Our People

• Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment
• California Center for Algae Biotechnology
• Center for Aerosol Impacts on Climate and the Environment
• Center for Energy Research
• Center for Networked Systems
• Food & Fuel for the 21st Century
• Institute of the Americas Energy Program
• Laboratory for Energy Storage and Conversion
• Laboratory on International Law and Regulation
• Project Surya
• Solar Integration Laboratory
• Solar Resource Assessment & Forecasting Laboratory
• Sustainable Power and Energy Center
• UC San Diego Strategic Energy Initiatives
• UCSD Center on Global Justice

Ahmed Y. Abdulla

Farhat Beg

Michael D. Burkart

Richard Carson

Carlos Coimbra

Michael Davidson

David P. Fenning

Mike Ferry

Fonna Forman

Teevrat Garg

Joshua Graff Zivin

Patricia L. Hidalgo-Gonzalez

Mark Jacobsen

Ralph Keeling

Jan Kleissl

Cliff Kubiak

James Lambright

Jeremy M. Martin

Stephen Mayfield

Ying Shirley Meng

George Papen

George Porter

Kimberly Prather

Veerabhadran Ramanathan

Eric Redman

Kate Ricke

Oleg Shpyrko

Byron Washom

Ray Weiss

David G. Victor

Ryan E. Hanna

Center for Energy Research

Ryan Hanna is an assistant research scientist in the Center for Energy Research. His research focuses include energy systems, deep decarbonization and energy policy. Current research includes economic modeling of microgrids — investigating the extent to which decentralized energy supplies help decarbonize the electric grid, and in what ways that paradigm is optimal — as well as technical assessments of the feasibility of using direct air capture machines to scrub carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. He also contributes to work on the political economy of carbon capture and storage and on driver behavior related to electric-vehicle use.

Past research has included assessments of the impacts of distributed and centralized solar power on the electric grid, as well as behind-the-meter applications for solar-plus-storage systems. Hanna developed optimization algorithms for solar-plus-storage systems that mitigate peak load and control photovoltaic power ramp rates, and implemented them operationally using real PV systems and second-life electric-vehicle batteries at the UC San Diego campus.

Hanna received his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at the Jacobs School of Engineering and has held postdoctoral positions in both the Center for Energy Research and the School of Global Policy and Strategy at UC San Diego. He spent part of his Ph.D. at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria, focusing on microgrids — specifically on how technology variables and policies affect the business case for investment as well as the optimal deployment of renewables.

Jeffrey Myers

School of Global Policy and Strategy

Jeff Myers is a research associate with the Deep Decarbonization Initiative at UC San Diego. He focuses on climate policy and decarbonization, with current projects on the interconnections between electric-vehicle charging and driver behavior, commuter demand for workplace chargers, and mitigating grid impacts. He earned his master’s in public policy from the School of Global Policy and Strategy at UC San Diego, specializing in quantitative methods and environmental and energy policy.

Param Somane

UC San Diego

Param Somane is a master's student in computer science (AI and machine learning) at UC San Diego (class of 2025). At the Deep Decarbonization Initiative, he has helped bring AI to the study of vehicle charging behavior. Trained in the most recent data science and machine learning tools, Somane has been studying how people park, plug in and charge their cars by using UC San Diego’s 500-plus EV charging stations as an interactive laboratory. He built an interactive dashboard and a suite of analysis and visualization tools that have focused on three topics: driver charging behavior, workplace charging policies and charging network utilization. Each of those has led to a conference paper submission — his first first-author publications. This work is part of the larger mission at D2I to understand how policy and technology together can unlock more flexible, lower-carbon charging on campus and beyond.

Somane grew up in Mumbai, India, and studied pure mathematics at Penn State (B.S., summa cum laude) before working in enterprise data engineering in North Carolina and then with climate-focused startups based in California. The startups focused on topics like carbon accounting, sustainability analytics and AI-powered tools for recruiting and networking in the fire and forestry space. Wanting to apply his technical background more directly to climate and policy, he came to UC San Diego for its strengths in AI/ML and climate research and joined D2I in March 2025. After graduating in December 2025, he is moving to San Francisco to join Toolkit as a founding software engineer, where he will take what he has learned about data, systems and policy to industry and apply them to new tools that will help organizations make better decisions.