Speakers
Thank you to our wonderful speakers! Listed alphabetically.
Keynote Speakers
Bethany Frew (National Laboratory of the Rockies)
Bethany Frew is a Senior Researcher and Group Manager of the Capacity Expansion & Electricity Markets Group at the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR), where she leads a team focused on capacity expansion, resource adequacy, and wholesale electricity market design.
Jesse Jenkins (Princeton University)
Jesse D. Jenkins is an Associate Professor at Princeton University in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and Environment. He leads the ZERO Lab, which focuses on improving and applying optimization-based energy systems models to evaluate low-carbon energy technologies and generate insights for energy and climate policy and planning.
Alice Yake (Jackson) (Breakthrough Energy)
Alice Yake is Vice President of GRIDS at Breakthrough Energy, where she leads efforts to develop open-source tools for delivering reliable, low-emission electricity globally. Over 20+ years in the energy industry — including roles at Enron, Oxy, and nearly 14 years at Xcel Energy as President of Colorado and Chief Planning Officer — she has built expertise in system design, regulation, and the path to a zero-carbon electric system.
Panel 1: Industry Perspectives
Jacqueline Dowling (University of Iowa)
Jacqueline Dowling is an Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Iowa. Her research analyzes natural resource constraints, guides technology innovation, and targets decarbonization solutions. Her work integrates weather data into macro-energy system models to inform reliable infrastructure planning and technology development.
Other panelists include Alice Yake (Jackson) (Breakthrough Energy), Jesse Jenkins (Princeton University), and Bethany Frew (NLR).
Panel 2: Methodological Challenges
Beste Basciftci (University of Iowa)
Beste Basciftci is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Business Analytics at the University of Iowa, with an additional affiliation to the Applied Mathematical and Computational Sciences program. Her research focuses on data-driven decision making under uncertainty, developing mixed-integer optimization, stochastic programming, and (distributionally) robust optimization approaches for energy systems, supply chains, and transportation.
Patricia Hidalgo-Gonzalez (UC San Diego)
Patricia Hidalgo-Gonzalez is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at UC San Diego, where she directs the Renewable Energy and Advanced Mathematics (REAM) Lab. Her research applies optimization, control theory, and machine learning to the challenges of integrating high levels of renewable energy into the grid, spanning power dynamics, electricity market redesign, and safety-constrained learning for dynamical systems.
Tomas Valencia Zuluaga (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)
Tomas Valencia Zuluaga is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Center for Applied Scientific Computing Division at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. His research is at the intersection of energy systems and optimization, including electricity markets and power system planning, with current work developing optimization models and algorithms for power grid expansion planning using high-performance computing.
Spotlights
Aron Brenner (MIT)
Aron Brenner is a doctoral student at MIT's Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS) and a member of the Resilient Infrastructure Networks group. His research applies machine learning and optimization to the planning and operations of large-scale systems, with a focus on regional energy systems.
Mehrnoush Ghazanfariharandi (Rutgers University)
Mehrnoush Ghazanfariharandi is a PhD candidate in Industrial and Systems Engineering at Rutgers University, working with Professor Robert Mieth in the ROPES Lab. Her research lies at the intersection of power system optimization, machine learning, and energy economics, with a focus on addressing growing uncertainty and data complexity in modern power systems.
Thomas Lee (MIT)
Thomas Lee is a PhD candidate in MIT's Institute for Data, Systems, and Society focused on optimization methods for energy systems and markets, working in Professor Andy Sun's lab and the MIT Energy Initiative.