K. Mani Chandy Simon Ramo Professor California Institute of Technology Dr. Chandy got his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Electrical Engineering at the Operations Research Center in 1969. He got a Masters from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, and a Bachelors from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras in 1965. Dr. Chandy has worked for Honeywell and IBM. From 1970 to 1989, he was in the Computer Science Department of the University of Texas at Austin, serving as chair in 1978 79 and 1983 85. He has served as a consultant to a number of companies including IBM and Bell Labs. He has been at the California Institute of Technology since 1987, two years as a Sherman Fairchild Fellow, and then as a professor in Computer Science. Dr. Chandy is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He received the IEEE Koji Kobayashi Award for Computers and Communication in 1987, the A.A. Michelson Award from the Computer Measurement Group in 1985, and has numerous awards. Software developed by Dr. Chandy and colleagues in the area of computer performance modeling was marketed by Boole and Babbage Inc.. He was a co founder of a company, ispheres, in the area of event driven architecture; that software is now marketed by Avaya. Dr. Chandy does research on sense and respond systems. He has published three books and over a hundred papers on distributed computing, verification of concurrent programs, parallel programming languages and performance models of computing and communication systems. Pedro Pizarro Executive Vice President, Power Operations Southern California Edison Pedro Pizarro is executive vice president of Power Operations for Southern California Edison (SCE). His responsibilities include overseeing three business units: SCE s transmission and distribution system; the procurement of conventional and renewable power contracts; and Edison Carrier Solutions, a division of SCE that provides wholesale broadband services to telecommunications carriers. Prior to joining Edison International in 1999, Pizarro was a management consultant with McKinsey & Company in Los Angeles, serving energy, technology, engineering services and banking clients. He earned a bachelor's degree (magna cum laude) in chemistry from Harvard University, and a Ph.D. in chemical physics from Caltech. Pizarro serves on the boards of the House Ear Institute and the Colburn School of Performing Arts.
Jeffrey D. Byron Commissioner California Energy Commission Jeffrey Byron, of Los Altos, was appointed to the California Energy Commission by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in June 2006. The five members of the Energy Commission are appointed by the Governor to staggered five year terms and require Senate confirmation. By law, four of the five members of the Energy Commission are required to have professional training in specific areas engineering or physics, environmental protection, economics, and law. One commissioner is appointed to represent the public at large. Commissioner Byron fills the public at large position with over 30 years of experience in the electric power industry and over 10 years of service assisting customers in meeting their energy needs. Commissioner Byron serves as Presiding Member of the Energy Commission's Electricity and Natural Gas Committee, the Siting Policy Committee, and the Integrated Energy Policy Committee. He also serves as Associate Member on the ad hoc committee for the joint greenhouse gas reduction proceeding with the CPUC. Prior to his appointment, Commissioner Byron served as president of Byron Consulting Group, developing strategic energy solutions for mid to large sized firms since 2002. Commissioner Byron served as Co Chair of the Silicon Valley Leadership Council's Energy Committee and managed an energy efficiency program to reduce energy use and carbon emissions among businesses and other organizations on behalf of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group and Sustainable Silicon Valley. Previously, he developed combined heat and power projects for Calpine C*Power from 2000 to 2001, and was Energy Director for Oracle Corporation from 1996 to 2000. Commissioner Byron served at the Electric Power Research Institute from 1985 to 1995 in a variety of capacities, including commercialization director and executive technical advisor. Commissioner Byron received a Bachelor and a Master of Science degree from Stanford University.
James A. Kelly Senior Vice President, TDBU Southern California Edison James A. Kelly is the senior vice president of Southern California Edison s (SCE s) Transmission and Distribution Business Unit (TDBU), responsible for the operation and maintenance of an electrical grid comprised of over 12,000 circuit miles of transmission and subtransmission lines and about 86,000 circuit miles of distribution lines spread across a 50,000 square mile service area. Approximately 5,200 employees work in the utility s TDBU, which also maintains and operates nearly 900 substations. Kelly joined SCE in 1973 as a summer college intern, and has remained ever since. He has held management positions in several SCE organizations, including Human Resources, Regulatory Policy and Affairs, Engineering and Construction, and Treasurer s. Before assuming his current job, Kelly was the vice president of Engineering and Technical Services in TDBU, responsible for planning, engineering, and designing SCE s electrical grid, as well as for safety, training, and research and development. Prior to joining TDBU, Kelly was vice president of Regulatory Compliance and Environmental Affairs. Kelly earned a bachelor s degree in economics from California State University, Long Beach, and a master s degree in economics from California Polytechnic State University, Pomona. Kelly holds teaching credentials in several subjects and has taught economics and public policy at a number of colleges and universities throughout his career.
Luther Dow, PE Sr. Director of Distribution and West Coast Operations Quanta Technology Expert Quanta Technology Luther Dow, PE, Sr. Director of Distribution and West Coast Operations, Quanta Technology Expert, has more than 35 years of electric utility, research and consulting experience. He has had numerous utility managerial and technical responsibilities, including electric distribution planning, electric distribution operations, transmission, substation and distribution construction and maintenance, asset strategy and project prioritization. He has led and managed numerous reorganizations, both large and small. Luther joined Quanta Technology in 2008 and since then has consulted on issues involved with asset assessment, capital budgeting, project prioritization and distribution reliability. Prior to joining Quanta Technology, he worked for Pacific Gas and Electric Co., where he held numerous engineering and management positions. When he left, he was Director, Electric Asset Strategy. In this position he was responsible for the development and prioritization of the short and long transmission and distribution capital budget. Luther was also an EPRI director responsible for the development and prioritization of their transmission and distribution R&D program and Sr. V.P. for Doble Engineering, responsible for their transformer and breaker testing programs. Luther received his BSEE and MBA from California State University, Sacramento. He is a registered professional engineer in California. Luther Dow can be reached at ldow@quanta technology.com
John Garrity RF& Photonics (RF&P) GE Global Research John Garrity is the manager of the RF& Photonics (RF&P) at GE Global Research in Niskayuna, NY. In this role, John is leading a team of approximately 20 Scientists and Engineers to invent and develop new technology for General Electric business units, including Healthcare, Energy, Oil & Gas, Digital Energy, Security, and Sensing. External customers include Lockheed Martin, DARPA, DoE, and DoD. John and his team have an interest/focus on instrumentation and communication (wired & wireless), smart grid technologies and standards, photonic sensing, RF instrumentation, and driving business models for technology commercialization. John has been with GE since 1992, and his most recent professional experience is leading the acquisition and integration of GE Microwave Data Systems (MDS), an industry leader in industrial, wireless communications systems, for industrial and smart grid applications. His prior GE experience includes engineering and engineering management for industrial energy management systems as well as strategic sales and marketing for GE Digital Energy, GE Fanuc, and GE Consumer & Industrial. The RF & Photonics (RF&P) Laboratory is part of the Electronic Systems & Controls organization at General Electric Global Research in Niskayuna, New York. Key disciplines include radio frequency (RF) modeling, simulation, design, instrumentation, photonic systems, fiberoptic instrumentation, waveguides, and wireless systems technologies. We run and maintain several main physical laboratories as well as a wireless application simulation and test facility for prototyping technologies and applications. Our lab s ultimate definition of success is the successful transition of innovation as contained in products and services that provide value to GE s customers. Education MS International Business 1994, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY BSEE 1989, Clarkson University, Potsdam NY Patents & Publications Leveraging RM&D Technology to Drive business Solutions, GE Fanuc Users Conference, 2007 Wind Farm System Protection and Stability Using Peer to Peer Communications, CIGRE, 2006 Ground Fault Protection & Metering Accuracy, Specifier s Magazine, 2005 Volunteer Activities Saratoga Hospital & Nursing Home, Visiting Eucharistic Minister Clarkson University Alumni Board of Directors, 1990 1992 Reading Mentor, Lincoln & Van Corlaer Elementary Schools, Schenectady, NY 2000 2007
Ron Ambrosio Global Research Leader, IBM Energy and Utilities Industry IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center Ron is a Senior Technical Staff Member in the Research Division, and is IBM s Global Research Leader for the Energy & Utilities Industry. Ron began his career at Watson in 1981, and has been involved in a variety of research areas including: embedded operating systems, distributed application frameworks and middleware, network communications, speech recognition, and pervasive computing environments. After three years away from IBM as Director of Research & Development for Microware Systems (an embedded real time operating system developer), he returned to Watson in 1998 to focus on networked embedded computing, with particular emphasis on what he coined Internet scale Control Systems the integration of sensor and control system environments with large scale distributed Information Technology environments and Business Processes, and helped establish IBM s activities in both Intelligent Utility Networks and Sensors & Actuators. In 2000 Ron began working with the U.S. Department of Energy on the planning, collaboration and workshops that led to the creation of the DoE GridWise initiative in late 2002, and later on the planning and launch of the GridWise Alliance industry consortium in 2003. In 2004 he was selected by the Department of Energy to sit on the 13 member DoE GridWise Architecture Council (which is a separate entity from the GridWise Alliance), and was elected Chairman of the Council in 2009. Ron is an active member of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 25 Working Group 1, which deals with residential and building automation technology, where he is the editor and Working Party lead for the Application Interoperability Standard (ISO/IEC 18012), and of IEC TC 8, which addresses System Aspects for Electrical Energy Supply. He is also a member of Southern California Edison s six person external Technical Advisory Board, which advises and provides feedback on SCE s smart grid program activities, and is an external advisor to the U.S. Dept. of Energy s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory electric vehicle Smart Charger Project. Ron has a B.S. in Computer Science/Mathematics from Hofstra University, and has done graduate work at Columbia University and New York Institute of Technology. mailto: rfa@us.ibm.com
Edward Lu Program Manager, Advanced Projects Google Edward Lu serves as a Program Manager in Advanced Projects at Google and leads a team of engineers working to develop an energy information software tool that will enable consumers to make informed choices about their energy use as they browse the web, read email, or use a mobile phone. Prior to his position with Google, Ed served as a NASA astronaut for twelve years. He manned two Space Shuttle missions, a Russian Soyuz mission, and spent a six month tour on board the International Space Station. Ed is an electrical engineer with a PhD in applied physics, with a specialty in solar physics. Jeff Platon Senior Director, Utility Sales Cisco Jeff Platon, Senior Director, Utility Sales brings over 25 years of experience in sales, marketing and business development leadership. Jeff has worked to define the technology solutions opportunity for Cisco in the Electric Utilities market segment, helping to form the consensus that resulted in the formation of the Smart Grid Board and Cisco formal efforts. Previously at Cisco Jeff led the development of the worldwide marketing and go to market strategy for IT Security Solutions. The Cisco Self Defending Network business strategy and solutions go to market campaign was developed under Jeff resulting in driving Cisco s security business from $240m to $2B+ and to the #1 market position. Prior to Cisco, Mr. Platon was the President and CEO of AlertSoft, a spin out from SRI International. Prior to SRI, Mr. Platon was a key member of the executive team at McAfee (later renamed Network Associates, now McAfee again) as VP for Business Development, Strategic Sales and OEM Licensing. Jeff also co founded mcafee.com as a standalone company in Sep, 1998 which led to a successful IPO in Dec, 1999. Previously Mr. Platon held executive positions at Exabyte and Burroughs (Unisys).
Jeff Dagle, PE Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Mr. Jeff Dagle joined the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington operated by Battelle for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in 1989 with BS and MS degrees in electrical engineering from Washington State University in 1989 and 1994, respectively. Mr. Dagle currently manages several projects in the areas of transmission reliability and control system security for the DOE Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, Department of Homeland Security, and other clients. Mr. Dagle is a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and is a licensed Professional Engineer in the State of Washington. Significant career highlights include receiving the 2001 Tri City Engineer of the Year award by the Washington Society of Professional Engineers, leading the data requests and management task for the August 14, 2003 Northeast blackout investigation task force, briefing President Bush and Secretary Bodman on electric power grid research initiatives underway at Battelle in March 2005, supported the DOE Infrastructure Security and Energy Restoration Division with on site assessments in New Orleans following hurricane Katrina in the fall of 2005, and recipient of two patents, a Federal Laboratory Consortium (FLC) Award in 2007 and an R&D 100 Award in 2008 for the Grid Friendly Appliance Controller technology.
Rajit Gadh Professor Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science at UCLA Dr. Rajit Gadh is a Professor at the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science at UCLA (http://winmec.ucla.edu/director) where he is Founder and Director of the UCLA Wireless Internet for Mobile Enterprise Consortium (http://winmec.ucla.edu) of which major companies including Intel, HP, Siemens, Northrop Grumman, Hughes Network Systems, Qualcomm, Ericsson, Sprint, Lucent, Motorola, Raytheon, ITC Infotech and others have been supporting members. Dr. Gadh works in the areas of RFID middleware, RFID sensor interface definitions, and, wireless internet technologies for enterprise applications http://winmec.ucla.edu/rfid. He is director of the UCLA Wireless Internet Smart Grid or WINSmartGrid project ( http://winmec.ucla.edu/winsmartgrid). He has over 125 papers in journals, conferences and technical magazines and owns 3 patents. In this lab at UCLA, Dr. Gadh and his research team have developed the WinRFID middleware technology (http://winmec.ucla.edu/winrfid), which manages RFID networks and allows rapid creation of RFID enabled applications including those in healthcare, medicine and pharmaceutical industries. The system is now available for use in these industries. Dr. Rajit Gadh has a PhD from Carnegie Mellon University, a Masters from Cornell University and a Bachelors from IIT Kanpur. He has taught as a visiting researcher at UC Berkeley, has been Full Professor at University of Wisconsin Madison, and did his sabbatical as a visiting researcher at Stanford University. Dr. Gadh worked for two software companies and is co founder of two technology startups. He won several awards from NSF (CAREER award, Research Initiation Award, NSF Lucent Industry Ecology Award, GOAL I award), SAE (Ralph Teetor award), ASME (Kodak Best Technical Paper award), AT&T (Industrial ecology fellow award), Engineering Education Foundation (Research Initiation Award), etc., and other accolades in his career. He is an advisor to several venture funds and startup companies in Southern California and Silicon Valley.
Mike Gravely Manager of the Energy Systems Research Office California Energy Commission Mike Gravely is the Manager of the Energy Systems Research Office at the California Energy Commission. His office manages over $250 million in active energy related research and development projects. The office supports research for California in a variety of technical areas that include: Smart Grid, Renewable Grid Integration, Transmission, Distribution, Demand Response, Energy Storage, Distributed Energy Resources, Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS), and Sustainable Communities. His office is completing several research activities focused on understanding and defining what California needs in a future Smart Grid. Mike has over 30 years of engineering and integration experience in the energy, aerospace and communications fields. Mike Gravely has a BSEE from the Virginia Military Institute and an MSEE from California State University at Sacramento. Dr. Erfan Ibrahim Technical Executive Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) Dr. Erfan Ibrahim is a Technical Executive at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). His current research activities focus on the communications infrastructure for the utility Smart Grid with particular emphasis on home area networks, advanced metering infrastructure, building automation networks, and energy management systems. Before joining EPRI, Ibrahim founded and managed The Bit Bazaar LLC (TBB), a full service IT and business consulting firm offering services to clients in the high tech, financial services, and energy sectors. At TBB Ibrahim focused on wireless communications, network management, and information security technologies with a particular emphasis on aligning the IT goals of his clients with their business goals for sustained competitive advantage. Prior to establishing The Bit Bazaar LLC, Ibrahim s career included the following positions: VP of Sales & Marketing at Jyra Research, Product Manager for Network Management at Pacific Bell Network Integration (now AT&T), Science and Math Lecturer at National University, Nuclear Fusion Research Engineer at UCLA, and Plasma Physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Lab. Ibrahim received a Bachelor of Science in physics from Syracuse University, a Master of Science in mechanical engineering from the University of Texas, Austin, and a doctorate in nuclear engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.
Merwin Brown Director of Electric Transmission Research California Institute for Energy and Environment Presently: Merwin Brown is employed by the California Institute for Energy and Environment, within the University of California Office of the President. As Director of Electric Transmission Research, he manages a team of professionals who develop and administer technology research and development for California s future electric transmission system. This work is largely funded by the California s Public Interest Energy Research Transmission Research Program at the Energy Commission. He also manages the Sacramento office for CIEE, which is headquartered in Oakland, CA. Past Employment: Dr. Brown has worked in management for Pacific Gas and Electric and Arizona Public Service, and also at the Pacific Northwest National Lab and the National Renewable Energy Lab as an employee of Battelle Memorial Institute. He served as Director of Program Development for Gas Cooled Reactor Associates, a non profit research firm involved in the national development of an advanced nuclear reactor technology. He also had his own consulting business specializing in strategic business planning facilitation and technology assessment for companies in energy related businesses. Experience: Dr. Brown has over three decades of experience in energy. He has managed private and public interest energy technology R&D programs up to $50 million per year with departments as large as 100 scientists and engineers, and R&D projects as large as $20 million. He has a comprehensive knowledge of the electric and natural gas industries, and the many emerging technologies in energy supply, delivery and end use that will shape their future, including renewables. He is trained and experienced in strategic business and scenario planning. Past job functions have also included business planning, management of client and stakeholder relationships and market planning. Professional Activities and Education: Dr. Brown has served on many professional committees, commissions and boards, including the Arizona Solar Energy Commission, on the BoD of the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, and as an advisor to the Electric Power Research Institute and the National Renewable Energy Lab. He holds BS and PhD degrees in nuclear engineering from Kansas State University, and has many hours of training in management and planning.
Richard Schomberg VP Research North America Electricité de France Richard Schomberg, EDF VP Research North America, grew up in a French American environment. Master of Sciences of Ecole Superieure d'electricite, he has held many management positions during the last 25 years at EDF R&D. In 1980, he created a start up company designing microcomputer software distributed for the first time in French bookstores (revenue 6M$ over 18 months). He has been Professor of System Engineering at Ecole Superieure d'electricite for 6 years, and Chair of Intelligrid Architecture and Strategy Committee. He has been for 10 years President elect at the IEC (World Standard Organization) in charge of Nuclear Instrumentation (TC45). He is presently President elect at the IEC in charge of System aspects for energy delivery (TC8), Chair of the Smart Grid Strategic Group of the IEC Standard Management Board, member of the Technology Advisory Board of the Southern California Edison Advanced Metering Infrastructure project, and Chair of Intelligrid Distribution. He has been appointed member of the US DoE Gridwise Architecture Council. He has the responsibility of EDF R&D activities in North America. He designs and negotiates strategic innovation partnerships in priority with the Electric Power Research Institute (Palo Alto), National Laboratories, Universities and scientific/technical innovation players.
Dr. T.C. Cheng Lloyd F. Hunt Chair in Electrical Power Engineering University of Southern California
Nalu Kaahaaina Deputy Director Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) Nalu directs research in energy technologies at LLNL, with an emphasis on large, integrated systems. This research portfolio includes renewables (wind power, geothermal), advanced conversion (combustion, fuel cells), hydrogen storage, improved vehicle aerodynamics, and energy/economics modeling. Before joining LLNL, Nalu was the Deputy Director of the Advanced Energy Systems Laboratory at Stanford University, where he led research in novel engine design. Nalu held a concurrent appointment as Lecturer in the Mechanical Engineering Department, where he taught course in IC engines and thermal systems. He is a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the Society of Automotive Engineers, having served the latter as a technical reviewer from 2001 04. Nalu holds B.S. (Mechanical Engineering), B.A. (Science, Technology, and Society) and M.S. (Mechanical Engineering) degrees from Stanford University. Daniel T. Colbert Executive Director Institute for Energy Efficiency, UCSB Daniel T. Colbert joined the Institute as Executive Director in June 2008. Prior to coming to UC Santa Barbara, he was Chief Technology Officer and a principal at NGEN Partners, a Santa Barbara based venture capital firm focusing its investments in cleantech products and services that positively affect the environment. Colbert earned his bachelor s degree in chemistry at Cornell University and his Ph.D. in physical chemistry at The University of Wisconsin Madison. Colbert did postdoctoral work at UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, then joined the Chemistry faculty at Rice University in Houston, where he worked closely with nanotechnology pioneer and Nobel laureate Professor Rick Smalley on carbon nanotubes; that work led to a founding role, with Smalley, in Carbon Nanotechnologies, Inc. (CNI). He left CNI for the position at NGEN.