Bo Li

Bo is a doc­toral stu­dent in Elec­tri­cal Engi­neer­ing  at Chongqing Uni­ver­sity.  His work is focused on the inte­gra­tion of renew­able energy and of elec­tric vehi­cle fleets into the Chi­nese power grid.

Guangzhi Yin

Guangzhi is a PhD stu­dent in Energy Sys­tems Analy­sis at Tsinghua Uni­ver­sity.  He has bachelor’s degrees in Elec­tri­cal Engi­neer­ing and in Man­age­ment from Tsinghua Uni­ver­sity.  He has been a vis­it­ing stu­dent at the Uni­ver­sity of Bath and at the Israel Insti­tute of Technology.

His work is focused on the role of car­bon pric­ing and renew­able energy deploy­ment in China.

Guangzhi will be a vis­it­ing stu­dent at RAEL from Octo­ber 2019– July 2020.

Xiaoli Zhang

Xiaoli is a PhD stu­dent in the School of Envi­ron­men­tal & Nat­ural Resources, Ren­min Uni­ver­sity of China

She has a range of research inter­ests, includ­ing the Low-​​carbon tran­si­tion path­way of China’s power sec­tor, the job cre­ation poten­tial of the new green energy econ­omy, and the role of energy stor­age in decar­boniza­tion in China and Europe.

She will be a vis­it­ing research stu­dent at RAEL from Octo­ber 2019 — August 2020.

Dongran Liu

Don­gran Liu is a doc­toral stu­dent in the School of Eco­nomic and Man­age­ment at North China Elec­tric Power Uni­ver­sity.  She has research inter­ests in energy mar­kets, opti­miza­tion and risk man­age­ment, and dis­trib­uted energy resource planning.

At RAEL she is work­ing on mod­el­ing the future of the Chi­nese elec­tric power sys­tem using SWITCH.  She is part of a part­ner­ship with Euro­pean energy stor­age asso­ci­a­tions to exam­ine the mar­ket oppor­tu­ni­ties and car­bon ben­e­fits of the instal­la­tion of a range of energy stor­age technologies.

She will be a vis­it­ing stu­dent in RAEL from Octo­ber 2019 — August 2020.

Natalie Fedorova

Natalie is an Energy Engi­neer­ing (https://engineeringscience.berke​ley​.edu/​e​n​e​rgy–engineering/​) major at UC Berke­ley. Her stud­ies focus on inte­grat­ing power sys­tem analy­sis with data sci­ence, opti­miz­ing resource use and study­ing the out­look of renew­able tech­nol­ogy adop­tion in var­i­ous parts of the world.

In RAEL, Natalie is cur­rently engaged in the SWITCH China project. She works on mod­el­ing grid expan­sion for China, look­ing at how decar­boniza­tion path­ways and elec­tric vehi­cle grid inte­gra­tion will affect the future energy mix. Her top­ics of inter­est include long-​​term power sys­tem plan­ning, appli­ca­tions of inter­na­tional energy pol­icy, pro­ject­ing energy demand, and stor­age tech­nol­ogy adoption.

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.

Ziming Ma

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.”

Jiang, Kelly

As an under­grad­u­ate Kelly was invited to work as a GSR to com­pile data on decen­tral­ized renew­able energy (DRE) in part­ner­ship with Power for All (P4All) as part of a larger effort to research and to build the case for uni­ver­sal elec­tric­ity access by 2025 through dis­trib­uted renew­able energy.  In this project Kelly is work­ing with Dr. Rebekah Shirley and Pro­fes­sor Dan Kam­men of UC Berke­ley Energy and Resources Group.

In the Spring of 2018 Kelly is also a Vis­it­ing Stu­dent and mini-​​grid research stu­dent at the State Key Lab­o­ra­tory of Trans­mis­sion Equip­ment and Sys­tem Secu­rity and New Tech­nol­ogy at Chongqing Uni­ver­sity where she is super­vised by Pro­fes­sor Minyou Chen of the School of Elec­tri­cal Engineering.

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).