Martha Hoffmann

In her doc­tor­al stud­ies in Ger­many, Martha is work­ing on the real­iza­tion of a social­ly just and accept­ed ener­gy tran­si­tion. For this, she plans to add social and eco­log­i­cal aspects to the cur­rent tech­ni­cal and eco­nom­i­cal focus with­in ener­gy tran­si­tion plan­ning process­es. The devel­op­ment of an inte­grat­ed ener­gy sys­tem mod­el will assess the impact of ener­gy mar­ket reforms on com­mu­ni­ty and house­hold lev­el as well as their impli­ca­tions for dis­trib­u­tive jus­tice. Her inter­ests, broad­ly, encom­pass, ener­gy jus­tice, the ener­gy tran­si­tion, ener­gy mod­el­ing, and Open Source meth­ods and strategies.

Her work is super­vised by Prof. Dr. Pao-Yu Oei from the Depart­ment of Ener­gy and Envi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment at Europa-Uni­ver­sität Flens­burg (EUF).

Martha wrote her mas­ters degree the­sis  at the TU Berlin in the research group Off-Grid Sys­tems at the Rein­er Lemoine Insti­tut and devel­oped the sim­u­la­tion tool Off­grid­ders, which sizes elec­tri­fi­ca­tion options. Fol­low­ing  this, from 2019 to 2021, she worked as a researcher at the Rein­er Lemoine Insti­tut and was respon­si­ble for the project man­age­ment with­in the scope of the H2020 research project E‑LAND, in which RLI devel­ops and applies a sim­u­la­tion tool for sec­tor cou­pled ener­gy sys­tems (Mul­ti-Vec­tor Sim­u­la­tor).

Martha’s fel­low­ship is financed through the C‑BEAR+ project (link: https://reiner-lemoine-institut.de/en/c‑bear/) , fund­ed by the Fed­er­al Min­istry for Eco­nom­ic Affairs and Cli­mate Action of Germany.

She will be a vis­it­ing schol­ar at RAEL for Spring 2023

Con­tact: martha.​hoffmann@​rl-​stiftung.​de

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.

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.

Siddique, Samira

Sami­ra Sid­dique is an MS/​PhD can­di­date in the Ener­gy and Resources Group. Her stud­ies focus on the inter­con­nect­ed social, eco­nom­ic, and phys­i­cal process­es of urban­iza­tion and cli­mate change in Asia. She was pre­vi­ous­ly an inter­na­tion­al devel­op­ment researcher at Math­e­mat­i­ca Pol­i­cy Research, where her work includ­ed an eval­u­a­tion of the Glob­al Pro­to­col for Com­mu­ni­ty-scale Green­house Gas Emis­sions in cities world­wide. Pri­or to that, she was a researcher at the Inter­na­tion­al Cen­tre for Cli­mate Change and Devel­op­ment in Dha­ka, Bangladesh, and at the Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion. She received her BA from Wes­leyan Uni­ver­si­ty in the Col­lege of Social Stud­ies and the Col­lege of the Envi­ron­ment.  Sami­ra has inter­ests in ener­gy in con­flict set­tings,  and in urban cli­mate adaptation.

A 2018 paper sum­ma­riz­ing her research focus can be found in The Dha­ka Tri­bune, here, and in the RAEL Pub­li­ca­tions Direc­to­ry.

Kuan, John Akol Akol

Akol Kuan is a civ­il engi­neer­ing major and Maser­Card Foun­da­tion Schol­ar at UC Berkeley.

In RAEL, Akol is focus­ing on the design and oper­a­tion of clean ener­gy mini-grids for refugee com­mu­ni­ties, with a project focused on the UNHCR Kaku­ma Refugee Camp.  Kaku­ma is a town in north­west­ern Turkana Coun­ty, Kenya. It is the site of a UNHCR refugee camp, estab­lished in 1969. The pop­u­la­tion of Kaku­ma town was over 180,000 in 2016, hav­ing grown from around 8,000 in 1990.

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.”

Shaw, Brittany

The Human Needs Project /​ Kibera Town Center

For the Human Needs Project full web­site, click on:

http://​www​.human​need​spro​ject​.org

Pro­fes­sor Kam­men, serves as the CTO of the Human Needs Project, high­light­ed how the Kib­era Town Cen­ter Project pro­vides basic ser­vices (water, toi­lets, show­ers, laun­dry) and empow­er­ment ser­vices (busi­ness skills train­ing, micro-cred­it, WiFi cafe, health kiosk, green mar­ket­place) to over 800 peo­ple per day. These inte­grat­ed ser­vices pro­vide a holis­tic solu­tion to the chal­lenges of liv­ing in a slum. Togeth­er, they can help peo­ple with a road map to cre­at­ing a bet­ter life.

Kam­men demon­strat­ed how clean, local ener­gy can empow­er vibrant and sus­tain­able com­mu­ni­ty cen­ters. Actress and Human Needs Project Founder and Pres­i­dent Con­nie Nielsen said, “Our vision is to devel­op a net­work of com­mu­ni­ty empow­er­ment cen­ters them­selves pow­ered by clean ener­gy, which is the most reli­able form of power”