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

Tyler Lark

lark@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Scientist
Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies

Robert Landick

landick@bact.wisc.edu

Investigator

Dr. Laurens Anderson Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry, Faculty Affiliate for Bacteriology
College of Agricultural & Life Sciences

  • Regulation of transcript elongation in bacteria and humans
  • Genetic analysis of RNA polymerase
  • RNA polymerase structure and function
  • Regulation of Bacterial RNAP
  • Transcriptional Regulation in vivo

Kumar Sridharan

kumar@engr.wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Grainger Professor of Nuclear Engineering & Engineering Physics
College of Engineering

  • Nuclear reactor materials research and development
  • Emerging and commercial surface engineering technologies
  • Conventional and advanced materials characterization and analysis techniques
  • Materials applications, challenges, and solutions for a broad spectrum of industrial applications

Chris Kucharik

kucharik@wisc.edu

Investigator

Professor of Plant and Agroecosystem Sciences
College of Agricultural & Life Sciences, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies

  • Sustainable Biofuels
  • Agroecosystem modeling
  • Sustainable agriculture
  • Terrestrial carbon sequestration
  • Urban heat islands

Kyoung-Shin Choi

kschoi@chem.wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Professor of Chemistry
College of Letters & Sciences

  • Synthesis of semiconductor electrodes for solar energy conversion
  • Catalyst development for solar fuel production
  • Electrochemical and photo-electrochemical biomass conversion
  • Development of materials for electrochemical water desalination

Siddarth Krishna

krishna3@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Assistant Professor of Chemical & Biological Engineering
College of Engineering

  • Renewable fuels and chemicals
  • Metabolic engineering/synthetic biology
  • Sustainable catalytic technologies
  • Kinetics and mechanisms

Sage Kokjohn

kokjohn@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering
College of Engineering

  • High efficiency energy conversion
  • Thermodynamics and fluid mechanics
  • Turbulent combustion modelling

Kevin Myers

kmyers2@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Assistant Scientist
Wisconsin Energy Institute

  • RNA-seq, ChIP-seq, Tn-seq, TSS-seq data
  • Metagenomic and metatranscriptomic data
  • Bioinformatics
  • Development of computational pipelines and tools

Kaiping Chen

kchen67@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Assistant Professor of Life Sciences Communication
College of Agricultural & Life Sciences

  • Civic engagement in sustainability policymaking
  • Climate justice
  • Computational social science
  • Discourse on controversial and emerging technologies
  • Science communication

Eric Kazyak

kazyak@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Wisconsin Energy Institute

  • Beyond Lithium Batteries
  • Advanced Characterization and Imaging of Batteries
  • Electrolysis and Catalysis
  • Solid-state Batteries
  • Metal Electrodes
  • Interfacial Coatings
  • Battery Safety and Abuse

John Nelson

jsnelson4@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Adjunct Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering
College of Engineering

  • Production, conversion, and consumption of energy and fuels
  • Lean facility delivery
  • Sustainable system analysis & deployment
  • Organizational value clarity

Joel Rogers

jrogers@cows.org

Energy Expert

Sewell-Bascom Professor of Law, Political Science, Public Affairs, and Sociology
University of Wisconsin Law School

  • Public policy
  • Administrative law
  • Cities and development

Jim Luedtke

jrluedt1@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Harvey D. Spangler Faculty Scholar of Industrial and Systems Engineering
College of Engineering

  • Stochastic optimization, especially optimization with risk constraints
  • Mixed integer optimization, linear and nonlinear
  • Applications of optimization

John Ralph

jralph@wisc.edu

Investigator

Professor of Biochemistry, Faculty Affiliate for Biological Systems Engineering
College of Agricultural & Life Sciences

  • Lignin biosynthesis, structure, chemistry, and reactions
  • Lignocellulosics bioprocessing
  • Development of synthetic methods for biosynthetic products
  • Solution-state NMR

Josh Arnold

josh.arnold@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Campus Energy Advisor
Office of Sustainability

  • Energy analysis and policy
  • Energy conservation
  • Energy efficiency
  • Renewable energy projects
  • Stakeholder engagement and market development

James Tinjum

jmtinjum@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
College of Engineering

  • Environmental geotechnics including waste containment systems
  • Energy geotechnics including heat transfer in geothermal systems and buried power cables
  • Thermal and transportation geotechnics
  • Characterization of geosynthetic materials
  • Containment, stabilization, and remediation of contaminated waste
  • Beneficial reuse of industrial byproducts
  • Siting and environmental constraints with offshore wind

Jason Kawasaki

jkawasaki@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Harvey D. Spangler Assistant Professor of Materials Science & Engineering
College of Engineering

  • Heteroepitaxy of Heusler and intermetallic thin films
  • Thermoelectrics
  • Topological insulators
  • Engineering electronic and magnetic properties via strain and quantum confinement
  • Molecular beam epitaxy
  • Scanning tunneling microscopy
  • Photoemission spectroscopy

Song Jin

jin@chem.wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Professor of Chemistry
College of Letters & Sciences

  • Solar energy conversion 
  • Energy storage
  • Nanomaterials
  • Renewable Energy applications

John Booske

jhbooske@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Duane H. and Dorothy M. Bluemke & Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering
College of Engineering

  • Plasmas, metamaterials, metasurfaces and media that have a strong interaction with electromagnetic radiation
  • Electromagnetic field effects
  • Microwave vacuum electronics
  • Innovative teaching and learning methods and instructional space design

Jean-Michel Ané

jeanmichel.ane@wisc.edu

Affiliate

Kellet Professor of Bacteriology & Plant and Agroecosystem Sciences
College of Agricultural & Life Sciences

  • Plant–microbe symbioses
  • Signaling pathways
  • Plant symbiotic genes
  • Techniques to characterize the metabolome, proteome and phosphoproteome
  • Development of tools for metabolite and peptide imaging in plant cells 

James Dumesic

jdumesic@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Ernest Micek Distinguished Chair and Michel Boudart Professor of Chemical & Biological Engineering
College of Engineering

  • Kinetics and catalysis
  • Surface and solid-state chemistry
  • In situ catalyst studies

Joshua Coon

jcoon@chem.wisc.edu

Affiliate

Professor of Biomolecular Chemistry & Chemistry
College of Letters & Sciences

  • Chemical instrumentation including ETD, dissociation, ion/ion reactions. PRM, and theory
  • Informatics including molecular identification, quantitation, and data visualization
  • Proteomic and metabolomic technologies

Jason Peters

jason.peters@wisc.edu

Affiliate

Assistant Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences
School of Pharmacy

  • CRISPR technology in bacteria
  • CRISPR interference (CRISPRi)

James LaGro

jalagro@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Professor of Planning & Landscape Architecture
College of Letters & Sciences

  • Sustainable cities
  • Water resources
  • Infrastructure siting
  • Land use and landscape ecology
  • Green infrastructure

Tom Jahns

jahns@engr.wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Grainger Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering
College of Engineering

  • Power electronics
  • Microgrids
  • Electric machines and actuators
  • Adjustable-speed drives
  • Brushless motor drives and generators
  • Automotive and aerospace electric systems

Jennifer Franck

jafranck@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Affiliate Appointment in Nuclear Engineering and Engineering Physics & Civil and Environmental Engineering
College of Engineering

  • Computational fluid dynamics
  • Unsteady fluid mechanics
  • Turbulent flows
  • Wind and tidal energy
  • Aerodynamics
  • Flow control
  • Propulsion
  • Fluid-structure interaction

Jaal Ghandhi

jaal.ghandhi@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

John Bollinger Chair of Mechanical Engineering & Grainger Professor of Sustainable Energy
College of Engineering

  • Combustion and fluid mechanics or internal combustion engines 
  • Laser-based diagnostics

Ian Coxhead

ian.coxhead@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Professor and Department Chair of Agriculture & Applied Economics
College of Agricultural & Life Sciences

  • Economics of development
  • Effects of globalization and global market shocks on production, employment, wages and household income, and welfare
  • Impacts and incidence of domestic policies on growth, trade and environment
  • Economies of East and Southeast Asia

Hoon Kim

hoonkim@wisc.edu

Affiliate

Research Chemist at USDA Forest Products Laboratory

  • Lignin/plant cell wall chemistry
  • Lignin models/natural compounds synthesis
  • Artificial lignin (dehydrogenation polymer or DHP) synthesis
  • Plant cell wall structural analysis
  • Solution-state 2D NMR
  • Plant cell wall polymerization and lignification

Hongrui Jiang

hongrui@engr.wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering
College of Engineering

  • MicroElectroMechanical System
  • Microsensors and microactuators
  • BioMEMS and micro-optics
  • Microfluidics
  • Lab on chips
  • Biomimetics and bioinspiration