Scientists

“Key ORNL Scientists working on Bioenergy Sustainability”

Latha Baskaran (M.S, Geography, Pennsylvania State University) has GIS and modeling expertise with experience in watershed modeling, habitat modeling, land-cover change and spatial data management.

Budhendra L. Bhaduri (Ph.D., Earth & Atmospheric Sciences, Purdue University) has experience and experience in applications of geospatial science and technology in sustainable development research, including human dimensions of critical infrastructure, urbanization and watershed impacts, and energy resource assessment.

Virginia Dale (Ph.D. Mathematical Ecology, University of Washington) has experience in research developing and testing ecological indicators at the watershed and regional scales, landscape designs for bioenergy, environmental decision making, and land-use change.

Maggie Davis (M.S, Forestry, University of Tennessee) is an economic geographer with research experience in Brazil (thesis with small-scale eucalyptus farmer) who works on international bioenergy issues (e.g., indirect effects and sustainability indicators under ISO 13065, US and Brazil SOC measurement protocols), feedstock supply and agricultural policy modelling (e.g., upcoming Billion Ton 2016).

Laurence M. Eaton (M.A., Economics, University of Tennessee) is a resource economist modeling feedstock production from agricultural and forest lands, including estimating biomass supply curves and modeling the technical parameters that affect the spatial distribution of feedstocks for bioenergy.

Rebecca Efroymson (Ph.D. Environmental Toxicology, Cornell University) has been working on bioenergy sustainability and land-use change issues for the past few years. Her previous experience includes ecological risk assessment of toxicants, nutrients from wastewater, and military activities, as well as energy technologies (e.g., wind energy and oil and gas).

Natalie Griffiths (Ph.D., Biological Sciences, University of Notre Dame) is an aquatic ecologist and biogeochemist with research experience in carbon and nutrient cycling in anthropogenically-impacted aquatic ecosystems.Website.

Mike Hilliard (Ph.D. Operations Research, Cornell University) is experienced in the application of optimization techniques and parallel processing in a variety of domains including modeling bioenergy systems.

Henriette Jager (Ph.D., Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, 2000, University of Tennessee) is a theoretical ecologist whose research focuses on understanding effects of renewable energy activities and ecological communities. This research seeks to identify management solutions that increase energy and benefit ecosystems.

Keith Kline (M.Ed. Framingham State College) has experience in design and monitoring of sustainable development projects around the globe, environmental impact assessment, systems analysis, land-use change, and application of multi-scale performance indicators.

Matthew Langholtz (Ph.D. Natural Resource Economics, University of Florida), has expertise in accounting for non-market amenities in economic evaluations of dedicated feedstock supply systems, and evaluating the economic availability of biomass resources.

Paul Leiby (MA Public Policy, Harvard University) has led a variety of energy-economic modeling projects related to biofuels markets, the economic analysis of alternative motor fuels, energy security and oil market modeling, and greenhouse gas emission management policies.

Rocío Uría-Martínez (Ph.D. Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California, Davis) focuses on modeling energy markets (biofuels, electricity, natural gas) for optimization and simulation purposes using mathematical programming and econometric techniques.

Gbadebo Oladosu (Ph.D., Energy and Environmental Economics, Penn. State University, Pennsylvania) is a Research Economist working on assessments of the global potential for biofuels, land use, and environmental and economic implications of biofuel policies using both model based and empirical analytical tools.

Esther S. Parish (PhD Energy Science & Engineering, University of Tennessee Knoxville) is a geographer and landscape ecologist researching the sustainability of renewable energy resources (specifically bioenergy and hydropower) as well as potential climate change impacts and adaptation.

Bob Perlack (Ph.D., Resource Economics, University of Massachusetts) provides resource analysis and energy systems expertise and leads activities related to the estimation of cropland and forestland biomass supplies. (Retired)

Nathan Pollesch (Ph.D. candidate, mathematics, University of Tennessee Knoxville) is exploring how aggregation theory can be applied to measures of progress toward sustainability.

‘Mac’ Post (Ph.D., Ecology, University of Tennessee Knoxville) is a Science Team Leader of the Ecosystem Simulation Science Team focusing on the role of terrestrial ecosystems in the global carbon cycle and cli impacts of climate change and the role of adaptation in reducing climate risk. (Retired)

John Schwartz (Ph.D. Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana) has experience in watershed hydrology with a focus of measuring and modeling sediment erosion, and river mechanics related to sediment transport; in addition to quantifying biotic effects of stream sedimentation. Currently at the University of Tennessee.

Peter E. Schweizer (Ph.D. Biological Sciences, Ohio University) is a landscape ecologist with research experience in terrestrial-aquatic linkages at the watershed scale, and in development of biodiversity models for energy crop landscape scenarios.

Nagendra Singh (MS,Geoscience, Idaho State University) works on assessing and estimating land use land cover changes at various scales using geospatial techniques.

Shahab Sokhansanj (Ph.D., Agricultural Engineering, Michigan State University) conducts R&D on preprocess and storage of biomass and on developing related modeling tools for efficient feedstock integration with biorefining operations.

Neil Thomas (Ph.D. Industrial Psychology, University of Tennessee) has experience in developing optimization and geospatial web-based applications for modeling and analysis in a variety of domains including bioenergy.

Anthony F. Turhollow, Jr. (Ph.D, Agricultural Economics, Iowa State University) has expertise in estimating biomass crop production costs, biomass logistics, and energy use and greenhouse gas emissions from crops, and biomass resource assessment.

Gangsheng Wang (Ph.D, Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Washington State University) is an Agricultural Engineer who will conduct research on GHG emissions associated with agricultural land use and land use change.

Erin Webb (Ph.D., Agricultural and Biological Engineering, University of Florida) is an Agricultural Engineer providing engineering systems modeling expertise to analysis of bioenergy feedstock supply systems.

Lynn Wright (M.S. Zoology/Ecology, Ohio State University) is an ecologist with experience in managing and analyzing research on the development of fast-growing woody and herbaceous crops for bioenergy and bioproducts. (Retired)