther inves­ti­gate these issues.

The­sis Title: Pilot of Com­mu­nity Tech­nol­ogy Work­ers in Shi­rati, Tanzania

Raghavan, Shuba

Shuba is the co-​​director of the Cal­i­for­nia Energy Com­mis­sion spon­sored project

“ Engag­ing Com­mu­ni­ties in the Design of  Sus­tain­able Energy and Local­ized Futures  (SELF)”

Among her many pub­li­ca­tions are a num­ber that addresses the energy-​​access-​​affordability-​​climate nexus, including:

1. The Cal­i­for­nia Demand Response: Poten­tial Study, Phase 3; Brian F.Gerke,Giulia Gallo,Sarah J. Smith, Jingjing Liu, Peter Alstone, Shuba V. Ragha­van, Peter Schwartz, Mary Ann Piette, Rongxin Yin and Sofia Stensson. 
2. Trans­lat­ing cli­mate change and heat­ing sys­tem elec­tri­fi­ca­tion impacts on build­ing energy use to future green­house gas emis­sions and elec­tric grid capac­ity require­ments in Cal­i­for­nia; Brian Tar­roja, Feli­cia Chi­ang, Amir AghaK­ouchak, Scott Samuelsen, Shuba V. Ragha­van, Max Wei, Kaiyu Sunand Tianzhen Hong, Applied Energy, 2018, vol. 225, issue C, 522–534
3. Build­ing a Health­ier and More Robust Future: 2050 Low-​​Carbon Energy Sce­nar­ios for Cal­i­for­nia. Cal­i­for­nia Energy Com­mis­sion. Pri­mary Authors: Max Wei, Shuba Ragha­van, Patri­cia Hidalgo-​​Gonzalez, Con­tribut­ing Authors: Rodrigo Hen­riquez Auba, Dev Mill­stein, Madi­son Hof­facker, Rebecca Her­nan­dez, Eleonara Ruffini, Brian Tar­roja, Amir Agha Kouchak, Josiah John­ston, Daniel Kam­men, Julia Szi­nai, Colin Shep­ard, Anand Gopal, Kaiyu Sun, Tianzhen Hong, and Florin-​​Langer James. Pub­li­ca­tion Num­ber: CEC-​​500‑2019-​​033; March 2019
4. Path­ways to Decar­bonize Res­i­den­tial Water Heat­ing in Cal­i­for­nia, Shuba V Ragha­van, Max Wei, Daniel Kam­men, Energy Pol­icy 109 (2017) 441–451
5. Adop­tion of Solar Home Light­ing Sys­tems in India: What might we learn from Kar­nataka? Har­ish, Iychet­tira, Ragha­van, Kan­d­likar, Energy Pol­icy, Vol 62, Novem­ber 2013, pp –697–706.
6. Assess­ing the impact of the tran­si­tion to Light Emit­ting Diodes based solar light­ing sys­tems in India, San­tosh Har­ish, Shuba V Ragha­van, Milind Kan­d­likar, Gireesh Shri­mali, Energy for Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment, Vol­ume 17, Issue 4, August 2013, pp. 363–370.

Ziming Ma

Best, Dennis V.

Den­nis has focused his career on tech­nol­ogy and sus­tain­abil­ity pol­icy in emerg­ing and devel­op­ing economies. His research inter­ests include tech­nol­ogy and inno­va­tion pol­icy and impacts to resource and rural devel­op­ment, tech­nol­ogy trans­fer and the polit­i­cal econ­omy of land use man­age­ment. He has led pro­grams with the Paris based Inter­na­tional Energy Agency, as an offi­cial of the OECD, work­ing with emerg­ing economies on energy tech­nol­ogy pol­icy and con­tribut­ing to the Agency’s analy­sis of energy, envi­ron­ment and cli­mate poli­cies (specif­i­cally work­ing col­lab­o­ra­tively with China and other tran­si­tion economies in explor­ing long-​​term clean energy options, includ­ing advanced bioen­ergy, car­bon seques­tra­tion and neg­a­tive emis­sions sys­tems.) Prior to liv­ing in Berke­ley, he spent five years in France, and seven years in Bei­jing, China – advis­ing gov­ern­ment and indus­trial clients on sus­tain­abil­ity and tech­nol­ogy deploy­ment ini­tia­tives. He holds a BA in polit­i­cal sci­ence (inter­na­tional rela­tions) and a con­cen­tra­tion in East Asian stud­ies from the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, Los Ange­les (UCLA).

Ameli, Nadia

For my web­site, click here.

I am cur­rently work­ing as Senior Researcher Asso­ciate at UCL Insti­tute for Sus­tain­able Resources  where I lead the finance research area of the GREEN-​​WIN project. I focus on cli­mate and sus­tain­abil­ity finance poli­cies and gov­er­nance arrange­ments in order to con­tribute to over­com­ing finan­cial bar­ri­ers to mit­i­ga­tion and adaptation.

Before join­ing UCL, I worked for the OECD (Green Growth Unit, Eco­nom­ics Depart­ment) as Marie-​​Curie Fel­low, a two-​​year research grant funded by the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion. At the OECD I analysed the effec­tive­ness of energy poli­cies to boost energy invest­ments in Europe. Prior to that, I worked for research cen­ters (FEEM and ICCG) and insti­tu­tions, includ­ing the Ital­ian Asso­ci­a­tion Energy Eco­nom­ics, where I was respon­si­ble for the Eco­nomic area (2009–2013).

Dur­ing my PhD, I was vis­it­ing scholar at the Renew­able and Appro­pri­ate Energy Lab, UC Berke­ley under the super­vi­sion of Prof. Daniel Kam­men (2010–2011). I have worked on a range of novel ways to over­come the first-​​investment costs of energy effi­ciency and renew­able energy.

I got my PhD in Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion at Poly­tech­nic Uni­ver­sity of Marche and Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley (co-​​tutorship of doc­toral the­sis) with a focus on energy financ­ing pol­icy. My research inter­ests include renew­able and energy effi­ciency deploy­ment, cli­mate finance and energy pol­icy.

Sustainable Housing in French Polynesia

A household carbon footprint calculator for islands: Case study of the United States Virgin Islands

Bolliger, Ian

Ian is a National Defense Sci­ence and Engi­neer­ing Grad­u­ate Fel­low in the Energy and Resources Group and a mem­ber of the inau­gural “Envi­ron­ment and Soci­ety: Data Sci­ence for the 21^st Cen­tury” National Sci­ence Foun­da­tion Research Trainee­ship (NRT) cohort. His research inter­ests lie at the inter­sec­tion of energy sys­tems, cli­mate change adap­ta­tion, and global health. He is a mem­ber of the Next Gen­er­a­tion Ecosys­tem Exper­i­ments Arc­tic team, inves­ti­gat­ing bio­geo­chem­i­cal fac­tors gov­ern­ing energy fluxes in arc­tic tun­dra envi­ron­ments from the plant scale to the model grid-​​cell scale. He is also inter­ested in devel­op­ing bet­ter tools for char­ac­ter­iz­ing sea­sonal snow­pack vari­a­tion, in order to improve fore­casts of stream­flow, water avail­abil­ity, and hydropower pro­duc­tion. Ian serves as project man­ager for Tiny House in My Back­yard, a stu­dent project to design and build mobile, afford­able, and sus­tain­able net-​​zero energy hous­ing on the Berke­ley Global Cam­pus. Prior to arriv­ing at UC Berke­ley, he received his BA from Har­vard Uni­ver­sity in Applied Math­e­mat­ics and spent three years mod­el­ing trends in global injury rates at the Insti­tute for Health Met­rics and Eval­u­a­tion. Out­side of acad­e­mia, Ian is a mem­ber of the Tahoe Back­coun­try Ski Patrol, and he writes about moun­tain adven­tures and envi­ron­men­tal issues on his blog at TheIn​er​tia​.com.

Reilly-​​Moman, Jessica

Jes­sica Reilly who is cur­rently sup­ported by a Ful­bright Fel­low­ship to study coastal cli­mate change in Mex­ico, has now also been awarded the Insti­tute of Cur­rent World Affairs Fel­low­ship.  Over the next two years, Jes­sica and her part­ner Josh Moman will sail the Pacific coast of Cen­tral Amer­ica, cross through the Panama canal, and move into the Caribbean to explore the region by way of the ocean, look­ing at cli­mate change. She will use her map­ping expe­ri­ence to gather data and build maps show­ing vul­ner­a­bil­ity to sea level rise for each coun­try. By sus­tain­ably har­ness­ing wind and sun to travel, Jes­sica hopes to access remote loca­tions, share the ocean-​​bound expe­ri­ence of local com­mu­ni­ties, and lis­ten to and doc­u­ment sto­ries of cli­mate adap­ta­tion at the shores of Latin Amer­ica and the Caribbean with words, images, and video.