Other Attendees

Director of the Center for the Built Environment at UC Berkeley. Have focused on energy-efficient cooling of occupants since 1980. This includes natural ventilation design, use of room/ceiling fans, and personal comfort systems (PCS). Worked on design tools, revised ASHRAE Standard 55 to properly account for convective cooling, developed and tested various PCS systems, and correcting errors in standards addressing heat stress and health.

Energy & behavior researcher, architecture professor, father of twin boys, bicycler, library enthusiast, musician, donut lover.

Núria is an architect/engineer who specializes in building retrofitting and construction systems. Her research interests include energy retrofits of buildings, occupant health and IEQ, and zero-energy design. She managed the UC Berkeley Solar Decathlon team as the Head Architect in their 2017 submission, and she has also been a manager and data analyst with the Team Zero (Net-Zero Energy Coalition) since 2016. She has been involved in the design and retrofitting of a wide variety of buildings in the US and abroad. She earned her PhD in construction engineering from UC Berkeley and Polytechnic University of Catalonia.

Angela Green is the administrative support for the Building and Industrial Applications Group. She has been at LBNL for 12 years and has supported various areas of both Science and Operations Divisions.

Andy Jones is an Earth scientist who works at the interface of human and environmental systems. At Berkeley Lab, he leads the Earth Systems and Society Program Domain in the Earth and Environmental Sciences Area. He is also an Adjunct Professor in the Energy and Resources Group at UC Berkeley. His research uses quantitative models and data analysis to understand climate change and human-Earth system interactions at decision-relevant scales. He collaborates with social scientists and interacts closely with stakeholders to understand how science can provide actionable insight into strategies that increase resilience of energy water, food, and urban systems.

Leader: Thermal Energy Group

Materials Research Scientist/Engineer

Dr. Kirchstetter is a Senior Scientist at Berkeley Lab. Kirchstetter is the Director of the Energy Analysis and Environmental Impacts Division, which informs energy policy, standards, and decision-making for the benefit of society and the environment, and Interim Director of the Cyclotron Road Division, which turns science into successful companies and scientists into entrepreneurs. He holds a concurrent appointment as an Adjunct Professor in Civil & Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley, where he teaches courses and mentors undergraduate and graduate student researchers. Kirchstetter has served as an editor of the journals Aerosol Science & Technology and Atmospheric Chemistry & Physics and organizer of the International Conference on Carbonaceous Particles in the Atmosphere.

Dr. Gao Liu is the Group Leader of the Applied Energy Materials Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, specialized in energy storage R&D. Dr. Liu is also a co-Lead of the Energy Technology Area Wide Resilient Community Initiatives. Dr. Liu has over 20 years of experience in developing materials and system engineering for energy applications, and has led research projects for the U.S. Department of Energy and industry. Dr. Liu’s lab combines synthetic chemistry, composite engineering and electrochemistry to solve interdisciplinary problems in energy generation, storage and usage. Dr. has over 180 peer-reviewed publications and over 20 granted patents.

Paul Mathew is a Staff Scientist and Department Head of Whole Building Systems at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), where he conducts applied research and market transformation activities on energy use in buildings. His current work is focused on integrated building systems, energy epidemiology, benchmarking tools, and energy-related risk analysis for building valuation and resilience. Prior to joining LBNL, he worked at Enron Energy Services and the Center for Building Performance at Carnegie Mellon University. He has authored over 150 technical papers, articles and reports. He received a U.S. presidential award for federal energy efficiency. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture, and a Ph.D. in Building Performance and Diagnostics from Carnegie Mellon University.

Ravi Prasher is the Associate Lab Director (ALD) of the Energy Technologies Area, and an adjunct professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. In the ALD role, Ravi oversees Berkeley Lab’s broad R&D portfolio of energy storage technology, building research and energy analysis as well as early stage technology commercialization. Ravi has published more than 120 archival journal papers in top science and engineering journals, and holds more than 35 patents in the area of thermoelectrics, microchannels, heat pipes, thermal interface materials, nanostructured materials and devices. He is a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

Jonathan Parfrey is founding director of Climate Resolve, a group that implements equitable climate solutions in California. From 2008-2013, Jonathan served as a commissioner at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. Jonathan is a co-founder of the Los Angeles Regional Climate Collaborative as well as the statewide Alliance of Regional Collaboratives for Climate Adaptation. He is a gubernatorial appointee to the State of California Climate Adaptation Technical Advisory Council and is an advisory board member at the UCLA Center for Healthy Climate Solutions and the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation.

Qibing Pei is a Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Mechanical Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He received a PhD from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is a Fellow of SPIE, member of ACS, SID, MRS, IEEE, Associate Editor of Smart Materials & Structures, Advisory Board Member of Soft Robotics, Advanced Electronic Materials, and Scientific Reports.

Mary Ann Piette is a Senior Scientist and Director of Building Technology and Urban Systems Division at Berkeley Lab. She oversees the Lab's building technology research activities for the Department of Energy which covers appliance standards, technology analysis and tools to accelerate deployment, new building technologies, modeling and analysis, commercial and residential building systems integration, grid interactive communications, and integration with EVs, storage and PVs. Her most recent work is exploring how to accelerate decarbonization while ensuring equity and affordability. Mary Ann also leads the new California Load Flexibility Research and Deployment Hub (CalFlexHub) which is pioneering new technologies, and advanced communication and controls to enable buildings to receive automated dynamic pricing and GHG signals.

Kaiyu Sun is a Principal Scientific Engineering Associate in BTUS. My research fields focus on building energy modeling, development of modeling tools, nexus of resilience and building energy efficiency.

Dr. Turner is an Assistant Professor of Urban Planning and Geography at UCLA where she Co-Directs the Luskin Center for Innovation;. She is also a member of the Arsht-Rockefeller Extreme Heat Resilience Alliance Scientific Advisory Committee. She conducts stakeholder engaged, interdisciplinary research on the role of urban design, policy, and planning on microclimate regulation. Her work is funded by the Strategic Growth Council of California and the National Science Foundation.

Dan serves as the Team Lead for the California Department of Public Health’s Climate Change and Health Equity Section. He manages projects focused on statewide climate and health equity policy and planning, and works across sectors with state agencies and other partners to advance climate solutions that benefit health, equity, and community resilience. Previous to public health practice, Dan worked for nearly a decade in the areas of green building, urban planning, and environmental design. Dan is a LEED Accredited Professional, with academic training in Design, Environmental Policy Analysis and Planning, Community Development, and Public Health.