Category: Alumni

Micah S. Ziegler is a postdoctoral associate at the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS). His research focuses on evaluating emerging and established energy technologies. Micah earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley and a B.S. in Chemistry from Yale University, with an emphasis on energy and environmental applications. In…

Heshuang Zeng graduated in 2011 from the Master in City Planning Program at MIT. She received her bachelor’s degree in architecture (2007) and her master’s degree in city design and planning (2009) from Tsinghua University. Her research focused on optimally incorporating renewable energy technologies in urban sustainable development. She is currently working at the World Resources…

Kelly Wu is an MIT undergraduate studying chemical engineering and interested in both the technical and social spheres of transitioning energy systems. Previously, she has worked on chemical industry graph networks through the Manthiram lab and coded for the MIT Energy Initiative’s SESAME lifecycle energy emissions tool. She has also interned at a renewables investment…

Wei Wei is a postdoctoral associate at the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS) at MIT. She received her Ph.D. in Transportation Engineering from MIT in 2022, her M.S. in the same field from MIT in 2017, and her B.Eng. in Engineering Systems and Design with a focus on Economics and Operations Research from Singapore University of Technology…

Ava Waitz works at Trancik Lab through the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program. She is considering majors in Civil and Environmental Engineering and Material Science Engineering. Her research contributes to life cycle analysis of current energy technologies. Specifically she is focusing on fugitive methane emissions along the natural gas supply chain. Contact: avawaitz at mit dot edu

Geoffrey Supran is a postdoctoral associate working with Prof. Jessika Trancik at the Institute for Data, Systems and Society at MIT. He is also a postdoctoral fellow with Prof. Naomi Oreskes in the Department of History of Science at Harvard University. He received his Ph.D. in Materials Science & Engineering at MIT. He also received an MIT…

Leah Stokes is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). She received her PhD in Public Policy and Masters in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Her research examines renewable energy politics across North America, using qualitative and quantitative methods. She also…

Juhyun (Joe) Song was a graduate student in a combined PhD-MBA program at MIT. He defended his PhD thesis in Department of Chemical Engineering on mathematical modeling of electrochemical energy systems. For the MBA portion, Juhyun studied the socioeconomic environment around renewable energy systems. After graduating from MIT, he moved to Argonne National Laboratory as a Postdoctoral…

Sankaran Ramakrishnan is a postdoctoral associate at the Institute for Data, Systems and Society (IDSS) at MIT. He received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University for his research in efficiency maximization of energy conversion systems through reduction in thermodynamic irreversibility. Before joining MIT, he was the chief researcher at OceanLab (now Apium Inc.), a startup developing…

Sai Sameer Pusapaty worked at Trancik Lab by taking part in the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program. His work focuses on predicting the future average fuel economy of the U.S. light-duty vehicle fleet given uncertainties in technological development and consumer preferences. By studying past trends in various vehicle attributes, he hopes to develop statistical models to determine…