Graduate Students and Post-Doctoral Scholars | Center for Sustainable Energy and Power Systems

Dr. Ali Adabi Research Associate 831-459-2127 E2-543A Ali Adabi is a lecturer at UCSC, he holds a Ph.D. and M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from UCSC, and a B.S. degree from UC Berkeley in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Ali has four years of teaching experience at UCSC working with 100s of students. As a lecturer at University of California Santa Cruz, he teaches the senior design class CMPE129C. He has broad knowledge across different areas of electrical engineering and computer science. He is a Founder at a start up and is very passionate about doing applicable research in systems that could benefit the society and that is why he joined CITRIS. His PhD project SEADS has recently won the Tech Crunch SF and NSF award. He also has industry experience and worked at Intel, Tivo, and PlayStation.
Tamara Ball, PhD. Post-Doctoral Researcher ISEE Institute for Scientist and Engineer Educators SEED Sustainable Engineering and Ecological Design tball@ucsc.edu (831) 459 2138 Dr. Tamara Ball is a project-scientist working with the Sustainable Engineering and Ecological Design (SEED) collaborative at UCSC. She is the program director for Impact Designs - Engineering and Sustainability through Student Service (IDEASS) and Apprenticeships in Sustainability Science and Engineering Design (ASCEND) She is interested in understanding how extracurricular and co-curricular innovations can support meaningful campus-community connections in higher education and improve learning outcomes. Her research to date has focused on educational designs that emphasize student initiative and agency through inquiry or problem-based learning. She has published several papers on the characteristics of learning environments that support or constrain opportunities for any students (including those from non-dominant backgrounds) to participate in key science and engineering process skills such as scientific argumentation. Her work is largely informed by the principles and perspectives on human development and cognition articulated by Cultural Historical Activity Theory. Putting theory into practice, she teaches a service-learning course at UCSC wherein interdisciplinary teams of students work in an layered apprenticeship model with community mentors to design and implement sustainable solutions to water, energy, waste, transportation and social challenges using "green technology". Dr. Ball has worked as a research fellow with two NSF Centers for Learning and Teaching and most recently on several NSF projects that focus the integration of engineering and social science to support the advancement of new sustainability programs in higher education.
Zachary is a PhD candidate in Electrical Engineering. He has received B.S. at UC Davis double majoring in Electrical and Computer Engineering. He is interested in the role embedded computer systems play in our energy future. Previous Work: V2G demonstration for PowerLab.dk opening, maintainer of the Green Wharf project. Current Work: Adding energy storage to loads for demand response purposes.
Paul Naud CITRIS Graduate Student Researcher Senior Capstone TA Engineering 2, Room 587 By appointment only Paul started his educational career at Folsom Community College and American River Community College with interest in Electrical Engineering. From there, he transferred to the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), where he received a Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering. During his time at UCSC, he worked for CITRIS as an undergraduate student technician, and continued to work for them as a graduate student. However, for the past 3 years, he has been working with Professor Mantey on consumer's renewable grid integration using various storage systems. Paul recently received a Masters in Electrical Engineering from the UCSC for the work in this field .
Daniel O'Leary is a graduate student in Electrical Engineering in the Baskin School of Engineering at the University of California Santa Cruz. His research is in the area of photovoltaics and renewable energy. Prior to attending UCSC, he was a programmer and database consultant for the Arizona Department of Education. He did his undergraduate work at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, CA where he earned a 3-2 Management Engineering degree while also earning a Bachelors of Science in Computer Engineering from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, CA, both awarded in 1999.
Andrea Chialastri Graduate Student Researcher achials@soe.ucsc.edu Andrea Chialastri is a Ph.D. student in the Electrical Engineering Department at UCSC, working with Prof. Michael Isaacson at CenSEP. He received a B.Sc. in Energy Engineering from La Sapienza University of Rome in 2012, and participated in 2013 US-Denmark summer program and NSF STEM internship program at Hartnell College. His research interests include renewable energy systems, thermo-fluid dynamics and heat transfer, photovoltaic and CSP technologies, wind engineering, sustainable buildings and passive heating. He is currently working on passive heating and integrated photovoltaics for buildings, in collaboration with the startup company SolarPath in San Mateo.
Dominique De Wit Graduate Student Researcher dode@ucsc.edu Dominique de Withas come to UCSC to study environmental governance and renewable energy. She was born in the Netherlands, but developed a passion for politics and environmental studies while growing up in Southeast Asia. She completed her undergrad in South Carolina, has interned at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs in Washington, D.C. and has taught at the Coastal Montessori Charter School.