Xi Xi

Xi Xi is a Master’s stu­dent for the Ener­gy Resource group. Xi Xi uses inter­dis­ci­pli­nary meth­ods such as quan­ti­ta­tive mod­el­ing tech­niques and pol­i­cy analy­ses to assess impacts on emis­sions, ener­gy use, and oth­er socio-eco­nom­ic indi­ca­tors. Xi Xi looks for­ward to apply­ing her knowl­edge in the con­text of inter­na­tion­al devel­op­ment. Xi Xi would also like to study how devel­op­ing coun­tries may be affect­ed by or ben­e­fit from ten­sions between Chi­na and the West relat­ed to China’s emerg­ing role in inter­na­tion­al devel­op­ment and inter­na­tion­al cli­mate politics.

In RAEl she is research­ing US-Chi­na cli­mate pol­i­cy, decar­boniza­tion in Africa, and Chi­na’s role in Africa, among oth­er topics.

Pri­or to join­ing ERG, Xi Xi earned a BA from Welles­ley Col­lege. Xi Xi has worked for the Insti­tute for Glob­al Decar­boniza­tion Progress (iGDP), Abt, and the Mass­a­chu­setts Clean Ener­gy Cen­ter (Mass­CEC).

Xi Xi also enjoys trav­el­ing in their free time.

Ponce de Leon, Diego

I am work­ing on my  MS/​PhD at the Ener­gy and Resources Group (ERG). My research is in low-car­bon (low-impact) ener­gy sys­tems and eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment, mod­el­ing high renew­able ener­gy future sce­nar­ios, and deploy­ing sMArt Grid (high-tech/low-cost) pilots in the ris­ing south.  I’ve worked in Chi­a­pas (Mex­i­co) devel­op­ing region­al micro­cre­d­it schemes and riv­er sur­vey stud­ies,  designed and built ‘low-tech/high- impact’ water dis­tri­b­u­tion sys­tems for small com­mu­ni­ties in Ugan­da and Hon­duras, have used GIS mod­els and InVest (Inte­grat­ed Val­u­a­tion of Envi­ron­men­tal ser­vices and Trade­offs) to study the hydrol­o­gy of the Linthipe Basin (Malawi), and inves­ti­gat­ed link­ages between hydro­log­i­cal vari­abil­i­ty, ener­gy use, and agri­cul­ture in Pun­jab and Telan­gana (India).

My cur­rent work is in Nicaragua devel­op­ing and build­ing sce­nar­ios for the SWITCH mod­el – opti­miz­ing the pen­e­tra­tion of renew­able ener­gy into the country’s elec­tric pow­er sys­tem, and deploy­ing the country’s first micro-scale demand response pro­gram (DR) through the use of ‘flex­i­ble ener­gy toolkits’.

You can vis­it my web­site: dleonb​.com, LinkedIn, and Insta­gram accounts