Sempra Energy "Distinguished Scholar in Energy Efficiency" announced
On December 2, 2008, UC Davis Provost-Designate and Dean, College of Engineering, Enrique Lavernia and Don Felsinger, Chairman and CEO, Sempra Energy, announced selection of Dr. Mark Modera as the first Sempra Energy Distinguished Scholar in Energy Efficiency which is funded by a generous endowment from Sempra Energy.
“The new Sempra Energy Endowment for Energy Efficiency at UC Davis provides a foundation for our energy efficiency programs, said Lavernia, “Dr. Modera, the first recipient of this honor, is a national leader in designing and commercializing innovative low-energy cooling systems. We are grateful to Sempra for anchoring such a critical and core component of our energy program.”
Modera is serving as the Director of the Western Cooling Efficiency Center (WCEC) in addition to being an adjunct professor in Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering.
Sempra Energy and its subsidiaries under Sempra Utilities are long time supporters of UC Davis’ energy efficiency programs. Designated as a founding Leadership Sponsor of the three-year old EEC, Sempra Energy’s Executive Vice President of Corporate Development, Ed Guiles, perviously served as the Sempra representative on the EEC Board of Advisors.
Over the previous 5 years, Sempra Utilities collaborated on multiple projects with the WCEC and California Lighting and Technology Center (CLTC), both affiliated technology centers of the UC Davis EEC. One project assessed whether lighting and cooling controls could be added as retrofits to hotel rooms. Sempra Energy, and others, helped WCEC organize a session on cooling technologies for the Emerging Technologies Coordinating Council Summit held in San Diego this past October.
More on Sempra Energy Distinguished Scholar in Energy Efficiency, Mark Modera, Ph.D.
Modera was recruited to UC Davis earlier this year to serve as the permanent director of the newly established WCEC. He is a highly regarded scientist with over 25 years of experience at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory where he developed a new research program focused on thermal energy distribution in buildings. He bridges a critical gap between academic research and commercial enterprise. He developed and then launched a start-up company around an aerosol-based duct sealing process, which was subsequently purchased by Carrier Corp. His publications cover a large range of research interests, including: diagnostic tools for heat and mass transfer properties (e.g., dynamic thermal performance of buildings and components, air tightness, soil permeability), air flow modeling and measurement, energy efficiency policy, simulation tools and simplified models for buildings, wood combustion (efficiency, pollution production, third-world cook stoves), aerosol production and transport, and indoor air quality. In addition to serving as Director of the WCEC, Modera currently holds an appointment as an adjunct professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering, where he taught a course on heat transfer this past spring. As a result of teaching that course, seven mechanical engineering students are now working at the WCEC.
The WCEC was launched in April 2007 with seed funding from the EEC. Under Modera’s leadership, the WCEC is advancing a variety of cooling efficiency technologies, has organized over twenty industry sponsors in an affiliate program, and launched the Western Cooling Challenge, an effort to work with industry HVAC manufacturers and large retail buyers to improve HVAC efficiency in the dry climate, western United States by 40%.