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

Shannon Stahl

stahl@chem.wisc.edu

Investigator

Professor of Chemistry, Steenbock Professor of Chemical Sciences
College of Letters & Sciences

  • Catalysis (homogeneous, heterogeneous, and electrochemical)
  • Fuel cells and flow batteries
  • Hydrocarbon and biomass conversion and upgrading
  • Selective oxidation
  • Electrochemical energy storage and conversion
  • Green chemistry

Andrea Strzelec

strzelec@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Program Director, Masters of Engineering in Engine Systems, Polymer Engineering, and Power Engineering
College of Engineering

  • Heterogeneous reaction kinetics and characterization
  • Automotive emissions aftertreatment
  • Low temperature catalysis
  • Particulate filtration
  • Pyrolysis
  • Remediation of hydrocarbon contamination

Garret Suen

gsuen@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Associate Professor of Bacteriology
College of Agricultural & Life Sciences

  • Herbivore-associated Microbial Ecology
  • Rumen Microbiology
  • Metagenomics
  • Biofuels

Izabela Szlufarska

szlufarska@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Harvey D. Spangler Professor of Engineering
College of Engineering

  • Computational materials science
  • Mechanical behavior at the nanoscale
  • Defect behavior in semiconductors and insulators under irradiation
  • Solid/liquid interfaces
  • Nucleation and kinetics of medium range order in bulk metallic glasses

Steph Tai

tai2@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Professor of Law
University of Wisconsin Law School

  • Judicial decision-making about environmental and energy regulation
  • Development of private systems for environmental governance

Michael G. Thomas

michael.thomas@wisc.edu

Affiliate

Professor of Bacteriology, Alfred Toepfer Faculty Fellow
College of Agricultural & Life Sciences

  • Antibiotic discovery and development
  • Metabolic engineering

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

Mario F. Trujillo

mtrujillo@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering
College of Engineering

  • Liquid sprays in a crossflow
  • Liquid breakup and particle advection dynamics
  • Multiple droplet impingement heat transfer
  • Two-phase flow heat transfer numerics
  • Computational characterization of plunging of liquid jets on a quiescent pool
  • Interface capturing methods 

Victor Ujor

ujor@wisc.edu

Affiliate

Assistant Professor of Food Science
College of Agricultural & Life Sciences

  • Renewable fuels and chemicals
  • Metabolic engineering/synthetic biology
  • Bio-based waste-to-energy technologies
  • Bioprocess design

Reid Van Lehn

vanlehn@wisc.edu

Affiliate

Hunt-Hougen Associate Professor
College of Engineering

  • Molecular simulation
  • Machine learning
  • Solvent effects
  • Nano-bio interactions
  • Engineering nanomaterials and soft materials
  • Multiscale modeling

Giri Venkataramanan

giri@engr.wisc.edu

Investigator

Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
College of Engineering

  • Applications of power electronics in building lighting, climate conditioning, industrial motor control, electric generation, transmission and distribution and transportation systems
  • Renewable power generation systems such as wind power, solar power and geothermal power
  • Operation and control of microgrids and smart grids in distributed generation, energy storage, combined heat and power, electric, hybrid electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicle

Ophelia Venturelli

venturelli@wisc.edu

Affiliate

Assistant Professor of Biochemistry, Bacteriology, and Chemical and Biological Engineering
College of Agricultural & Life Sciences

  • Microbe-microbe interactions
  • Microbial engineering
  • Microbial metabolism

Daniel J. Vimont

dvimont@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences
College of Letters & Sciences

  • Climate science
  • Climate variations
  • Climate change impacts in Wisconsin

Michael J. Wagner

mike.wagner@wisc.edu

Investigator

Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering
College of Engineering

  • Coupled energy systems modeling and simulation
  • Renewable electricity generation technology performance characterization and software tool development
  • Energy storage dispatch optimization 
  • High-temperature power generation technology design
  • Concentrating optics

Xudong Wang

xudong@engr.wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Professor of Materials Science and Engineering
College of Engineering

  • Oxide nanomaterials growth and characterization
  • Piezoelectric nanostructures and nanodevices for mechanical energy harvesting
  • Semiconductor nanomaterials and devices for solar energy harvesting and energy storage
  • Nanoscale piezoelectric effect and piezotronics
  • Piezocatalysis and interface between piezoelectricity and electrochemistry

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

David L. Weimer

weimer@lafollette.wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Edwin E. Witte Professor of Political Economy, Political Science, and Public Affairs
College of Letters & Sciences

  • Energy Policy
  • Strategic Petroleum Reserves
  • Cost-Benefit Analysis

Thea Whitman

twhitman@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Associate Professor of Soil Science
College of Agricultural & Life Sciences

  • Soil biogeochemistry
  • Microbial ecology
  • Global environmental change
  • Soil organic carbon
  • Climate change

Scott Williams

spwilliams@wisc.edu

Investigator

Research and Education Coordinator
Wisconsin Energy Institute

  • Collegiate energy education
  • Energy career opportunities
  • Energy policy and regulation
  • Wind energy training

Paul P.H. Wilson

paul.wilson@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Grainger Professor of Nuclear Engineering and Chair of Nuclear Engineering & Engineering Physics
College of Engineering

  • Monte Carlo methods
  • Nuclear fuel cycles
  • Energy policy
  • Proliferation analysis
  • Transmutation/depletion/activation

John C. Wright

wright@chem.wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Andreas C. Albrecht Professor of Chemistry
College of Letters & Sciences

  • Analysis of nanomaterials using imaging and photoluminescence
  • Analysis of ultrafast quantum dot dynamics
  • Femtosecond and picosecond laser systems
  • Spectroelectrochemistry
  • Spectroscopy of biologically relevant metal centers

Elizabeth Wright

erwright2@wisc.edu

Affiliate

Henry Lardy Professor of Biochemistry and Morgridge Institute for Research
College of Letters & Sciences

  • Cryo-EM
  • Development of antimicrobials, therapeutics, and vaccines
  • Advanced light and electron microscopy imaging

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

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

Martin Zanni

zanni@chem.wisc.edu

Energy Expert

V. W. Meloche-Bascom Professor of Chemistry
College of Letters & Sciences

  • Two-dimensional infrared (2D-IR) spectroscopy
  • Two-dimensional white-light (2D-WL) spectroscopy and microscopy
  • Two-dimensional sum-frequency generation (2D-SFG) spectroscopy
  • Amyloid formation
  • Ion channels and membrane proteins
  • Energy transfer of solar cell materials
  • Aggregation of crystallin proteins
  • Wide-field femtosecond infrared imaging

Victor M. Zavala

victor.zavala@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Baldovin-DaPra Professor of Chemical & Biological Engineering
College of Engineering

  • Computational optimization and statistics
  • High-performance computing
  • Energy systems
  • Agricultural systems
  • Materials

Zhou Zhang

zzhang347@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Assistant Professor of Biological Systems Engineering
College of Agricultural & Life Sciences

  • ​Crop growth monitoring and yield prediction
  • High-throughput image based plant phenotyping
  • Hyperspectral/multispectral imagery, RGB imagery and LiDAR
  • Machine learning for high dimensional data analysis
  • Multi-source remote sensing data fusion
  • Sustainable agriculture
  • UAV-based imaging platform developments for precision agriculture

Yaoping Zhang

yaoping.zhang@wisc.edu

Energy Expert

Senior Scientist
Wisconsin Energy Institute

  • Feedstock pretreatment and enzymatic hydrolysate production
  • Microbial performance in hydrolysates produced from various feedstocks
  • Engineering microbes for biofuel production
  • Multiomic fermentation
  • Conversion residue valorization