Energy Club: Summer 2018 Newsletter

Summer 2018 Newsletter

Kate, Nidhi, Alex, Connor, Tushar, and Eshang are excited to be your Energy Club Co-Chairs for the upcoming year!  We would like to thank our outgoing co-chairs (Nathan Giebel, Abbe Friedman, Matt Smiddy, and Tony Song) for their leadership over the past year. To the right: get to know us!

Please see below for:

• A quick overview of summer events at Booth and around Chicago;
• A glimpse at your classmates' answers to "What is an energy job?" 
• A sneak peek at other events and information sources that are great to follow.

Upcoming Summer Events:

What Is An Energy Job?

Benjamin Gaddy 

Job: Chief Technology Officer and Director of Investments at Clean Energy Trust, a 501(c)(3) non-profit that invests in seed-stage cleantech startups. Ben leads the due diligence process for making new investments and helps portfolio companies bring their technology to market. He also works with established corporations to source new clean energy technology from startups, universities, and national labs.

Background: PhD Materials Sciene, AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellowship in the Clean Energy Manufacturing Initiative (DOE), U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Ask him about his involvement in the Krispy Kreme Challenge!

1. Years in the Energy Industry:
2.5 years as an investor, 1 year in government, 4 years in academic research on advanced energy materials

2. What do you like most about the industry? 
There's never been a more exciting time to be in the energy industry. The combination of the rapid adoption of wind and solar--including big purchases by Fortune 500 companies, the increasing adoption of electric vehicles, and fantastic new breakthroughs in everything from carbon capture, next-generation nuclear power, and better energy storage coming out of the national labs and universities.

3. What's a fun fact about your work or the energy space in general?
At CET we coined the phrase "501vc" to describe the work we do. As a non-profit, we can take slightly more risk and invest for longer time horizons than a typical VC fund. Building and scaling new energy companies simply takes longer than building a new social app. Our model lets us parter with founders at the earliest stages and help them when they need it most.

Qingdi Huang

Job: Project Manager at Schlumberger, the world's leading provider of technology for reservoir characterization, drilling, production, and processing to the oil and gas industry.

Background: Born and raised in China, B.S. and M.S. in electrical engineering at Cornell. She moved to Houston in the blazing summer to join Schlumberger as first an electrical engineer and now as a project manager. Ask her about travels to Banff!

1. Years in the Energy Industry:
6 years

2. What do you like most about the industry? 
The people who I work with. People in oil and gas come from all over the world and make up a diverse, driven and innovative crowd. I thoroughly enjoy my experience working with and learning from everyone.

3. What's a fun fact about your work or the energy space in general?
The oil & gas industry has some of the most advanced technology and has heavy investment in machine learning and big data. Oil has also been used by people for over 5,000 years, once used as a medicine for treating ailments such as gout and frostbite. In addition to that, crude oil was first pumped from the ground in Sichuan, China 2,500 years ago!

Vishal Mahulkar 

Job: Currently leading a group of researchers at Iowa State University in developing an autonomous driving platform and working on developing a go-to-market strategy for a start-up in the Intelligent Transportation Systems domain.

Background: Mechanical Engineering, IIT Bombay, served as Research Associate at École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland, before coming to the US to pursue a PhD at Purdue University. Worked at Eaton Corp., a diversified manufacturing firm, in their Corporate Research and Technology group, with a focus on developing innovative products using advanced technology and working with a wide range of industries, from aerospace to automotive to off-highway construction equipment, renewable energy and electrical power distribution. Managed a team of engineers at TMT International Observatory, a non-profit company dedicated to building the world’s largest optical telescope.

1. Years in the Energy Industry:
8 total, mainly in developing technologies to improve energy efficiency/productivity of systems so as to enable completion of same task with less energy and/or faster. Transportation and Industrial account for the majority of energy consumption in US. Any improvement in efficiency of operating machines, vehicles, traffic flow directly impacts the entire energy industry.

2. What do you like most about the industry? 
Manufacturing is by far the most important sector in the US economy with a gross output of $5.9 trillion in 2013 - about 1/3rd of US GDP and 1/5 of total employmet (directly and indirectly). What I like most is that manufacturing is always at the cutting edge of viable technology and there is an opportunity to make a real impact. Midwestern states dominate the manufacturing industry and the culture in most companies is very collaborative and easy going.

3. What's a fun fact about your work or the energy space in general?Manufacturing is leading the way in making use of renewable energy - more than transportation, residential, or commercial sectors. Each dollar spent in manufacturing brings another $1.81 to the U.S. economy.
 

Follow: 

• The Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC)
• Young Professionals in Energy (YPE)
• Midwest Energy News
• Coalition: Energy
• The Washington Post's Energy 202
• Utility Dive newsletter

News!

• Energy News Network: How can we ensure that energy innovation, like smart meters in energy management, doesn't contribute to rising inequality? 
• Wall Street Journal: Changes are a'rolling in the transportation unit at GE!

Upcoming Plans: