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.