Kersey, Jess

Jess Kersey is a fourth-​​year PhD stu­dent broadly inter­ested in tech­nol­ogy, reg­u­la­tion, and pol­icy to improve energy access and cli­mate adap­ta­tion efforts across mul­ti­ple geo­gra­phies includ­ing East Africa, Latin Amer­ica, and island nations. Jess is also a research affil­i­ate of the Lawrence Berke­ley National Lab and con­sults with ESMAP, the Asian Devel­op­ment Bank, and the Global Energy Alliance for Peo­ple and Planet.

Her cur­rent work focuses on decon­struct­ing urban/​binary spa­tial cat­e­go­riza­tions and high­light­ing how exam­in­ing energy poverty with greater spa­tial nuance reveals access bar­ri­ers for the grow­ing pop­u­la­tions in infor­mal and/​or peri-​​urban com­mu­ni­ties. She leads the Spot­light Kam­pala project, which is a multi-​​stakeholder research part­ner­ship to under­stand energy access afford­abil­ity, safety, for­mal­ity, reli­a­bil­ity, and qual­ity in infor­mal settlements.

Jess holds dual bachelor’s degrees in chem­i­cal engi­neer­ing and polit­i­cal sci­ence from Vir­ginia Tech. She pre­vi­ously worked as an energy engi­neer with AECOM’s Energy busi­ness line pro­vid­ing tech­ni­cal, project man­age­ment, and busi­ness devel­op­ment sup­port for renew­able energy, energy effi­ciency, and sus­tain­abil­ity projects. She has a diverse engi­neer­ing back­ground which includes expe­ri­ence in energy, con­struc­tion man­age­ment, and dis­as­ter relief both domes­ti­cally and inter­na­tion­ally includ­ing work in Haiti, Panama, El Sal­vador, the US Vir­gin Islands, and Iraq.

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

Jess Carney

Jess Car­ney is inter­ested in under­stand­ing how sus­tain­able energy inte­gra­tion impacts power grids and elec­tric­ity mar­kets. She received her under­grad­u­ate degree at Johns Hop­kins Uni­ver­sity in 2018, where she majored in Envi­ron­men­tal Sci­ence and minored in Applied Math­e­mat­ics and Sta­tis­tics. She has held intern­ships at the Inde­pen­dent Sys­tem Oper­a­tor or New Eng­land (ISO-​​NE), study­ing envi­ron­men­tal pol­icy and its effect on car­bon emis­sions and energy prices, and at the Ver­mont Elec­tric Power Com­pany (VELCO), ana­lyz­ing the impact of high renew­able pen­e­tra­tion on sys­tem sta­bil­ity and inte­grat­ing state renew­able goals into trans­mis­sion plan­ning procedures.

She has wide-​​ranging inter­ests that include renew­able energy inte­gra­tion, grid sta­bil­ity, energy access, and energy lit­er­acy and education.

Nia Novella Jones

A recent grad­u­ate of North­east­ern Uni­ver­sity with a B.S. in Indus­trial Engi­neer­ing with minor in Law & Pub­lic Policy.

I intend to research the inter­sec­tion of renew­able energy tech­nol­ogy, edu­ca­tion, and specif­i­cally prison edu­ca­tion pro­grams focused on STEM. Ulti­mately, my goal is to work with for­mally incar­cer­ated cit­i­zens as they pre­pare for re-​​entry into soci­ety. I aspire to work with renew­able energy projects in Africa to ful­fill my goal as devel­op­ing into a World Class “Energy” Engineer.

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.

A course in Climate Justice

For the UC Berke­ley Cli­mate Jus­tice course, syl­labus, click here.

Laos Energy Modeling and Policy Analysis (LEMPA) Project

Meet the Laos Energy Mod­el­ing and Pol­icy Analy­sis (Under­grad­u­ate!) Team:

The focus of this inter-​​disciplinary and inter-​​university research group is to develop sus­tain­able energy, water, and land-​​use sce­nar­ios for Laos, and to work with local stake-​​holders on the costs and ben­e­fits for com­mu­ni­ties, the nation, and the regional com­merce in energy, water, food, tim­ber and other commodities.

Aadi­tee Kudrimoti

Bio: Aadi­tee is a fourth-​​year at UC Berke­ley study­ing polit­i­cal sci­ence and pub­lic pol­icy with a con­cen­tra­tion in energy, devel­op­ment, and inter­na­tional rela­tions. Aadi­teeis orig­i­nally from Tuc­son, Ari­zona, where she began to develop an inter­est in inter­na­tional envi­ron­men­tal affairs. At UC Berke­ley, Aadi­teeis work­ing on projects in the polit­i­cal econ­omy of Chi­nese devel­op­ment finance, rural elec­tri­fi­ca­tion, and col­lec­tive action. Aadi­tee­has become espe­cially inter­ested in how the rise of renew­able tech­nol­ogy is influ­enc­ing energy diplo­macy around the world. She hopes to pur­sue a career in acad­e­mia and pub­lic pol­icy and work on gov­er­nance tools to build the bar­gain­ing capac­ity of LDCs against MNCs, for­eign state-​​owned enter­prises, etc. on the sub­ject of FDI and other types of invest­ment. She sees SWITCH-​​Laos as hav­ing the poten­tial to serve as a crit­i­cal tool in assist­ing the increase of the Lao people’s bar­gain­ing power over FDI in the energy sec­tor and thus their auton­omy in deter­min­ing their own eco­nomic devel­op­ment. Out­side school, Aaditee’s inter­ests include dance, food jour­nal­ism, and cooking.

Alex Lathem

Bio: Alex Lathem is a third-​​year under­grad­u­ate at Yale Uni­ver­sity. He is a physics major with sev­eral years of expe­ri­ence using pro­gram­ming lan­guages, includ­ing Python SQL, C, and Bash, to ana­lyze sci­en­tific data. Pre­vi­ous research projects Alex has worked on include astrom­e­try of near-​​Earth aster­oids and the cre­ation of a Hub­ble curve through the analy­sis of Type Ia super­novae. Alex spent the sum­mer of 2019 work­ing on the SWITCH model for China, and is very excited to apply the skills he learned there to a ver­sion for Laos. Out­side of research, Alex is also inter­ested in music, video game design, lin­guis­tics, and history.

Ash­ley Yip

Bio: Ash­ley is a second-​​year under­grad­u­ate study­ing envi­ron­men­tal sci­ence with an empha­sis in global pol­i­tics. She moved to New Mex­ico, where she devel­oped an inter­est in envi­ron­men­tal affairs. At UC Berke­ley, she is involved in a pre-​​law asso­ci­a­tion that helped her explore her inter­est in law and how she may inte­grate that into envi­ron­men­tal­ism. Off cam­pus, she is work­ing on a sex edu­ca­tion reform project in Sin­ga­pore with the Min­istry of Edu­ca­tion. She is con­stantly explor­ing the inter­sec­tion between pol­icy, edu­ca­tion, and the envi­ron­ment. She hopes to return home to Sin­ga­pore and pur­sue a career in inter­na­tional envi­ron­men­tal pol­icy or law within South­east Asia. Ash­ley chose to work on SWITCH-​​Laos not only because green­ing ASEAN’s eco­nomic devel­op­ment is essen­tial to tack­ling cli­mate change, but also because she is famil­iar with the demo­graphic. She has done research in regards to both urban and rural agri­cul­ture in Asia and the US, and led research for envi­ron­men­tal man­age­ment in busi­ness oper­a­tions. Out­side of school, her inter­ests include climb­ing, hik­ing, piano, and camper vans.

Rachel Ng

Bio: Rachel is a second-​​year Envi­ron­men­tal Sci­ence and Data Sci­ence major. A Singapore-​​native, Rachel describes that SWITCH-​​Laos extremely impor­tant to her because it is an impor­tant step towards the energy secu­rity of South­east Asia. She believes that the sus­tain­able elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of South­east Asia is key to regional grid sta­bil­ity and energy trade. She is pur­su­ing SWITCH-​​Laos as crit­i­cal in lead­ing the way towards sus­tain­able elec­tri­fi­ca­tion. Rachel is inter­ested in the inter­sec­tion­al­ity between cli­mate change and com­mu­nity, explor­ing how com­mu­nity based issues caused by cli­mate change can be alle­vi­ated through data. Fur­ther­more, Rachel is cur­rently con­cerned about equal access to edu­ca­tion and vol­un­teers weekly as a men­tor to ele­men­tary school stu­dents. In the future, she hopes to return to Sin­ga­pore and guide envi­ron­men­tal change through cre­at­ing an ecosys­tem of sus­tain­able com­mu­ni­ties and busi­nesses. Her hob­bies include dance, rock climb­ing and water sports.

Yu, Hilary

Hilary received her B.A. in Gov­ern­ment and Bio­log­i­cal Sci­ences, with a con­cen­tra­tion in Ecol­ogy and Evo­lu­tion­ary Biol­ogy in the lat­ter, from Cor­nell Uni­ver­sity, where she grad­u­ated in 2015. At ERG, Hilary is inter­ested in explor­ing the science-​​law nexus and the fac­tors – polit­i­cal, eco­nomic, and social – that inform the trans­la­tion of sci­ence into leg­is­la­tion. Her aca­d­e­mic inter­ests addi­tion­ally include top­ics in sus­tain­able devel­op­ment, cli­mate change edu­ca­tion, restora­tion ecol­ogy, water and energy effi­ciency, and envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice. Hilary was pre­vi­ously involved in research­ing energy and wildlife issues as an intern with the NRDC’s North­ern Rock­ies office, and in the year before com­ing to ERG, she spent some time pur­su­ing another pas­sion, work­ing in Malawi on a death penalty sen­tence rehear­ing project. Hilary is a Gates Foun­da­tion Mil­len­nium Fellow.

Patel, Serena

Ser­ena is an Energy Engi­neer­ing major at UC Berke­ley, where she is engaged in num­ber of activ­i­ties, including:

Work­ing at the Stu­dent Envi­ron­men­tal Resource Cen­ter under the Zero Waste Research Cen­ter to help food ven­dors achieve zero waste goals, cre­at­ing a cul­ture of zero waste within the stu­dent body through edu­ca­tion, and con­duct­ing research on com­postable plas­tics recycling.

Dur­ing the Spring 2018 semes­ter Ser­ena is lead­ing a group of 9 stu­dents in work­ing with the local non­profit, Grid Alter­na­tives, to install solar pan­els on low income fam­ily homes in Sali­nas, Cal­i­for­nia dur­ing spring break. Her respon­si­bil­i­ties include co-​​facil­i­tat­ing a class about energy access, equity, energy pol­icy, and solar energy tech­nol­ogy in Cal­i­for­nia as well as coor­di­nat­ing hous­ing, fundrais­ing, and trans­porta­tion to the location.

In RAEL Ser­ena is focus­ing on the design, oper­a­tion, power sys­tems opti­miza­tion, and social impacts of the clean energy mini-​​​​grid pow­er­ing the Human Needs Project in Kib­era, Kenya.”