Assistant Professor, Energy Resources Engineering and Center Fellow, By Courtesy

Precourt Institute for Energy

Dr. Brandt holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in energy and resources from the University of California, Berkeley. He is interested in reducing the environmental impacts of energy systems and, more specifically, in understanding, measuring, and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from fossil energy sources. His research uses the tools of life cycle assessment (LCA) and process optimization to measure and estimate impacts from technologies at broad scales (LCA) and to help reduce these impacts (optimization). More specifically, his research focuses on the environmental impacts of oil shale and other substitutes for conventional petroleum; mathematical modeling of petroleum depletion and the transition to oil substitutes; and capture and storage systems. He serves on the Science Advisory Panel, Methane Reconciliation Project, National Renewable Energy Laboratory and was a technical steering committee member for an Independent Review of Well Stimulation by the California Council on Science and Technology. Dr. Brandt earned a B.S. in environmental studies with an emphasis on physics from UC Santa Barbara.

Dr. Brandt is an Ex Officio Steering Committee member due to his role as the lead author for the report. Serving as an ex officio member ensures regular interaction with the rest of the Steering Committee and improves the quality of the final report.

Managing Partner

etaPartners LLC

Charles Benson is the Managing Partner of etaPartners LLC. He has 35 years of experience in the development, design, and optimization of energy systems. His work has focused on applications in the industrial, power generation, commercial, and residential sectors. These include industrial furnaces, boilers, gas turbines, and appliances. Of note is his work on low- NO x burner technologies and on the utilization of new fuels. He has worked with natural gas producers, pipeline companies, and local distribution companies to address interchangeability issues associated with the distribution of shale gas, coal bed methane, liquefied natural gas, propane-air peak shaving gas, and bio-derived gas. Prior positions that he has held include engineering roles at Pratt & Whitney and Exxon Research & Engineering Co., Vice President at Arthur D. Little Inc., Energy & Transportation Technology Sector Leader at TIAX LLC, and Principal at ENVIRON International Corp. Mr. Benson is an officer of the American Flame Research Committee. He also serves on the Executive Committee and Council of the International Flame Research Foundation.

William E. Leonhard Professor in Engineering

Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, University of Southern California

Professor Egolfopoulos is the founder of the Combustion and Fuels Research Laboratory at the University of Southern California. He has been actively involved in research for more than 25 years on the fundamentals that control a variety of phenomena encountered in high- temperature, high-activation energy reacting flows. Examples of such phenomena include physical and chemical processes in flames, high-speed air-breathing propulsion, turbulent combustion, plasma-assisted combustion, conventional and alternative fuels, and mechanisms of combustion-generated oxides of nitrogen, to name a few. Dr. Egolfopoulos is the Editor in Chief of Combustion and Flame since 2009 and a member of the Editorial Board of Progress in Energy and Combustion Science. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Fellow, an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), and an elected member of to the Board of Directors of the Combustion Institute. He received his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Davis, his master's degree in mechanical engineering from San Jose State University, and his Diploma degree in mechanical engineering from National Technical University of Athens, Greece.

Senior Fellow

Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and the Precourt Institute for Energy

Dr. Kolstad is an energy and environmental economist with a research focus on regulation. Much of his applied work is in the area of climate change and energy markets. He has been a Convening Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize), is a founding Co-Editor of the Oxford University Press journal Review of Environmental Economics & Policy and has served on many advisory boards. He is currently a Council Member for the California Council on Science and Technology (CCST) and a former president of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (AERE). At Stanford, in addition to his affiliation with the Department of Economics, Dr. Kolstad holds senior fellow appointments in the Precourt Institute for Energy (PIE), the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) and the Woods Institute for the Environment. Prior to joining Stanford in 2012, Dr. Kolstad was on the faculty of the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he was a Bren Distinguished Professor of Environmental Economics, Chair of the Department of Economics and co-director of the system-wide University of California Center for Energy and Environmental Economics (UCE3). Dr. Kolstad holds a Ph.D. in engineering-economic systems and economics from Stanford University, a M.A. in mathematics from the University of Rochester, and a B.S. in mathematics from Bates College in Maine.

President

REEthink

Diane Saber, Ph.D., is a nationally recognized expert in the area of production and characterization of biomethane, having conducted the largest collaborative research projects in this area to date. In 2008, the industry-funded (22 natural gas companies world-wide) report, Pipeline Quality Biomethane: North American Guidance Document for Dairy Waste Conversion was produced; this served as a template for the further study funded by DOT/PHMSA, Pipeline Quality Biogas: Guidance Document for Dairy Waste, Wastewater Treatment Sludge and Landfill Conversion (2009). Dr. Saber also served as contributor and sole non-utility author of the Canadian Gas Association's Report, Biomethane Guidelines for the Introduction of Biomethane into Existing Natural Gas Distribution & Transmission Systems (2011). These reports serve as seminal works in the development of pipeline quality biomethane in North America, with particular insights into trace constituents in biogas/biomethane and natural gas, including biologicals. She was also responsible for the creation and management of a wide variety of projects associated with biomethane, including analytical techniques, database construction and company-specific specifications. She was previously a Director at the Gas Technology Institute in Des Plaines, IL, responsible for a multi-million dollar portfolio of projects and research specific to the Natural Gas industry in the areas of renewable natural gas, environmental science and forensic chemistry. Dr. Saber holds a Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Minnesota.

Principal Member of Technical Staff

Sandia National Laboratories

Dr. Westbrook is a Principal Member of Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories. She is a Council Member for the California Council on Science and Technology (CCST) and was a CCST Science and Technology Policy Fellow, placed as a consultant on the State Assembly Natural Resources Committee. While working for the Committee, she published numerous Senate and Assembly bill analyses relating to advanced energy storage, California Air Resources Board member qualifications, electricity, air pollution, and the economic impacts of climate change, to name a few. Dr. Westbrook earned a Ph.D. from the Department of Horticulture at Cornell University and received her B.S. in plant biology from the University of California, Davis.