Siva Gunda is a PhD student majoring in Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering with a focus on alternative energy systems.  His research is on the effect of sound and vibration on the transfer of gases through a porous medium, with applications towards enhancing the performance of PEM fuel cells in the area of transportation.  Siva’s projects for the EEC include researching and writing a paper about fuel efficiency standards for cars, research on condensate evaporation and a cooling device for rooftop units (WicKool), developing a commercial demand response system (CEDR), exploring the use of radio controlled power plugs to help reduce standby power consumption and road surface resistance and tire pressure. WicKool and CEDR were finalists in the UC Davis Big Bang! Business Plan Competition and CEDR was selected to move on to compete in the Draper Fisher Jurvetson Venture Challenge in 2008.  In 2007-08, Siva was an Edison International Energy Efficiency Fellow as well as a UC Davis Graduate School of Management Business Development Fellow.  In the summer of 2008, he worked at PG&E as an intern in emerging technologies.  This summer he worked with the Program for International Energy Technologies "Lighting the Way" team building a business in small-scale solar/LED technology for developing countries, including Zambia.  For more information about Siva and his work, please click here.

Tracy Hsieh is a returning EVA and fourth-year undergraduate majoring in Environmentally Sustainable Business Development with a minor in Environmental Policy Analysis and Planning and German from the University of California, Davis.  She is a recipient of the 2005-6 Congress-Bundestag Scholarship and has studied energy efficient technology/policy in Aachen, Germany. Currently, she is focusing on measuring campus computer energy usage funded under the 2008-9 Sustainability Grant Award and the EEC.  She is the 2008-9 Sustainability Intern for Student Housing as well as the EVA program.  She spent the summer of 2008 studying in Taiwan and eventually hopes to work on marketing energy efficient technology in Asia.  For more information about Tracy and her work, please click here.

Jane Kruse is a second-year MBA candidate at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management.  In her first year of business school, she served as Co-President of Net Impact, Board Member for Club RE+D (Real Estate + Development) and Director of Social Activities for the Associated Students of Management.  In her second year, she joined the Energy Efficiency Center as an Emerging Venture Analyst.  At UC Davis, she’s conducted research on fuel cell applications for a large commercial retailer, participated in the Little Bang Poster contest for an energy efficiency social media network concept, and volunteered on the West Village Project.  During her MBA Summer Internship she worked for Livingston Energy Innovations, an energy efficiency consultancy focusing on demand-side management solutions.  Prior to business school, her professional experience included marketing for the architecture, engineering and construction industries as well as public outreach and education for large infrastructure projects in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Jane graduated from Georgetown University with a degree in Art History. For more information about Jane and her work, please click here.

Elisabetta Lambertini is a returning EVA.  Last year, in addition to being an EVA, she was an Edison International Energy Efficiency Fellow and a Business Development Fellow with the Graduate School of Management.  Elisabetta is a PhD student in Civil and Environmental Engineering.  Before coming to UC Davis, she earned a Laurea (integrated BS and MS) in Environmental Engineering from the University of Bologna, Italy, with a thesis on contaminated land remediation. Her interests are in the relationship between water quality and human/ecosystem health, as well as low-impact water and waste management solutions in developing and developed countries.  As part of her main PhD project, she is investigating the health risks associated with virus contamination of drinking water in rural U.S. communities.  While studying water systems, she also became interested in sustainable technology and development issues, and in the ties between water management and societal support systems such as energy and food production.  As part of her training as an EVA, she aims to gain a better understanding of how individual perceptions and community decisions affect the adoption of appropriate/green technology and behaviors, and how such technology can be customized and marketed to fit different cultures and technology levels.  As EVA, she entered and won the UC Davis Little Bang poster contest as well as the UC Davis Big Bang! Business Plan Competition.  Elisabetta is working on LED-UV disinfection, small-scale biogas production in Guatemala, and the ecological effects of hydroelectric power generation.  She attended the UC Davis' Green Technology Entrepreneurship Academy in the summer of 2009.  For more information about Elisabetta and her work, please click here.

Wayne Leighty joined the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Davis in 2006 as a lifelong technological optimist and tinkerer.  He built his first alternative-fuel vehicle at age 14, a battery-electric Honda CRX, and has since converted two diesels to waste-cooking-oil fuel.  Wayne has published research on carbon stock and flux in temperate rain forests, advanced internal combustion engine vehicle technology, consumer perceptions of automobile energy use, and dynamic modeling of optimal oil production under various tax structures.  His current research projects include modeling of transition dynamics in vehicle fleets, plug-in hybrid electric vehicle buy down costs, wind turbine replacement decisions, short term energy conservation in emergencies, and opportunities for information to motivate sustained driving behavior change.  Having accumulated degrees in environmental science (B.S.) and economics (B.A.) from Brown University and degrees in transportation technology and policy (M.S.) and resource economics (M.S.) from UC Davis, Wayne is now working on an MBA and a PhD in Transportation Technology and Policy.  While at Davis, Wayne has been a Graduate Automotive Technology Education (GATE) Fellow for two years, is the 2008-09 Chevron Graduate Fellow in transportation, and is a Dean’s Fellow at the Graduate School of Management.  Wayne has worked as an environmental economics consultant, wilderness guide, general manager, and legislative chief of staff.  For more information about Wayne and his work, please click here.

Zach McCaffrey is a Research Engineer for the UC Davis Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle and Energy Efficiency Center.  He graduated from UC Davis in 2006 with a Master's degree in Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering.  Zach's current projects include: integration of thermal storage refrigeration into a diesel/wind hybrid energy generation plant in the Galapagos Islands, modification of a spark-ignition engine to operate on hydrogen enriched land-fill gas for low NOx emissions, low-cost modular lighting system to replace or supplement kerosene in sub-Saharan Africa, and developing engine modeling software for variable valve timing in advanced spark-ignition engines.  For more information about Zach and his work, please click here.

Bryan Pon spent most of the last decade freelancing for Silicon Valley internet companies.  When a short vacation turned into a two-year bus trip through Latin America, he knew he wanted to put his energy toward more socially positive outcomes at the international level.  As a first-year graduate student in the Community Development master's program at UC Davis, Bryan is especially interested in renewable energy and technology within the subsistence markets that define much of the developing world.  His strengths include project management, marketing, online applications/media, and user experience/information design. Bryan is currently working with the Program for International Energy Technologies (PIET) on solar-powered lighting in Zambia.  For more information about Bryan and his work, please click here.

Erdem Onur Savasir is a second-year MBA student at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management. He is the Director of Contest Management of the Big Bang!, a student-run Business Plan Competition at UC Davis. In his first year of MBA, he worked on a Community Consulting Project on IT energy efficiency. With a team of three, he estimated energy consumption of server rooms, and other IT equipment on campus, and analyzed the adoption barriers and financial implications of various efficiency solutions. During his summer internship, Erdem worked on UC Davis Climate Action Plan, creating a historical greenhouse gas inventory of UC Davis and developing emission forecasts in order to set emission targets and take emission reduction measures. Prior to business school, he worked in Moscow for two years in international trade of chemicals and minerals. He holds a B.Sc. in Materials Science and Engineering from Sabanci University, Istanbul. For more information about Erdem and his work, please click here.

Tai Stillwater is a PhD student in Transportation Technology and Policy and fourth-year Emerging Venture Analyst.  He is working as a Graduate Student Researcher under Ken Kurani at the Plug-in Hybrid Demonstration Project. His doctoral proposal is to study the impact of novel vehicle interfaces on driving behavior and fuel economy using the framework of the Theory of Planned Behavior. He was the 2007-8 CH2M Hill Fellow in transportation and received the 2007-8 Achievement Rewards for College Scientists Scholarship. Tai graduated from UC Berkeley with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering in 2001, and worked on composite parts for the ATLAS particle detector at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) from 2000-2003.  While at UC Berkeley, he participated in the Cal Human Powered Vehicle Team, winning the 00-01 racing season with a carbon fiber vehicle he helped design and manufacture, the "Bearacuda".  The team broke numerous world speed records, some of which still stand. Recently, the "Bearacuda" was officially accepted into the Davis Bicycle Museum and will be on display after restoration.  After leaving Berkeley, Tai spent a year traveling in developing countries and learning about the resource management problems that plague countries around the world. Back in the US, he spent a summer at the California Energy Commission before joining the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies.  He recently completed his Master's Thesis, which is an investigation of how land-use features impact the adoption of car-sharing.  Tai spent the Summer and Fall quarters of 2008 as an intern at Chevron Energy Solutions focusing on renewable energy design for communities.  As a part of that Internship, Tai organized the successful December 2008 West Village Contributor's Forum, bringing together the Developer, Architects, Energy providers, and Energy Efficiency Affiliate companies in order to generate a productive dialogue and set the stage for making the Village a low-energy or no-energy development.  For more information about Tai and his work, please click here.

Ujvalla Gupta is a second-year MBA student at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management.  She is Co-Director of Finance and Development for the Big Bang! Business Plan Competition and Co-President of the Marketing Association, a student-run club at the business school.  Also, she is the recipient of 2009 Abbaszadeh Fellowship awarded by the UC Davis Graduate School of Management.  She has been working part-time with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) since the spring of 2009.  One of her projects was assessment of cost-effectiveness of Low Income Energy Efficiency (LIEE) measures using the E3 calculator.  In parallel, she also worked on a ‘Lighting Market Transformation’ project directed at development of innovative solutions to accelerate the market penetration of lighting technologies such as CFLs and LEDs.  Her recommendations were presented before the senior management at the Division of Ratepayer Advocates (DRA) at the CPUC and will also be included in some of the petitions files by the DRA.  Before joining business school, Ujvalla was a senior business analyst in the oil and gas vertical for a consulting firm. Being an electrical engineer, she effectively applied her technical know-how to provide competitor benchmarking analysis and understand market potential of emerging technologies in oil/gas exploration for the client.  Since joining UC Davis, Ujvalla has worked with the EEC on diverse projects including creation of an innovation testing platform for forecasting adoption of new tools and programs and assessment of energy efficient measures on the basis of new California Title 20 and 24 codes and standards.  For more information about Ujvalla and her work, please click here.

Sam Wainer is a second year MBA student at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management and a returning Emerging Venture Analyst. Before business school Sam was a marketing consultant at Ipsos-Vantis, the market leader in new product and service sales forecasting. Sam has expertise in survey-based market research. His work with the Energy Efficiency Center focuses on developing standardized research approaches for utilities that reduce risk and enable decision making for new energy efficiency products and programs. Since joining the Energy Efficiency Center, Sam has worked on several technology commercialization initiatives, including developing go-to-market strategies for fuel cells and compact fluorescent lighting. Outside of school he spends as much time as possible in the outdoors. He is an avid skier, sailor and kiteboarder. Sam grew up in Cleveland, Ohio and has lived in Boston and New York City. He holds a BA in Sociology and Economics from Brandeis University. For more information about Sam, please click here.

Andre Zaffuto is a second-year MBA student and Dean scholar at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management. Since the beginning of 2009, Andre has worked for the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) as a graduate intern in support of the Business Planning and the Pricing organizations. In this function, Andre has developed and published a residential appliance saturation and usage study determining the effectiveness of energy efficiency programs and rebates on consumer behavior. Andre has also developed financial models dealing with the impact of energy rebates and large scale capital projects on the utility’s revenue. Andre’s to-date achievements include a first place win in the energy efficiency category of the UC Davis Little Bang poster competition with the Energy Vault, a thermal storage refrigeration solution. He has also assisted with the development of a lighting lifecycle cost calculator and a marketing feasibility study for a fuel cell manufacturer. Prior to attending UC Davis, Andre sharpened his financial modeling and project management skills in a variety of roles at leading financial services firms including J.P. Morgan Chase.  For more information about Andre and his work, please click here.