Energy Experts

From biofuels to batteries, UW–Madison has a wealth of expertise in energy. The researchers working in energy at UW–Madison are generating the knowledge and clean technologies that will accelerate a transition to sustainable, resilient, and affordable energy systems. This resource connects you to UW–Madison faculty conducting research in all areas of energy. If you are a UW–Madison faculty member working in energy and would like to be added to this list, please email communications@energy.wisc.edu

For specific media requests, please contact Mary Blanchard.

Name/Email Title/Department Research Interests

Audrey Gasch

agasch@wisc.edu

Affiliate

Professor of Genetics
College of Agricultural & Life Sciences

  • Elucidating the role, regulation, and evolution of eukaryotic stress responses
  • Computational systems and synthetic biology
  • Evolutionary and population genetics
  • Gene expression, genomics, and proteomics

Joy Altwies

altwies@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Faculty Associate/Program Director of Engineering Professional Development
College of Engineering

  • Green and High-Performance Buildings
  • Sustainable Construction
  • Building Commissioning, Commissioning Process
  • HVAC & R Systems
  • Technology Innovation and Adoption

Daniel Amador-Noguez

amadornoguez@wisc.edu

Affiliate

Associate Professor of Bacteriology
College of Agricultural & Life Sciences

  • Metabolomics and metabolic regulation in biofuel producing bacteria
  • Bacterial biofilms
  • Human gut microbiome

Richard Amasino

amasino@biochem.wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Professor of Biochemistry
College of Agricultural & Life Sciences

  • Plant genetics
  • Plant flowering
  • Vernalization 
  • Arabidopsis thaliana
  • Brachypodium distachyon

Ananth Krishnamurthy

ananth.krishnamurthy@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Professor of Industrial & Systems Engineering
College of Engineering

  • Production inventory systems
  • Assembly operations
  • Product variety and customization
  • Warehouse systems
  • Quick response manufacturing

Rob Anex

anex@wisc.edu

Investigator

Professor of Biological Systems Engineering
College of Agricultural & Life Sciences

  • Carbon Direct Removal and Decarbonization
  • Biological systems analysis and assessment
  • Life cycle assessment
  • Techno-economic analysis

Styliani Avraamidou

avraamidou@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Duane H. and Dorothy M. Bluemke Assistant Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering
College of Engineering

  • Circular economy systems engineering
  • Computational modeling and optimization
  • Energy infrastructure planning and operational scheduling
  • Energy systems engineering
  • Food-energy-water nexus

John F. Berry

berry@chem.wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Professor of Chemistry
College of Agricultural & Life Sciences

  • Coordination chemistry
  • Catalysis 
  • Electronic structure
  • Metal-metal bonding

Arganthael Berson

berson2@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Lecturer of Mechanical Engineering
College of Engineering

  • Multiphase flow and flow at interfaces
  • Flow boiling and condensation
  • Evaporation-driven self-assembly
  • Advanced flow diagnostic techniques (PIV, hot-wire anemometry, high-speed microscopy, thermoreflectance)
  • Energy systems  

Brian Fox

bgfox@biochem.wisc.edu

Affiliate

Chair, Department of Biochemistry, Marvin J. Johnson Professor in Fermentation Biochemistry
College of Agricultural & Life Sciences

  • Biochemical, catalytic, and spectroscopic studies of redox active enzymes
  • Protein engineering
  • The structure and reactivity of carbohydrate active enzymes

R. William Provencher

bill.provencher@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Professor of Agricultural & Applied Economics
College of Agricultural & Life Sciences

  • Environmental and resource economics
  • Demand-side management of energy
  • Valuation of ecosystem services
  • Socio-ecological interactions
  • Dynamic allocation of resources

Brian Pfleger

brian.pfleger@wisc.edu

Affiliate

Karen and William Monfre Professor of Chemical & Biological Engineering
College of Engineering

  • Metabolic engineering
  • Biotechnology
  • Synthetic biology
  • Natural products
  • Protein engineering
  • Cyanobacteria
  • Sustainability

Bu Wang

bu.wang@wisc.edu

Affiliate

Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
College of Engineering

  • Direct air capture and utiliization of CO2 using industrial alkaline wastes
  • Making cement green by low-temperature manufacturing of calcium hydroxide
  • Utilizing CO2 and industrial waste to produce precipitated calcium carbonate
  • Fundamental behaviors of glassy materials

Grace Bulltail

bulltail@wisc.edu

Investigator

Assistant Professor
Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies

  • water resource engineering
  • natural resource management
  • nexus of water, energy, and land use
  • environmental justice in Indigenous communities

Alan Carroll

carroll@geology.wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Professor of Geoscience
College of Letters & Sciences

  • Continental tectonics
  • Basin evolution
  • Ancient lakes
  • Petroleum geology
  • Paleoclimatology
  • China geology

Cary Forest

cbforest@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Professor of Physics
College of Letters & Sciences

  • Liquid metal dynamos and MHD turbulence
  • MHD instabilities in line-tied plasmas and their stabilization by moving metal walls
  • Heat, current transport, and non-inductive currents in tokamaks and RFPs
  • Flow-dominated plasmas

Chris Hegna

cchegna@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Harvey D. Spangler Professor of Nuclear Engineering & Engineering Physics
College of Engineering

  • Theoretical plasma physics
  • Fusion science
  • Magnetic confinement of plasmas
  • Magnetohydrodynamics

Claudio Gratton

cgratton@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Professor of Entomology
College of Agricultural & Life Sciences

  • Landscape ecology of arthropods
  • Sustainable management of bioenergy landscapes
  • Examining the ecological links between lakes and land

Chirag Gupta

cgupta9@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
College of Engineering, Wisconsin Energy Institute

  • Semiconductor devices (WBG and UWBG)
  • Group III-nitrides (GaN) and oxides (GaOx)
  • RF and power electronics: HEMTs and MOSFETs
  • Optoelectronics (LEDs, LASERs)
  • Lattice engineering
  • Quantum applications

Corbett Grainger

corbett.grainger@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Associate Professor of Agriculture & Applied Economics
College of Letters & Sciences

  • Environmental and natural resource economics
  • Distributional effects of environmental policies
  • Rights-based management
  • Air pollution
  • Economics of climate change
  • Electricity and economic development

Michael Corradini

corradini@engr.wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Wisconsin Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Nuclear Engineering & Engineering Physics, Former Director of the Wisconsin Energy Institute
College of Engineering

  • Multi-phase fluid mechanics and heat transfer
  • Fission and fusion reactors
  • Nuclear reactor safety
  • Severe accident phenomena
  • Power plant operation and design
  • Energy policy
  • Nuclear fuel cycle

Adrien Couet

couet@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Associate Chair for Undergraduate Studies, Associate Professor of Nuclear Engineering & Engineering Physics
College of Engineering

  • Nuclear Materials
  • Irradiation Damage
  • Corrosion of Metals and Alloys
  • Oxidation Model
  • Electrochemistry
  • Molten salt corrosion
  • Defect Transport in Oxides

Canan Sener

csener@wisc.edu

Investigator

Scientist
Wisconsin Energy Institute

  • Kinetics and catalysis 
  • Design and controlled synthesis of heterogeneous catalysts 
  • Process and reaction engineering 
  • Catalyst development for selective chemical transformation 

Carl Sovinec

csovinec@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Associate Chair for Graduate Studies in the Department of Nuclear Engineering & Engineering Physics
College of Engineering

  • Computational plasma physics
  • Magnetohydrodynamics
  • Numerical methods for partial differential equations

Chris Todd Hittinger

cthittinger@wisc.edu

Investigator

Professor of Genetics for the J.F. Crow Institute for the Study of Evolution
College of Agricultural & Life Sciences

  • Yeast genetics, biodiversity, and synthetic biology
  • Evolutionary genomics
  • Carbon metabolism
  • Brewing
  • Isobutanol
  • Fermentation

Cameron Currie

currie@bact.wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Ira L. Baldwin Professor of Bacteriology
College of Agricultural & Life Sciences

  • Symbiotic associations between animals and microbes
  • Symbiosis in fungus-growing ants
  • Microbe and microbial community deconstruction of plant biomass in nature
  • Identification, characterization, and systems biology analysis of cellulolytic microbes and microbial communities

Christopher Zahasky

czahasky@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Assistant Professor of Geoscience
College of Letters & Sciences

  • Contaminant hydrogeology - the study of how fluids and contaminants enter and travel through the subsurface
  • Carbon capture and storage - a technology for mitigating emissions from fossil fuel power plants and large industrial point sources
  • Conventional and unconventional energy resources - hydraulic fracturing processes for extracting shale gas and oil, geothermal energy production, and nuclear waste storage

Dan Klingenberg

dan.klingenberg@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering
College of Engineering

  • Colloid science
  • Suspension rheology
  • Electromagnetic phenomena in materials
  • multiphase flow
  • Experimental rheology of fiber suspensions
  • Simulation of Brownian electro- and magnetorheological suspensions
  • Simulation of fiber suspensions

Dan Anderson

danderson@bus.wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Professor Emeritus of Risk Management and Insurance
School of Business

  • Sustainability risks facing businesses and organizations
  • Sustainability risk management strategies

Daniel Wright

danielb.wright@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
College of Engineering

  • Satellite and ground-based rainfall remote sensing
  • Rainfall and flood processes at urban and regional scales
  • Computationally-intensive simulation for probabilistic natural hazards risk assessment
  • Statistical and stochastic hydrology
  • Modernization of stormwater and flood management theory and practice
  • Climate, weather, land use, and other impacts on floods and other hydrologic phenomena