Participant Bios (A–I)

Dr. Parviz Adib
Dr. Parviz M. Adib is the Founder of Pionergy consulting offering services on regulation, economics, and public policy. His work experience included 21 years with the Public Utility Commission of Texas where he advised the Commission and performed the duties of the first ERCOT Market Monitor. He also prepared several Reports for Mexican Government, including a workplan to implement Market Monitoring and Surveillance System for the Mexican electricity market. His last position was the Advisor to the Mexican Market Monitoring Unit that ended as of December 31, 2020. Dr. Adib has a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Texas at Austin where he taught graduate and undergraduate courses.

David Adelman
David Adelman, Harry M. Reasoner Regents Chair in Law and Professor, joined Texas Law in 2009 after teaching in Arizona and practicing in Washington, DC. He is an expert in environmental law, administrative law, and climate change/energy policy. His research often involves empirical studies of law in action (litigation, enforcement) or examines the role of science in law and policy. He teaches an interdisciplinary course, with law and business students, that takes students through the stages of legal due diligence and project finance that underpin development of renewable and other energy projects. Professor Adelman came to the U.S. (from Canada) for college, but his stay was extended by graduate school and later became indefinite. He is an avid hiker and climber who loves both the Austin greenbelt and the mountains of western Colorado.

Tom Anson
Tom Anson, with the law firm of Clark Hill PLC, has a regulatory and administrative law practice that spans over four decades. Tom’s primary area of practice is energy and utility law, including regulatory, contract, administrative, and litigation matters. This includes a variety of licensing, rate, enforcement, rulemaking, and other regulatory matters and quasi-regulatory matters before the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. It also involves wholesale power matters and retail electric services, including in the restructured Texas electric market.

Ross Baldick
Dr. Ross Baldick is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. He received his B.Sc. and B.E. degrees from the University of Sydney, Australia and his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. From 1991-1992 he was a post-doctoral fellow at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. In 1992 and 1993 he was an assistant professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Dr. Baldick has published over one hundred refereed journal articles and has research interests in a number of areas in electric power. His current research involves optimization, economic theory, and statistical analysis applied to electric power system operations, the public policy and technical issues associated with electric transmission under electricity market restructuring, the robustness of the electricity system to terrorist interdiction, electrification of the transportation industry, and the economic implications of integration of renewables.

Vijay Betanbahatla
Vijay Betanabhatla is Director of Electric Utilities at STACK Infrastructure, where he focuses on power strategy and utility coordination for large-scale data center developments. He has over two decades of experience across electric utilities, system operators, consulting, and energy technology. Prior to STACK, Vijay worked at SLB on power-sector initiatives including geothermal energy, carbon capture, and long-duration energy storage. Earlier in his career, he held consulting roles at Guidehouse and Baker Tilly and spent nearly a decade at ERCOT working on grid operations, planning, and market implementation. Vijay holds an MSEE from UT Arlington and an MBA from the University of Texas

William Boyd
William Boyd is Michael J. Klein Chair and Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law and Professor at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. Boyd is also a Faculty Co-Director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.

Russell Boyer
He leads the Utilities Industry practice at Dell Technologies, developing strategies and solutions that accelerate the energy transition and enable digital transformation across the energy sector. With over 30 years of experience, he is a proven utility solutions expert who applies policy, regulations, and standards to deliver measurable business outcomes. He leads the Dell global utility community and serves on the boards of the GridWise Alliance, Texas A&M Smart Grid Center, and VPAC Alliance. He holds an MBA and a B.S. in MIS from Texas A&M University.

Dr. Sanya Carley
Dr. Sanya Carley is Presidential Distinguished Professor of Energy Policy and City Planning at the Stuart Weitzman School of Design; the Mark Alan Hughes Faculty Director of the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy; and the Vice Provost of Climate Science, Policy, and Action at the University of Pennsylvania.

Andres Carvallo
Andres Carvallo is the CEO and Founder of 512CMG, a firm offering design, seek funding, commercialization, and deployment expertise of advanced digital and energy infrastructure—powered by four decades of executive, academic, and startup success. And CEO and Co-Founder of Project Austin, a next-generation applied research and commercialization consortium. Author of “The Advanced Smart Grid”, and editor of 48 books. IEEE Senior, CIGRE, ASME, SAE, SIM member. Retired Research Faculty and Fellow at TXST. Former Executive at Austin Energy, Philips, HPE, Borland, SCO, Microsoft. Was executive at 6 startups. Education from Stanford (MBA), Pennsylvania (MS Quality), Idaho (EE),and Kansas (ME).

Megan Ceronsky
As Senior Counsel & Special Assistant to the President for the Biden Administration, Megan served as the lead lawyer in the White House on environmental, conservation, & energy issues. In 2017 she founded the Center for Applied Environmental Law & Policy, dedicated to strengthening the defense of federal climate policies & supporting the development of new state and federal pollution mitigation policies. Previously, Megan worked for both the White House Office of Energy & Climate Change & the White House Counsel’s Office during the Obama Administration, Environmental Defense Fund as Director of Regulatory Policy, & at Van Ness Feldman. She clerked for Judge Blane Michael on the 4th Circuit.

Evan Chapman
Evan is the founder and Senior Director of Policy at Clean Tomorrow, where he leads the organization’s strategy to advance pragmatic, durable clean energy and climate policy at the federal level. Drawing on more than a decade of experience in Congress, federal advocacy, and environmental policy, he launched Clean Tomorrow in 2024 to help bridge the gap between ambitious climate goals and actionable policy solutions. Prior to founding Clean Tomorrow, Evan served as U.S. Federal Policy Director at Clean Air Task Force, helping drive congressional and agency efforts toward a zero-emissions, high-energy future, and held senior roles on Capitol Hill, including Deputy Chief of Staff and Legislative Director for Congressman Donald McEachin.

James Coleman
Professor James W. Coleman is a scholar of energy law at the University of Minnesota. He specializes in North American energy infrastructure, transport, and trade. He is also a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute focused on energy policy. Professor Coleman often writes interdisciplinary papers focused on addressing crucial policy questions and his research is frequently presented before key legal decision-makers in Washington, D.C., and across North America. He has testified before Congress on steps to speed up energy infrastructure permits. He worked with a team of experts as part of Alberta’s Royalty Review to revise the Canadian province’s management of its vast oil and gas resources. Before joining Minnesota, Professor Coleman taught at Southern Methodist University’s Dedman School of Law, the University of Calgary’s law and business schools, and Harvard Law School. Earlier, he practiced environmental and appellate law at Sidley Austin in Washington, D.C., and clerked for the Honorable Steven M. Colloton of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.

Jeff Dagle
Jeff Dagle, Chief Electrical Engineer at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory since 1989 has expertise in technical contributions to real-time grid reliability and management, wide-area measurement systems, and transmission reliability, resilience, and security. He is an IEEE Fellow, member of the Washington State Academy of Sciences, and has served on numerous National Academy consensus committees including most recently the Forum on Informed Investment, Technology, and Policy Pathways for the Electricity System and Interdependent Energy Infrastructure. He is a licensed professional engineer in Washington State, with BSEE and MSEE degrees from Washington State University.

Dr. Todd Davidson, Ph.D.
Dr. F. Todd Davidson is director of the Center for Applied Engineering and associate professor of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering at the United States Military Academy. He has taught fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, and energy policy at USMA and the University of Texas at Austin. His research examines key challenges of energy systems spanning transport, storage, renewables, water, food, and oil and gas, with publications in leading journals and outlets like Forbes and Bloomberg. He has advised the Texas General Land Office, testified before the Texas Senate, and been featured by NPR and The New York Times. He previously co-founded nCarbon and worked as a Raytheon engineer.

Lincoln Davies
Davies is an internationally recognized expert in energy law and policy. His research has been sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, the South Korean government, the Brookings Institution, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, among others. He is coauthor of one of the nation’s leading energy law textbooks. He was a McCloy Fellow (2012) and the Elizabeth Evatt Distinguished Fellow at the University of Sydney (2024). He served as the 20th Dean of The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. He is on the law faculty at the University of Utah, where he is Executive Director for Energy, Resource, and Environment Programs and Co-Director of the Stegner Center for Land, Resources & Env’t.

Zach Despart
I have covered government and politics for more than a dozen years. I was part of the team that was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for reporting on the flawed police response to the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas. That series, which was made possible by a trove of law enforcement records I obtained from a confidential source, also won the Collier Prize. My reporting at the Houston Chronicle revealed that the death toll from the 2021 Texas blackouts was far higher than the government initially reported, and how the failure of concert staff and police to act on warning signs led to the deaths of 10 fans in the Astroworld Festival disaster.

Varunh Devineni
Varunh Devineni is an MBA candidate in Finance at UT Austin (McCombs) with over six years of experience in FP&A and operations-focused finance. He currently works in asset management, supporting financial modeling and investment analysis, with interests in energy markets and infrastructure finance.

Frank A. Felder
Frank A. Felder is an internationally recognized thought leader and educator in the electric power sector. His research, teaching and consulting center around electricity markets and associated energy policies including market design, reliability and resiliency, energy efficiency evaluation, and renewable and distributed resources. Previously, Professor Felder directed the Rutgers Energy Institute and the Center for Energy, Economics, and Environmental Policy at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy. His doctorate is from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and he holds undergraduate degrees in applied mathematics from Columbia University.

Christian Fogerty
Second year MS candidate in the Energy and Earth Resources Graduate Program studying the intersection of AI/ML with decision-making in the electricity system.

Marilyn J. Fox
Marilyn J. Fox is the President of Fox, Smolen & Associates. From 2001, she directed FSA to broker electricity contracts for customers in the restructured market. She is a professional accountant who specializes in rate regulation of electric, gas and water utilities. She has served as an expert witness in local, state, and federal proceedings and presented testimony before the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT), the Texas Legislature, and city councils. Marilyn was employed as the Assistant Director of Accounting at the PUCT and as Houston’s Director of Regulatory Affairs from 1986 through 1989 and Austin’s Assistant Director of the Finance and Administrative Department.

Erik Funkhouser
As Executive Director of the Good Energy Collective (GEC), Erik Funkhouser leads an independent think tank advancing nuclear energy through research, policy, and public engagement. He directs work on global supply chains, community-centered siting, spent fuel management, and innovation policy. With over a decade of experience in climate technology and clean energy policy, Erik has built and scaled major research and demonstration initiatives across government, academia, and the nonprofit sector. He has held leadership roles at NYSERDA, the University of Texas, and Columbia University’s Carbontech Development Initiative, where he launched $16 million in R&D and federal policy programs.

Beth Garza
Beth Garza is an independent consultant to the electric utility industry. As such, she represents residential ratepayer interests within the ERCOT stakeholder process. She is also a senior fellow with the Energy & Environmental Policy Team of the R Street Institute. Beth served as the director of the Independent Market Monitor for the ERCOT market from 2014 through 2019 after serving as the deputy director since 2008. Over the course of her 40-year career in the electric utility industry, Beth has held a variety of leadership roles in generation and transmission planning, system operations, regulatory affairs and market design for both regulated and competitive entities.

Sudhir Gopalakrishnan
I am a final-year Master’s Candidate in Energy and Earth Resources at the Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin, with research experience spanning energy systems, energy security, emissions analysis, and power electronics. My multidisciplinary problem-solving approach has been honed through diverse professional and academic environments in India, Japan, and the United States. Currently, I am a Research Intern at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where I contribute to a U.S. Department of Energy-funded project focused on the winterization of natural gas infrastructure in Texas.

Madeline Gould Laughlin
Madeline Gould Laughlin is Director of Regulatory Affairs for Grid United, where she leads RTO and state utility commission engagement and policy strategy to support the company’s portfolio of transmission projects. Prior to Grid United, she led policy and regulatory affairs at Enel North America, managing regulatory risk across all Texas business lines. She previously worked at Clean Line Energy Partners, was a founding member of the Electricity Markets & Transmission team at American Clean Power, and served on Arcadia’s policy and market development team advancing solar policy in the West and Midwest. Madeline holds bachelor’s degree from Sewanee and a master’s degree from UT Austin.

Christoph Graf
Christoph Graf is an expert in energy economics, navigating the intersection of economics, law, engineering, and operations research. Dr. Graf’s research delves into the intricacies of electricity market designs within the context of the ongoing energy transition, while also tackling the complex issue of market power within capacity-constrained transmission networks. He serves as a Senior Economist at the Institute for Policy Integrity, New York University School of Law, and as a Research Affiliate in the Program on Energy and Sustainable Development at Stanford University.

Dr. Emily Grubert
Dr. Emily Grubert is Associate Professor of Sustainable Energy Policy, and, concurrently, of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences at the University of Notre Dame. Her research focuses on justice-oriented deep decarbonization and decision support tools for large infrastructure systems. Grubert holds a Ph.D. in Environment and Resources from Stanford. She previously served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Carbon Management at the US Department of Energy and is currently Editor-in-Chief of Environmental Research: Energy.

Dana Harmon
Dana founded Juniper Advising in 2021 to support organizations advancing a sustainable energy future. She has worked across the energy sector on sustainability topics including oil and gas, renewables, the built environment, and the social impacts of our energy system. She previously served as Executive Director of the Texas Energy Poverty Research Institute and chaired the City of Austin’s Resource Management Commission. She is a Marshall Memorial Fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the United States and serves on the Research Advisory Board of the American Council for An Energy Efficient Economy. Locally, she serves on the West Lake Hills City Council.

James Henahan
James Henahan has served as Calpine’s Senior Vice President of Commercial Analytics since February 2022. In this role, Mr. Henahan oversees market analytics, pricing and asset optimization. Mr. Henahan began his career with General Electric, where he earned three patents related to power plant systems. He joined Calpine in July 2010 as Manager of Dispatch Analysis and has held various roles with increasing responsibility during his tenure. Mr. Henahan holds both a Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan, as well as a Master of Business Administration from the Indiana University Kelley School of Business.

David Hesser
David Hesser, Senior Director, Trading Analysis Mr. Hesser joined Tenaska in 2019 and is currently responsible for a team of analysts that perform fundamental analysis supporting Tenaska’s power trading, energy management, and asset-related commercial organizations. Prior to joining Tenaska, he worked for multiple companies across the energy space. Functional responsibilities included trading, structuring / pricing of energy transactions, market risk management, credit risk management, consulting, and executive management of a retail electric supplier. His degrees include a BBA in Finance from The University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from Southern Methodist University.

Caleb Holland
Caleb Holland is a Senior Large Load Integration Engineer at ERCOT. In this role, he is responsible for reviewing large load interconnection requests in collaboration with Transmission Service Providers and Market Participants. Mr. Holland works to maintain reliability standards and requirements for the interconnection of large loads including coordinating with Operations and Planning teams to ensure visibility into challenges that large loads present. In ERCOT’s Regional Planning Group, Mr. Holland ran studies to determine the best course of action to solve violations on the bulk electric system. Mr. Holland graduated from the University of Texas with a bachelor’s of science in EE.

Monty Humble
Monty Humble brings over 30 years of energy market, policy and legal expertise to energy development. A policy expert and problem solver, Monty’s hands-on experience with major energy developments, policy analysis and DC beltway connections bring insight into future energy policies and leadership to energy investments. Monty participates in investments, and helps actively guide overall company strategies given the shifting winds of state and national energy policies. Currently, Monty is Managing Director of High Road Clean Energy LLC participating in the development of clean energy projects in the ERCOT market.

David Inbar
David Inbar is Founder and CEO of Dejalytics Inc., an Austin-based developer of solutions for price-driven grid flexibility. The Dejalytics cloud service uses AI and statistical analysis to control flexible generation as well as flexible industrial and commercial loads. The company also conducts research into the energy intensity of software applications. David has more than 25 years’ technology and business leadership experience in enterprise data management and analytics. David holds a Master’s degree in Engineering from Cambridge University and an MBA from the London Business School.