Faculty
Dalia Patino-Echeverri
Dr. Patino-Echeverri’s research focuses on public policy design for energy systems, with a particular emphasis on managing the risks arising from the uncertainties influencing the outcomes of government actions. Much of her current work focuses on the policies that affect capital investment decisions within the electricity industry, and the corresponding costs to society of electricity and air-emissions levels. Her models explore the effects of different government policies by representing the industry’s decisions under uncertainty on future technological advancements, fuel prices, and emissions regulations.
Contact: dalia.patino@duke.edu
Researchers
Dimitris Floros
Dr. Dimitris Floros is a postdoctoral researcher at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University. He obtained his PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. His research interests and experience include the theory and computation of network/graph analysis and parallel, scalable algorithms for large-volume, high-dimensional data analysis. His research work has focused on theoretical and computational analysis of network data, a research area at the intersection of three major research areas: data analytics, network science, and high-performance computing.
Ali Daraeepour
Ali Daraeepour worked as a Research Scientist working on the GRACE project. Prior to joining Duke he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Ardlinger Center for Energy Associate at Princeton University. Ali was born in Khoramabad, Iran. During his time at Duke as a PhD student, Ali addressed understanding grid-integration of variable renewable resources and related design of electricity markets. Prior to his PhD studies, he worked for several years as an engineer and consultant.
Contact: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alidaraeepour/
Students
Mauricio Hernandez
Mauricio Hernandez is currently pursuing his PhD in Environment. Mauricio was born in Mexico City. He is currently using Human Learning and Machine Learning methods to improve the performance of Unit Commitment models on the the GRACE project. He has also done research on the dynamics of energy demand in Latin America. Specifically, he is working on bottom-up energy models to estimate the electricity demand in Mexico.
Xiaodong Zhang
Xiaodong Zhang is currently pursuing her PhD in Environment. She was born in Guangdong, China. She is working on evaluating the effects of electricity policy in China. Specifically, she uses the Unit Commitment – Economic Dispatch Model to analyze the economic and environmental impacts of subsidy policy and renewable portfolio standards for renewable energy.
Contact: xz284@duke.edu
Visitor Scholars
Erick Del Bianco Pelegia
Erick Del Bianco Pelegia is a Brazilian mechanical engineer whose interests lie in the energy field regarding thermodynamics, thermo-economics, energy planning, intermittent generation integration, energy transition, regulatory frameworks, economics, and socio-environmental impacts of the energy sector, among other topics. He has been working in the energy field since 2015. More recently, Erick came to realize that energy transition is less constrained by energy supply but is greatly limited by the lack of knowledge and experience about how to integrate technically and economically intermittent generation in the energy matrix. With this view as a guide, his current research aims to contribute to that topic.
Contact: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erick-del-bianco-pelegia-9497031a4
Jing Huang
Jing Huang is currently a PhD candidate at the School of Public Administration and Policy, Renmin University of China. Jing Huang was born in Hunan, China. During her time as a visiting scholar at Duke University, her research focuses on China’s household electricity use, energy poverty, and electricity forecasting for future scenarios.
Contact: jing.huang@duke.edu, jhuang@ruc.edu.cn
Manuel Correa-Giraldo
Manuel Correa-Giraldo is a PhD candidate in Economics at Universidad EAFIT in Medellín-Colombia. He holds an undergraduate degree in Mathematics from Universidad de Antioquia and a M.Sc. in Economics from Universidad EAFIT. Correa’s research covers fiscal policy, poverty, inequality, economic growth, applied economics, market policy and regulation. Much of her current work focuses on industrial organization, energy economics, energy transition, and the evaluation of the impact of the incorporation of non-conventional renewable energies on wholesale cost and retail prices in Colombian electricity market.
Alumni
Bandar Alqahtani
Bandar Alqahtani is currently working as an engineering team lead at Saudi Aramco. Bandar was born and raised in Dammam, Saudi Arabia. During his time at Duke as a PhD student, Bandar carried out four studies that individually aim to increase understanding of various engineering and economic aspects of solar and wind energy and the challenge of integrating them in the electricity power system.
Contact: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bandar-alqahtani-3a173a21/
Rubenka Bandyopadhyay
Rubenka Bandyopadhyay is currently working as an energy analyst at Advanced Energy Corporation. Rubenka was born and raised in Howrah, India. During her time at Duke as a PhD student, Rubenka explored the possibility of the use of flexible Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) operation to mute wind power variability in the electric power grid in the mid-western US (MISO) by analyzing grid reliability and system cost.
Contact: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rubenka-bandyopadhyay/
Édgar Virguez
Edgar Virguez is a PhD in Environmental Sciences and Policy. He was born in Bogota, Colombia. Edgar developed analytical open-source tools that support the transition to a decarbonized electric power sector. He is interested in understanding the policies that facilitate the integration of variable energy resources.
Contact:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/edgarvirguez/
Mingquan Li
Mingquan Li currently works as an assistant professor at the School of Economics and Management, Beihang University, China. During his time at Duke, Li worked as a postdoctoral researcher focused on investigating environmental economics and management as it relates to: 1) the environment and sustainable development, 2) environmental efficiency, 3) environmental regulation, and 4) electricity policy, environmental pollution and economic development in China.
Contact: mingquan.li@duke.edu, mingquanli@buaa.edu.cn
Rui Shan
Rui Shan is currently pursuing a Ph.D. degree at University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. Rui was born in China. During his time at Duke as a master of environmental management student, he helped to build the bottom-up electricity demand projection model for Mexico and China. Specifically, he built the appliance adoption model, facilitated the population projection and the field interview in China and Mexico.
Contact: shanr@ornl.gov, shanrui427@gmail.com
Xianxun Wang
Xianxun Wang is currently working as an associate professor at the College of Resources and Environment, Yangtze University. He was born in Puyang, China. During his time at Duke as a visiting post-doc, his research was focused on the integration of renewable energy resources considering the time-changing constraints and the spatial diversity of hydropower. Prior to his Ph.D. studies, he worked as an engineer of hydropower and water resources.
Contact: https://www.linkedin.com/in/xianxunwang/, xianxunwang@gmail.com
Mian Yang
Mian Yang is currently working as a full professor at the School of Economics and Management, Wuhan University, China. During his time at Duke as a visiting Ph.D. student, Mian focused on investigating the coordination of various renewable energy policies and energy efficiency policies in China.
Contact: yangmian909@163.com