Sarah Johnston
Sarah Johnston is an Assistant Professor in the department of Agricultural and Applied Economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Much of her work studies how public policy affects investment in renewable energy, with a recent focus on interconnection queues. She holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan and a B.A. from Dartmouth College.
Prashant Kansal
Prashant is the Director of Grid Transformation at ERCOT where he leads initiatives to solve grid and market challenges. Prior to ERCOT, Prashant worked at Tesla leading its global Power System team focused on BESS grid interconnections. He also worked at American Electric Power (AEP), Schweitzer Engineering Lab (SEL), and Engineers India Limited (EIL) with experience across Inverter based resources, NERC compliance studies, grid stability, protection system, power quality, and substation design. Prashant got his bachelors (EE) from Delhi College of Engineering, India and Masters (EE) from Washington State University, USA.
Ryan King
Joined ERCOT as Manager Market Design in 2022 Prior to joining ERCOT worked in Market Development and Corporate Strategy at Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) in Toronto, Canada (2012-2022) Started career in Regulatory Affairs and Electricity Policy Development at the Ontario Ministry of Energy (2006-2012) Master of Public Administration, Queen’s University (2006) Honors BA in Political Science, Western University (2005).
Bob King
Bob King is currently President and CEO at Splight.
Dr. Carey King
Dr. Carey W King performs interdisciplinary research on how energy systems evolve and interact within the economy and environment. His research centers on rigorous interpretations of the past to determine future energy pathways that require tradeoffs for achieving desired outcomes of growth, equity, and ecological sustainability. He reaches these goals by bridging the gaps between economic and biophysical (or ecological) worldviews of economic growth & structural change. Carey is a Research Scientist at The University of Texas at Austin and Assistant Director at the Energy Institute. He is the author of the book “The Economic Superorganism.”
Becky Klein
Becky is Principal of Klein Energy, serving international and domestic companies in the energy, power, and renewable sectors focused on penetrating or expanding in North America. As former Chairman of the Texas Public Utility Commission, she led the deregulation of the State’s power and telecommunication industries. She has worked in Washington, DC within the White House, Congress, and Trade related agencies. She sits on various publicly traded, and privately financed boards, and is also an investor in, and advisor for, fast-growth companies. Becky retired from the U.S. Air Force Reserve as a LtCol.
Anant Kumar
Anant Kumar is a Vice President with Charles River Associates with over 20 years of experience in the energy industry in various consulting and utility operating rules. Anant has advised utilities, investors, IPPs, and hyperscalars on diverse engagements including integrated resource planning, T&D planning, asset and utility transactions, decarbonization strategies, load interconnections, and reliability analysis. He has engaged at company executive level, with Investment Committees, and participated in public stakeholder meetings on various utility planning, regulatory, and M&A matters. Anant holds a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from the University of Michigan.
Ben Leibowicz
Dr. Benjamin D. Leibowicz is an Associate Professor and the Banks McLaurin Fellow in Engineering at UT Austin, where his primary appointment is in the Operations Research and Industrial Engineering graduate program. Dr. Leibowicz develops operations research and economic models to improve decision-making on energy and environmental policy and strategy. His work focuses on applications in energy system modeling, energy and climate policy analysis, technology transitions, and infrastructure reliability and resilience. Dr. Leibowicz has published more than 50 peer-reviewed journal articles and is the current President of the INFORMS Section on Energy, Natural Resources, and the Environment.
Dr. Jeremy Lin
Dr. Lin has over twenty-five years of experience in the electric power industry in the US, including twelve years at PJM. He has extensive experience in power system operation, planning, reliability, market design, market operation, and renewable energy development. He published over seventy-five technical papers and a book on “Electricity Markets: Theories and Applications” (by Wiley Press, 2017). He teaches a course on “Electric Grid: Technology and Policy” at the Johns Hopkins University.
Dr. Gus Lott
Dr. Gus Lott is the Principal Engineer at YarCom Inc., a professional engineering firm located in central Texas. YarCom specializes in electrical and telecommunications engineering, including renewable energy, energy storage, remote energy systems, mobile energy systems, and energy-environment-health modeling. Dr. Lott in a practicing expert in cybersecurity, critical infrastructure protection and utility contingency communications. He is a retired US Navy cryptographer, licensed Professional Engineer (PE), a Program Management Professional (PMP), and a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP). Dr. Lott lives in the Austin area.
Martin Luby
Martin J. Luby is director of the Center on Municipal Capital Markets and Associate Professor in the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. His teaching and research broadly focuses on public finance with an emphasis in public financial management. Much of his research has focused on the municipal securities market and the use of debt finance by state and local governments. Luby has published on innovative government financial instruments, federal financing techniques, regulation of the municipal securities market and the role of financial intermediaries in government financings. He has extensive banking, consultant and advisory experience.
Jose Maria Lujambio
José María Lujambio heads the energy practice of the law firm of Cacheaux, Cavazos & Newton, where he was appointed as a Partner in 2018. Based in Austin, his work includes regulatory advice and negotiation of various types of electricity and natural gas contracts for U.S. companies doing business in Mexico. From 2009 to 2012, Lujambio was the General Counsel of Mexico’s Energy Regulatory Commission, where he led the implementation of the 2008 reforms on renewables and gas. In 2014, José María obtained an LL.M. with energy concentration from UT Austin, and in 2002 a Law degree from ITAM in Mexico City. He currently serves as Secretary of the Board at Mexico’s major solar association ASOLMEX.
Robin Lunt
Robin joined Guzman Energy in 2018 and works across the business developing wholesale power solutions for distribution utilities and creating solutions to facilitate the energy transition through new renewable and dispatchable generation assets. Robin spent almost a decade in Washington, DC where she worked state and federal energy policy, and advised a commissioner at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on legal and policy matters in the western electric grid, RTO development, and oil and gas dockets. She is a graduate of BYU Law School and Pomona College.
Dr. Jeff Makholm
Jeff D. Makholm (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison), is the senior partner at National Economic Research Associates, Inc (NERA)–the firm of consulting economists founded in 1961 by Professor Alfred E. Kahn (of Cornell University) and his students/associates. In his many appearances as an expert, both in the United States and 20 other countries, Dr. Makholm has been involved in the regulation of energy utilties and the continental infrastructures that serve them (i.e., transmission networks or pipeline systems). His extensive publications document his first-hand experience with problems of investor-ownership, incentive regulation and competition in energy supply.
Paras Mandal
Paras Mandal is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Director of Power and Renewable Energy Systems Laboratory (PRES) at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). His research interests include Power system operations and electricity market; Distribution grid resilience and Microgrid EMS; Predictive data analytics and energy forecasting; and AI/ML/DL applications to cyber physical power systems. He is a Co-Lead Power Thrust of NSF-ERC-ASPIRE. His research has been funded by NSF, DOE, and DoEd.
Julia Matevosyan
Julia MAtevosyan is ESIG’s Associate Director and Chief Engineer and has more than 20 years of experience in the power industry. Prior to joining ESIG, Matevosyan was the Lead Planning Engineer of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). In her time with ERCOT, she worked on adequacy of system inertial response, system flexibility, frequency control and performance issues related to high penetration levels of inverter-based generation and ancillary services market design. Julia received her BSc from Riga Technical University in Latvia, and her MSc and PhD from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Sweden.
Frank McCamant
Mr. McCamant is an expert business and strategy development partner for organizations involved in energy resource management and smart grid development. Over the past 40+ years, he has assisted both the public and private sectors to develop a strategic focus for their business development efforts and translate that strategy into action. Mr. McCamant brings a wealth of executive-level relationships and experience negotiating tough deals while crafting sound public policy. Areas of Focus: wholesale power markets, PPAs, DERs, DR Mr. McCamant holds both a B.S. in civil engineering and an Executive MBA from the University of Texas at Austin, and is a registered engineer in Texas.
Atanu Mukherjee
Atanu is the CEO of Dastur group of Companies . He works globally in areas related to policy, technology, and economics of energy transformation in the energy, electricity and commodity industries. He has also been working with the US Department of Energy, The UAE Ministry , the G20 Presidency, and the Government of India on policy and technology for renewable integration, electricity system transformation, carbon capture systems, low carbon fuels and chemicals, and clean materials. He holds joint graduate degree in Engineering and Management from MIT and is a Stanford Graduate Fellow. He has over 100 publications in energy, materials, and economics and holds multiple parents.
Drew Nelson
As Vice-President of Programs, Policy, and Strategy at Project InnerSpace, Drew Nelson works to catalyze advanced geothermal to provide clean firm energy, industrial heat, and for heating/cooling. Drew has over 20 years working on energy and climate issues. Drew ran the climate and clean energy program at the Catena Foundation and was at the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation before that. Before working in Philanthropy, Drew ran Environmental Defense Fund’s international efforts to reduce global methane emissions. Prior to EDF, Drew worked for the U.S. Department of State on the international climate negotiations. Drew holds a joint master’s from UT.
Richard Oneill
Dr. Richard O’Neill was an ARPA-E Distinguished Senior Fellow. He was the FERC Chief Economist and the Directed Two Offices. He led FERC developments of natural gas and the electric power markets. He was on the LSU computer science and Maryland faculty. He has a ChemE BS, MBA and a OR Phd. He is an INFORMS Fellow and a Cambridge EPRG Assoc. He received the IAEE Outstanding Contributions Award, ESIG Excellence Awards for market design and for consumer pricing. He is a Nat. Acad. of Engin. Member and was awarded Harold Hotelling Medal. His work has appeared in Appl’d Math, Optim., OR, Comp. Sci., Energy, Oil and Nat. Gas, Elec Engin., Economics, and Law with 8000 Google cites.
Eric Padilla
Eric Padilla is the Director of Public Policy for Vistra Corp. In this position Eric focuses on State legislative policy in Vistra’s 20 state footprint with a primary focus on retail and wholesale electric competition but also including topics as diverse as tax policy, cyber/EMP policy and environmental policy. Prior to Vistra, Eric had a broad background including software development, business analysis and project management. Eric is a graduate of DePauw University, with a BA in European History, and from St. Mark’s School of Texas, in Dallas. A native Texan, Eric lives with his wife and two daughters in Arlington along with a plethora of fuzzy critters and two nope-ropes (ball pythons).
Jackson Parthasarathy
Jackson Parthasarathy is a Senior Associate at Grid United, leading commercial analytics and energy markets modeling for their Southwestern portfolio. His work focuses on quantifying and demonstrating the value of interregional transmission projects. Jackson significantly contributed to Grid United’s applications for Department of Energy programs like the Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships Grant and the Transmission Facilitation Program, securing over $1 billion in funding awards. Jackson holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Rice University and a master’s in civil and environmental engineering from Stanford University.
Brett Perlman
Brett A. Perlman serves as the CEO of the Center for Houston’s Future, a nonprofit organization working to address matters of highest importance to the long-term future of the greater Houston region. His career has spanned senior positions in business, government and community service organizations. Perlman served for four years as a Commissioner on the Public Utility Commission of Texas, where he was appointed in 1999 by then-Governor George W. Bush. He holds advanced degrees in public policy from Harvard University and in law from the University of Texas, and was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Northwestern University.
Joshua Rhodes
Joshua D. Rhodes, Ph.D. is a Research Scientist and Lecturer at The University of Texas at Austin, a non-Resident Fellow at Columbia University, a Founding Partner and CTO of IdeaSmiths LLC, and a commissioner on the City of Austin Electricity Utility Commission. He has authored over 125 scientific articles, columns, op-eds, journal publications, and reports which have been cited over 2,500 times and he has given over 85 keynotes, panel presentations, and other talks. His current area of work is in how energy systems power our modern lives, with a particular focus on new supplies and demands of electricity. He holds a PhD in Civil Engineering from UT Austin.
