Guest Researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
International Energy Studies Group (October 2010 to July 2011)

Post-doctoral Researcher at the University of California, Berkeley
Institute of Transportation Studies (August 2008 to July 2011)
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Ph.D. - University of California, Berkeley - August 2008
Civil and Environmental Engineering

M.S. - University of California, Berkeley - May 2005
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Systems Engineering Program

M.S. - Carnegie Mellon University - May 2003
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Civil Infrastructure Systems Program

B.S. - Carnegie Mellon University - May 2002
Double major in Civil and Environmental Engineering
& Engineering and Public Policy

Contractor to the California Environmental Protection Agency's Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) in Developing a Bioplastics Life-cycle Assessment - Jan. 2010 to present
Assited the DTSC with coordinating teams at UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara, and Stanford evaluating PET, PLA, and PHA. Provided guidance for integrating the studies into a comprehensive assessment.

Consultant on the National Academy of Science's "Hidden Costs of Energy: Unpriced Consequences of Energy Production and Use" Study - Mar. to Oct. 2009 (a project with the National Research Council's Committee on Health, Environmental, and Other External Costs and Benefits of Energy Production and Consumption).
Provided modeling, calculations, and evaluation of the health and environmental external costs of passenger and freight travel to the transportation subcommittee. Assessed upstream effects in alternative fuel pathways and documented methodology as an appendix in final report.

Panel Participant and Consultant to the University of California, Los Angeles Institute of the Environment (IOE) for the Development of a California Energy Commission (CEC) Sustainable Communities Funding Roadmap - Nov. 2008 to present.
Provided life-cycle assessment considerations to the UCLA IOE during two workshops (Nov. 2008 and Oct. 2009). Contracted by the IOE to help write life-cycle assessment guidelines into the CEC roadmap.

Contractor to the California Environmental Protection Agency's Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) in Developing Green Chemistry Guidelines for Assembly Bill 1879 - Mar. 2009 to present.
As part of AB1879, producers and users of known toxic chemicals must perform environmental life-cycle assessment to evaluate total impacts in manufacturing and use. Assisted DTSC in writing the life-cycle assessment guidelines and preparing an alternatives assessment encouraging toxic chemical users to consider substitutions and their associated costs.

Development of a Freight Transportation Environmental Life-cycle Assessment Framework for the California Air Resources Board (CARB) - Oct. 2009 to present.
Identified a life-cycle energy use, criteria pollutant emissions, and greenhouse gas emissions framework for truck, rail, and marine movements of goods in California. Recommended particular life-cycle processes for sustainability improvements.

Advisor to the Commission on Environmental Cooperation for a North American Free Trade Agreement Freight Environmental Assessment - Nov. 2009 to present.
The Commission on Environmental Cooperation operates under the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation, a side treaty of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Provided life-cycle assessment guidance for reducing freight environmental impacts for both vehicle use and infrastructure expansion.

Environmental Life-cycle Assessment of Passenger Transportation Modes
- Aug. 2005 to present
(a research project with Arpad Horvath, Professor, UC Berkeley)
As a dissertation topic, the life-cycle energy and emissions of passenger cars, buses, commuter trains, high speed rail, and aircraft were evaluated. The assessment included over 100 life-cycle components related to vehicles (e.g., manufacturing, maintenance), infrastructure (e.g., road construction, airport construction, train station operation), and fuels (e.g., gasoline and diesel production, electricity generation). The core methodology and modeling has been expanded to several other modes and infrastructure. Recently, the total energy, greenhouse gas, and other air emissions have been evaluated for California High Speed Rail construction and operation compared against continued use of automobiles, aircraft, and heavy rail. Also, an assessment of parking was performed evaluating the range in U.S. parking infrastructure estimates and its life-cycle energy and emissions implications.
Additional project information is available at sustainable-transportation.com.

Life-cycle Energy and Emissions Footprints of Passenger Transportation in Metropolitan Regions - Oct. 2008 to present
(a research project with Arpad Horvath and Samer Madanat, Professors, UC Berkeley)
The transportation environmental footprint of several U.S. metropolitan regions was evaluated by developing life-cycle inventories specific to each region's transit using travel surveys. The environmental performance was evaluated from both the operational (tail-pipe) and life-cycle energy and emissions. With sparse evaluations of the total environmental inventory of a region and its associated health externalities, this work provides clarity on the quality and impact of specific modes and trip habits in U.S. cities.

Cellulosic Ethanol from Municipal Solid Waste: A Case Study of the Economic, Energy, and Greenhouse Gas Impacts in California - Aug. 2006 to June 2009
(a research project with Elliot Martin, Post-doctoral Researcher, UC, Berkeley)
The feasibility of producing ethanol for transportation fuel in California from the organic portion of municipal solid waste was explored. In producing cellulosic ethanol, California will eliminate the need to import corn ethanol from the Midwest and result in reduced energy consumption. However, this infrastructure will come with an economic investment and result in potentially large greenhouse gas emissions.

Energy, Greenhouse Gas, and Cost Reductions for Municipal Recycling Systems
- Sep. 2006 to Dec. 2007
(a research project with Elliot Martin and Nakul Sathaye, Post-doctoral Researchers, UC Berkeley)
Improvements to a municipal recycling system were evaluated with the objective of reducing direct costs, energy consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions. We considered logistical changes to recycling truck routing, consolidation of multiple agencies, and adjustments to recycling options (i.e., comingling glass, plastics, and paper instead of separating them prior to collection).

Feasibility Study for Converting Waste to Electricity in Santa Barbara County, California - Aug. 2006 to Jan. 2007
(a consulting project for Santa Barbara County's Community Environmental Consultants with Richard Plevin and Deepak Rajagopal, Doctoral Candidates, and Daniel Kammen, Professor, UC Berkeley)
The potential of producing electricity and other energy forms from waste in Santa Barbara County, California was evaluated. Several technologies were considered for waste-to-energy production. The technical and economic potential of conversion technology facilities were studied as well as their environmental impacts. Additionally, citing and transmission constraints were considered.

Energy and Greenhouse Gas Consultant for the INEOS New Plant Bioenergy Facility - June 2009
(a consulting project with Richard Plevin, Doctoral Candidate, UC Berkeley).
An energy and carbon balance of an INEOS cellulosic ethanol facility in Florida was performed. The assessment compared the proposed facility's carbon intensity of the ethanol they will produce from waste against gasoline and corn ethanol. The study aided in INEOS winning a $50 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy for construction of the pilot facility.

Human and Organizational Contributions to the 2003 Northeast Power Grid Failure - Jan. 2006 to present (a research project with Kofi Inkabi, Postdoctoral Researcher, UC Berkeley)
The 2003 blackout in the Northeast U.S. was evaluated from a human and organizational factors perspective. The inability of organizations to assess data from monitoring and communicate data to appropriate players was a critical component in the cascading failure that left 50 million people and critical infrastructure without electricity.

Consultant to the Responsible Purchasing Network for an Environmental Assessment of Los Angeles County's Food Packaging - May to Dec. 2009 (a consulting project with Arpad Horvath, Professor, UC Berkeley)
Los Angeles County facilities (schools, administrative offices, prisons, etc.) are switching from styrofoam food packing (bowls, tray, plates, & cups) to biodegradable options with the goal of reducing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. A life-cycle assessment of biodegradable containers was performed and recommendations given based on assessment of product manufacturing, transport, use, and disposal.

Environmental Consultant to PHD Media Group - Apr. to Aug. 2008 (a research project with Arpad Horvath, Professor, UC Berkeley)
An evaluation of media options (e.g., magazines, computers, television ads, bus stops, billboards, etc.) was performed to determine the life-cycle energy and emissions impacts of various advertising schemes.

San Francisco Bay Area Emissions Transport from Passenger Transportation - Jan. to May 2006 (a research project with Alex Bayen, Professor, UC Berkeley)
The transport of air emissions from passenger transportation in the San Francisco Bay Area was evaluated through the development of an airflow model. The model considers county-to-county movement of emissions based on wind speed and direction and is based on travel survey data.

Fluorine Abatement for Semiconductor Manufacturing - Jan. to May 2005 (a research project with Sarah Boyd and Teresa Zhang, Doctoral Candidates, UC Berkeley)
A mixed integer linear program was developed to optimize research investment in semiconductor manufacturing abatement technology given future policy limits on greenhouse gas, water, and liquid and solid waste emissions.

Life-cycle Assessment of the Installation and Use of a Natural Gas Station for a Vehicle Fleet - Jan. to May 2003 (a research project with Joan Garriano, Graduate Student, and Scott Matthews, Professor, Carnegie Mellon University)
With an impending donation of a natural gas refueling station to the University, a cost-benefit analysis was performed on installation, maintenance, and fleet retrofit in transitioning to the alternative fuel.

Automated Photologging and Retrieval for a Digital Photograph Library - Jan. to May 2003 (a research project with Burcu Akinci, Chris Hendrickson, and Scott Matthews, Professors, Carnegie Mellon University)
An automated system for logging and retrieving digital photographs based on location and photograph direction was developed. New pictures were automatically tagged with camera location, direction and time stamps, and then stored in a relational database. The database can be accessed from Computer-Aided Design and Geographic Information Systems and photos of individual components or objects are identified and displayed on request based on a geometric search algorithm.

Land Use Assessment Inventory - June to Aug. 2003 (a research project with Scott Matthews, Professor, Carnegie Mellon University)
Land use data was assessed for U.S. economic sectors for implementation in the Economic Input-Output Life-Cycle Assessment tool. The project goal was to link economic activity (and upstream supply chain effects) with energy use, emissions, and land use.

Cost Impacts, Scheduling Impacts, and the Construction Claims Process - Sep. to Dec. 2002 (a research project with Chris Hendrickson, Professor, Carnegie Mellon University)
A building construction case study with seven different mismanagement scenarios (delay, cost cutting, work resequencing, acceleration, scope changes, defective work, and strikes) was considered with cost overruns.

• Environmental Science & Technology
• Journal of Industrial Ecology
• Journal of Infrastructure Systems
• Journal of Environmental Management
• Environmental Research
• Resource, Conservation, & Recycling
• Transport Policy
• Energies
• Transportation Research Part E
• Environmental Pollution
• International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment

Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor awarded by the UC Berkeley Graduate Council for the 2006/2007 academic year.

University of California Transportation Center Research Grant Recipient for the 2005/2006 academic year.

Civil Engineering Academic Scholarship, UC Berkeley, 2004/2005 academic year.

Civil Engineering Academic Scholarship, Carnegie Mellon University, 2002/2003 academic year.

Engineering Honors Academic Scholarship, Carnegie Mellon University, 2001/2002 academic year.

Participant in the Carnegie Mellon University's Engineering and Public Policy course project "Voting System Transitions: What are the Options for Pennsylvania?" which received the Stephen Omer Lee Award as the outstanding project course in 2001.

Participant in the Carnegie Mellon University's Engineering and Public Policy course project "Environmental Impacts of E-commerce - A Case Study of Book Purchasing" which received the Stephen Omer Lee Award as the outstanding project course in 2000.

• Life Cycle Energy and Environmental Effects: The Case of Los Angeles Metro
  December 2011 - Intelligent Transportation Systems of America's Sustainable Transportation Working Group Meeting
• Public Transit Sustainability in Transportation and Land Use Policy
  November 2011 - California Energy Commission
• Environmental Tradeoffs in Transportation Infrastructure Investment
  October 2011 - University of California, Los Angeles' Transportation and Land Use Conference
• Evolving Research Goals from a Short Transportation Life Cycle Assessment Career
  October 2011 - Carnegie Mellon University's Civil and Environmental Engineering Department's Friday Seminar
• Life Cycle Impacts of Plug-in Vehicles: Cost Trade-offs of Conventional and Electric Vehicles?
  May 2011 - Stanford University's Electric Mobility Workshop
• Life Cycle Assessment of High-speed Rail: Comprehensive Environmental Accounting
  May 2011 - University of California, Berkeley's Center for Environmental Public Policy High-speed Rail Conference

• Transit Infrastructure Investment and Urban Environmental Effects
  Oct. 2011 - LCA XI Conference
• Life-cycle Assessment of High-speed Rail
  Jan. 2011 - Transportation Research Board's 2011 90th Annual Meeting Intercity Multimodalism Session
• Life-cycle Assessment of High-speed Rail
  Jan. 2011 - Transportation Research Board's 2011 90th Annual Meeting HSR Environmental Impacts Session
• Comprehensive Transportation Energy and Environmental Assessment: Moving from Tailpipe to Total Cost Accounting
  Oct. 2011 - UC Davis' Energy Seminar
• California High-Speed Rail Comprehensive Environmental Costs Presentation representing UC Berkeley's Institute of Transportation Studies (Apr. 2010).
• Presentation to the UC Berkeley, Energy Biosciences Institute Life-cycle Assessment Group on fuel production pathways (Feb. 2010).
• Poster presented at the Transportation Research Board's 2010 Annual Meeting (Jan. 2010).
• Presentation to the Stanford University course Transportation Systems and Urban Development (Apr. 2009).
• Presentation to the American Public Transportation Association's Climate Change Working Group (Oct. 2008).
• Presentations to the UC Berkeley, Institute of Transportation Studies' Center for Future Urban Transport (Sept. 2006, Oct. 2008, and July 2006).
• Invited speaker to the UC Berkeley, Institute of Transportation Studies' Friday Seminar Series (Aug. 2008)
• Presentation to the UC Berkeley, Energy and Resources Group's Biofuels Interest Group (Apr. 2008)
• Presentation at the 11th World Conference on Transport Research (June 2007)