HNEI - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Hydrogen Systems Support Technician
Aaron McCall has been involved with Hawai‘i's hydrogen infrastructure since 2012. He worked on a team of 2 helping to manage a fleet of 15 General Motors PEM fuel cell electric vehicles operated by the U.S. Military on O‘ahu through the program's completion. He also worked as a junior engineer at the hydrogen fueling station at Hickam Airforce Base.
Aaron holds a bachelor's degree in Aviation as well as a commercial pilot license and an associate's degree in engineering from Kapiolani Community College.
Aaron now helps to operate and manage HNEI's hydrogen fueling station at NELHA where he will be helping to support a fleet of three hydrogen fuel cell electric buses operated by the County of Hawai‘i Mass Transit Agency and HNEI's fleet of three Hydrogen Transport Trailers.
Job Titles:
- Junior Power Systems Engineer
Adam is a recent graduate of UH Mānoa, with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. He joined the Hawai‘i Natural Energy Institute in August 2023 as a Junior Power Systems Engineer.
Job Titles:
- Research Technical Writer / Translation Specialist
Ai Oyama interprets and moderates technical discussions with faculty and researchers at Japanese universities and agencies of the Japanese government and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). She also participates in laboratory experiments of hydrate thermochemistry and biology at HNEI and assists in the preparation of technical reports, publications, and proposals.
Job Titles:
- Junior Power Systems Engineer
Job Titles:
- Senior Energy Regulatory / Policy Analyst
Damon is a Senior Energy Regulatory/Policy Analyst with Grid START (Grid System Technologies Advanced Research Team), an HNEI research team focused on the integration and analysis of energy technologies and power systems, including smart grid and microgrid applications. He has over 15 years of experience working in the energy sector.
Prior to joining Grid START, he served as a Director/Manager in Hawaiian Electric's Regulatory Affairs Department, and in outside regulatory counsel and financial consulting roles for Hawaiian Electric as both a solo practitioner, and with the law firm of Goodsill Anderson Quinn & Stifel. In those capacities, he provided regulatory and financial guidance to develop and support Hawaiian Electric's positions in its proceedings before the Hawai‘i Public Utilities Commission, including state-of-the-art energy policy investigations, major capital projects, renewable energy PPAs, rate cases, and utility financings.
Damon is a licensed attorney in the State of Hawai‘i and holds a B.S. in finance from the University of Hawai‘i, an M.B.A. (international business focus) from Pepperdine University in California, and a J.D. from UH's William S. Richardson School of Law.
Job Titles:
- Research Associate
- Hawai‘I Natural Energy Institute in 2011 As an Student Assistant
Dayna Lam joined the Hawai‘i Natural Energy Institute in 2011 as an student assistant and joined HNEI's staff in 2015. She obtained a bachelor's degree from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa in Interdiscipinary Studies with a focus in Environmental Studies. She assists the institute's personnel with various fiscal, information technology, and administrative matters.
Job Titles:
- Administrative and Fiscal Support Specialist
Dr. Jing Qi received her Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2012. She joined the Hawai‘i Natural Energy Institute at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa in July 2015 as a Postdoctoral Fellow. She was promoted to junior researcher in March 2019.
Her areas of expertise include nanomaterials, electrocatalysis, fuel cells, and flow batteries. More specifically, her recent experience has encompassed several aspects of proton exchange membrane fuel cell contaminated by species from multiple sources: interactions between contaminants in mixtures, degradation mechanisms, and mitigation strategies.
She is currently focusing on the development of synthesis techniques for efficient and durable transition metal carbide catalysts for fuel cells, water electrolyzers, and flow batteries. Her work has led to 26 journal papers, 9 proceedings, and 2 patents.
Dr. Jinxia Fu received her B.Sc. in Applied Chemistry from Tongji University, Shanghai, China in 2007 and her Ph.D. in Chemistry from Brown University, Providence, RI in 2013. She joined Hawai‘i Natural Energy Institute as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in 2012 working with Dr. Scott Q Turn, and became an Assistant Researcher in 2014.
Dr. Fu's previous research has focused on understanding the chemistry, thermodynamics, surface behavior, microstructure, and fate and transport of polycyclic aromatic compounds and brominated flame retardants. Her current interest are in the second generation renewable biofuels including investigating the influence of blending, long-term storage and oxidation on fuel performance and developing "green" additives for biofuels from biomass to propel the overall replacement of fossil fuels with renewable biofuels.
Harun Or Rashid Howlader (D.Eng.) joined the Hawai‘i Natural Energy Institute (HNEI) in 2023 as a postdoc researcher. Prior to joining HNEI, he was a postdoc fellow under the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) at the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, University of the Ryukyus, Japan. He holds doctoral and master's degrees from the same department and university.
He obtained a JSPS Young Scientist Scholarship for his Ph.D. and a JSPS Kakenhi research grant for three years. He was awarded the President's Honorary Award, which is equivalent to the best student awards for both Ph.D. and Master's degrees. He worked at Power Guard Co. Ltd. (a renewable O&M company) in Japan as a System Engineer-Solar (PV) before joining the JSPS postdoc. Dr. Harun received a couple of best paper awards from IEEE national and international conferences.
His research interests are in the areas of power systems optimization, microgrid, smart grid, distributed generation, power system design, utility-scale renewable energy integration, power flow analysis, techno-economics analysis, energy storage systems, grid automation, IoT, grid resilience, unit commitment, power system stability, demand-side and supply-side management, power market, and demand response. During his scientific career, he has been involved in various professional activities.
He has been invited as conference chair and guest editor from prestigious events and journals. He serves as an invited speaker, research article reviewer, and research proposal reviewer for prestigious journals and institutes. He holds IEEE Graduate Membership and IEEE Membership for Young Professionals. He has completed several practical research projects for renewable energy development.
Kai Outlaw-Spruell graduated suma cum laude from University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering with a background in research and development, serving as a mechanical design engineering intern at Makai Ocean Engineering (2019-2020) and at RIP Lab Research Group (2018-2019). He then continued on to earn his MS from UH Mānoa in Mechanical Engineering with a focus on advanced materials while working as a graduate research assistant (2020-2021) at Thin Films Laboratory of the Hawai‘i Natural Energy Institute. His thesis project demonstrated a novel semi-monolithic integration scheme, which could prove greatly useful in manufacturing of technologies that rely on material stacking.
He joined Hawai‘i Natural Energy Institute in 2021 as a junior research engineer following his graduate work to continue his research under supervision of Dr. Nicolas Gaillard at Thin Films Lab. His current research projects include engineering integration methods and encapsulation technologies for multi-junction photovoltaic and photoelectrochemical devices.
Katherine McKenzie (M.Sc. Metallurgical Engineering) joined HNEI in 2012 to support the Director and work with senior faculty on projects, proposals, and outreach across the range of HNEI's technical areas of focus: alternative fuels, renewable power generation, electrical grid integration, energy efficiency, and battery and fuel cell systems. Working closely with HNEI's director and faculty, she has coordinated and assisted in extramural proposals resulting in $99 million in federal funding to date.
Ms. McKenzie also coordinates and edits HNEI's major technical, progress and final reports. Ms. McKenzie serves as project lead for HNEI's Electrification of Transportation, to assess the impact on fossil fuel use and emissions. Previously she managed the Electric Vehicle Transportation Center, an applied research initiative in collaboration with the Florida Solar Energy Center, University of Hawai‘i's College of Engineering and Department of Urban & Regional Planning.
Prior to joining HNEI, Ms. McKenzie led development and administered the electric vehicle "EV Ready" Grant and Rebate Programs with the State Energy Office, developed and coordinated the renewable energy track as Co-Chair of the Asia Pacific Clean Energy Summit and Expo, and provided research and analysis on a range of renewable energy options. As a professional engineer, she has more than 15 years of international experience in project management, engineering, manufacturing, R&D, along with business and economic development.
Keith Bethune (M.Sc., Ocean Engineering, Florida Atlantic University), has over 14 years of experience in renewable energy, with an emphasis in the areas of electric vehicles, hydrogen technology, and fuel cells. Following his graduate work in marine corrosion, Mr. Bethune utilized his electrochemistry background coupled with the broad spectrum of engineering disciplines provided by the ocean engineering curriculum at FAU to begin working on electric vehicle battery technologies at HNEI's Electrochemical Power Systems Laboratory.
In 2002, he played an integral role in the development of the Hawai‘i Fuel Cell Test Facility, now known as the Hawai‘i Sustainable Energy Research Facility (HiSERF). He currently acts as HiSERF's Lab Manager, overseeing daily operations and manages the development and construction of instrumentation, hardware, and supporting equipment used for various research projects.
In addition, he is also the lead test engineer and currently is working on a multi-year collaboration with the Naval Research Lab's UAV fuel cell program. In late 2014, he joined HNEI's Wave Energy Test Site program to provide data acquisition and general site support.
Krishnakumar Rajagopalan (PhD in Ocean Engineering, University of Hawai‘i) joined the Wave Energy Test Site (WETS) group as a numerical modeler in 2016.
Since then, Krishnakumar has focused on modeling of Wave Energy Converters (WEC) using a wide range of simple and high fidelity codes such as AQWA, WEC-Sim, OpenFOAM and Flow3D. The modeling tasks, which are basically fluid structure interaction problems, enable independent assessment of power performance and mooring of WECs and enhance the R&D capabilities of the group as a whole. These capabilities have also been leveraged for generating additional funding for the WETS group. Additionally, he has a role in the management of all aspects of engineering oversight at WETS with emphasis on mooring analysis which is a critical aspect of WEC device testing at WETS.
Prior to joining HNEI, Krishnakumar worked as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Hawai‘i's Department of Ocean and Resources Engineering where he modeled ocean general circulation using MITgcm and developed a numerical wave tank using OpenFOAM. He also has experience with physical modeling which he acquired while employed as research staff in a wave basin.
Job Titles:
- Specialist / Chief Technologist, GridSTART
Leon joined the Hawai‘i Natural Energy Institute in 2012 as a faculty Specialist where he has spearheaded the formation of Grid START (Grid System Technologies Advanced Research Team), an HNEI research team focused on the integration and analysis of energy technologies and power systems, including smart grid and micro grid applications.
He was with the Hawaiian Electric Company for 19 years prior serving in numerous management roles, most recently directing the System Integration Department. His career at Hawaiian Electric has included management responsibilities for renewable energy planning and integration, smart grid planning and projects, distribution planning, transmission planning, generation resource planning and procurement, the purchase and distribution of fuel to all utility generating plants, and the negotiation of power purchase contracts for the Hawaiian Electric companies. Leon directed major programs across the utility companies, including Hawaiian Electric's initiative to integrate large-scale wind energy resources via a proposed HVDC undersea cable system to O‘ahu.
Leon is also a licensed attorney and worked in private law practice in Hawai‘i and has held the position of Associate General Counsel at Hawaiian Electric. He holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and a J.D. from the University of Hawai‘i.
Job Titles:
- Senior Smart Grid Program Manager
Marc Matsuura (P.E., M.B.A.) joined the Hawai‘i Natural Energy Institute in 2013 as the Senior Smart Grid Program Manager.
Prior to joining HNEI, he was with the Hawaiian Electric Company for 21 years. His career at Hawaiian Electric included positions in the areas of Transmission & Distribution (T&D) Engineering, T&D Standards and Technical Services, System Operations, Transmission Planning, Smart Grid Planning, and System Integration. Marc directed major technical programs across all three companies, including Overhead and Underground T&D standards and equipment specifications, transmission planning, large scale systems impact studies, large scale renewable interconnection and performance requirements, contract negotiations with Independent Power Producers, and smart grid planning and development. Marc also provided leadership in the technical assessment of Hawaiian Electric's initiative to integrate large-scale wind energy resources via a proposed HVDC undersea cable system to O‘ahu, including the development of performance requirements for the potential cable system.
Mark Glick is a tenure track faculty of the Hawai‘i Natural Energy Institute, overseeing energy policy and innovation and coordinating State and University of Hawai‘i assets towards fulfillment of Hawai‘i's ambitious energy transformation and supporting similar objectives in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond. Glick has a Master of Science, Public Management & Policy from Carnegie-Mellon University and a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics from Lamar University.
Glick previously served five years as Administrator of the Hawai‘i State Energy Office where he led Hawai‘i's internationally regarded clean energy transformation efforts. He also served as Vice Chair of the National Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO), the only national non-profit association for energy officials from each of the 56 states and territories with the purpose of advocating for the interests of the state energy offices to Congress and federal agencies. Selected highlights of his tenure as Hawai‘i's Energy Administrator include: 1) exceeding Hawai‘i's 2015 interim renewable portfolio and energy efficiency portfolio standards; 2) contributing to passage of the nation's first 100 percent renewable portfolio standard and interim goal of 30 percent RPS by 2020; 3) leading the nation for five consecutive years in the per capita value of energy savings performance contracts; 4) spearheading the statewide Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement process culminating in publication by the U.S. Department of Energy of a programmatic EIS that examines the potential environmental impacts of energy efficiency activities and renewable energy technologies that could assist the State of Hawai‘i in meeting the goal established under the Hawai‘i Clean Energy Initiative; and 5) overseeing all energy related regulatory filings and legislative testimony of the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.
Glick served as senior advisor to the Texas Land Commissioner from 1987 to 1991, during which time he played a decisive role in passage of amendments to the Texas Clean Air Act and similar provisions in the federal Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. For the next decade, Glick was a successful small business owner focused on reducing urban air pollution in the U.S. and abroad in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy, the Gas Research Institute, Petrobangla, Southern California Gas Company, Pacific Gas & Electric, Transco, Southern Union Gas Company and the New York City Department of Transportation among others. Returning to the public sector in 2003, Glick headed operations and economic development for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs from 2003 to 2010. Glick serves on the Board of Directors of the Washington Place Foundation and previously served three terms as Executive Committee Chair of the Hawai‘i Chapter of the Sierra Club and as Vice Chair of the Hawai‘i Green Infrastructure Authority.
Matthieu Dubarry (PhD, Electrochemistry & Solid-State Science, University of Nantes), has over 15 years of experience in renewable energy, with an emphasis in the area of lithium ion batteries.
Following his PhD on the synthesis and characterization of materials for lithium batteries, Dr. Dubarry joined the Hawai‘i Natural Energy Institute at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa as a post-doctoral fellow in 2005 to work on the analysis of the usage of a fleet of electric vehicles. He was later appointed a faculty position in 2010 with a focus on battery testing, modeling and simulation.
While working for HNEI, Dr. Dubarry pioneered the use of new techniques for the analysis of the degradation of Li-ion cells and developed numerous software tools facilitating the prognosis of Li-ion battery degradation both at the single cell and the battery pack level.
Michael Cooney is a tenured Professor in the Hawai‘i Natural Energy Institute. He graduated from the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering in 1986. He earned his M.S. and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California at Davis (UCD) in 1988 and 1992, respectively. Upon graduation he joined the Department of Food Science at UCD where he researched the application of micro and ultrafiltration to concentrate cheese whey and the rheological properties of food protein gels made from concentrated cheese whey protein.
From 1994 to 1996, Dr. Cooney passed a postdoc at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne where he applied calorimetric and stoichiometric analysis to continuous yeast culture. From 1995 to 1997 he passed his second postdoc at the University of Queensland where he modeled hyaluronic acid production in batch culture. After completing his second postdoc Dr. Cooney began his academic career in 1997 as a lecturer at the newly formed School of Engineering at Murdoch University in Western Australia. There he developed courses in mechanical and chemical thermodynamics as well as process instrumentation and control.
After three years, Dr. Cooney left Australia to return home to the United States where he began his U.S. career in the Department of Ocean and Resources Engineering before transferring to the Hawai‘i Natural Energy Institute in 2002. His areas of specialty now include high rate anaerobic digestion and sustainability analysis. His teaching at UH currently focuses on sustainability analysis, environmental management systems, and preparation for undergraduate thesis research.
Michele Nuibe joined HNEI in 1999. She handles all administrative operations; from Personnel to Procurement. Michele has a BA in Liberal Studies with an emphasis in Japanese Studies and Business from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.
Job Titles:
- Hydrogen Systems Program Manager
Mitch Ewan is a graduate of the Royal Military College of Canada where he earned a degree in Applied Science. After a successful naval career that included command of submarines and a destroyer, Mitch entered private industry where he has served in a variety of senior executive positions including senior management (Board Member, VP & GM) of publicly traded companies. His hydrogen and fuel cell career spans over 28 years. He led the team that designed and built the "Green Car", the world's first PEM fuel cell powered automobile.
For the past 20 years, Mitch has been on the staff of the University of Hawaii's Hawai‘i Natural Energy Institute (HNEI) as the Hydrogen Systems Program Manager where he is helping to develop HNEI's hydrogen and fuel cell programs. Current projects include the use of electrolyzer systems for grid management, and the installation and operation of hydrogen production and dispensing systems on O‘ahu and the Island of Hawai‘i.
Md Musabbir Hossain (Ph.D.) joined the Hawai‘i Natural Energy Institute (HNEI) in January 2024 as a postdoctoral researcher. Prior to joining HNEI, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Georgia Institute of Technology from April 2023 to January 2024. Before that he served as a postdoctoral scholar with University of Central Florida from May 2022 to April 2023.
Nicolas Gaillard (PhD, Micro- and Nano-electronics, Joseph Fourier University, Grenoble, France) has over 15 years of experience in materials science, with an emphasis in the areas of photovoltaics, photoelectrochemical hydrogen production and integrated circuits. Following his graduate work, Dr. Gaillard spent 3 years with the IBM/Motorola/STMicroelectronics alliance working on oxide/metal interfaces for CMOS transistors and DRAM memories applications.
He joined the Thin Films Laboratory of the Hawai‘i Natural Energy Institute at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa in 2007 as a post-doctoral, working under the supervision of Dr. Eric Miller on metal oxide thin films for photoelectrochemical hydrogen production. Dr. Gaillard was appointed faculty and Thin Films Laboratory group leader in 2010.
Dr. Gaillard's current research projects include: (i) engineering of high efficiency PEC materials, with an emphasis on chalcopyrite materials (CuInGaSSe) and (ii) the development of novel nanocrystal inks for printable thin film photovoltaics.
Patrick Cross (PhD, Meteorology, Naval Postgraduate School), completed a 20-year Naval officer career in submarines and meteorology/oceanography in 2006, culminating in a tour as Force Oceanographer for the Pacific submarine force based at Pearl Harbor. For the next several years, he worked with a small company managing Navy-funded research projects related to underwater acoustics, including the use of autonomous vehicles and advanced signal processing.
Cross joined HNEI in the fall of 2013, initially to manage proposal efforts related to a new infusion of Navy funds to support the Wave Energy Test Site (WETS) off Marine Corps Base Hawai‘i at Kāne‘ohe. He is serving as program manager for this effort, coordinating research plans, providing site management assistance to U.S. Navy and Department of Energy sponsors, and developing new proposals relating to wave energy advancement. Additionally, Dr. Cross has undertaken the management of other HNEI projects related to renewable energy generation, including efforts in photovoltaic test beds, and solar forecasting.
Patrick Takahashi (PhD, Biochemical Engineering, Louisiana State University) has more than half a century of experience in renewable energy, including biomass, hydrogen, biofuels, wind energy, solar and oceanic.
He initially joined the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa in 1972 into the College of Engineering, where he became a full professor in 1982. Prior to that, he was the geothermal reservoir engineer for the Hawai‘i Geothermal Project and spent summer assignments at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on laser fusion and NASA Ames Research Center on the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Beginning in 1979, he worked in the U.S. Senate, returning to Mānoa in 1982. He helped write the original legislation for wind power, ocean energy, and hydrogen.
He became the director of the Hawai‘i Natural Energy and the Environmental Center in 1984, and helped bring to the campus national centers in hydrogen, marine resources, and marine bioproducts. He co-found the Pacific International Center for High Technology Research in the mid-80's, a technology transfer organization which focused on ocean thermal energy conversion and methanol from biomass. His current passion is the Blue Revolution.
Dr. Bach earned his PhD at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in 2015. He worked in Taiwan and Korea before joining the Hawai‘i Natural Energy Institute (HNEI) in March 2019.
His research focuses on both experimental and modelling studies on thermochemical conversions of biomass for energy and fuel applications. At HNEI, he is working on the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Production project funded by Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Aviation Sustainability Center (ASCENT).
Job Titles:
- Power Systems Engineer II
Quynh joined the Hawai‘i Natural Energy Institute (HNEI) in June 2019 as a Postdoctoral fellow. Quynh received her PhD in Electrical Engineering from University of Palermo, Italy in 2019.
Her graduate work focused on studying the state of the art on Optimal Power Flow (OPF) calculation at present in power systems, studying the potential energy resources in an urban energy hub in relation to the urban and buildings features, and finding solution of the energy management problem in urban microgrids with time-series analysis.
Currently, Quynh is part of the Grid START team. She is studying the production cost model for power system with the integration of renewable energy resources and developing optimization power flow algorithms on distribution power system. She's also participating in the research and development of advanced power systems solution to enable grid integration of renewable energy while achieving efficient, secure, reliable, and resilient grid operations.
Richard Rocheleau (PhD, Chemical Engineering, University of DE), has over 35 years of experience in renewable energy, with an emphasis in the areas of photovoltaics, hydrogen technology and fuel cells. Following his graduate work, Dr. Rocheleau spent 8 years at the Institute of Energy Conversion working on the low-cost manufacture of thin film photovoltaics. He joined the faculty of the Hawai‘i Natural Energy Institute at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa in 1988 and was appointed Director in 2000. Under his direction, the Institute has led the development of several public-private partnerships focused on the development, testing and evaluation of alternative energy technologies. With funding from the U.S. Department of Energy and the Office of Naval Research, the Institute has developed active programs addressing issues related to high penetration grid-connected renewable energy technology and development of alternative fuels. Current projects include the Maui Smart Grid Demonstration program, evaluation of grid scale Li-ion battery energy storage systems for grid management, and testing of emerging photovoltaic technologies.
Robert Johnson (PhD, Chemistry Iowa State University) has over ten years of experience with various aspects related to biomass conversion technologies including solid state nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, heterogeneous catalyst synthesis and characterization, reaction engineering, biomass thermochemical reactions, process and business development. During his PhD, his research was funded through the NSF Engineering Research Center for Biorenewable chemicals (CBiRC) where he developed advanced NMR techniques to characterize carbon catalyst materials. Additionally, Robert developed a unique synthesis platform to produce porous functionalized carbon materials using inexpensive precursors.
Robert began his Post Doctorate work in December 2014, in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Iowa State University where he developed chemical engineering tools to complement his NMR expertise. During this time, Robert constructed high pressure condensed phase flow reactors, invented a synthesis technique to produce porous nanocomposite catalysts resistant to hydrothermal conditions, and developed a unique solid state NMR approach to investigate solid-liquid interfaces. During Robert's last year at Iowa State, he worked as the principle investigator for an early stage startup company to execute a STTR Phase I grant with technology to convert organic acids into functionalized aromatics.
Following his tenure at ISU, Robert worked at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals as an assistant professor. Robert left this position to move to Hawai‘i and started at UH Mānoa in the fall of 2018.
Job Titles:
- Assistant
- Researcher
- in 2015 As a Postdoctoral Research Associate
Saeed joined HNEI in 2015 as a postdoctoral research associate after earning his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Hawai‘i in December 2014.
While pursuing his graduate studies, he was a Research Assistant with the Mechanical Engineering Department from 2011 to 2014, during which he developed adaptive methods for estimation of state of charge and state of health for battery packs, specifically Li-ion batteries, and jointly developed control algorithms for a grid-scale energy storage system deployed on the Maui Electric Company power system. Prior to pursuing his doctoral degree, he worked in industry developing electronic control boards for home appliances from 2009 to 2011 as a quality engineer.
His current research interests include optimization of energy storage in smart grids, renewable energy, large-scale renewable power integration into power grids and sustainability.
Sarah joined HNEI in 2023 after earning a Master's of Science in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT. During her Master's studies she was a research assistant in the Lab for Aviation and the Environment at MIT where she focused on environmental and economic assessments of sustainable aviation fuels. Specifically, Sarah worked on modeling future biomass availability and energy crop suitability with the impact of climate change. Before graduate school, Sarah earned a Bachelor's of Science from Georgia Tech in Aerospace Engineering in 2021.
Job Titles:
- Hawai‘I Natural Energy Institute in 2023 As a Power Systems Engineer
- Power Systems Engineer
Sawyer joined the Hawai‘i Natural Energy Institute in 2023 as a Power Systems Engineer. Prior to joining HNEI, Sawyer accumulated seven years of work experience at electric utilities on the U.S. mainland, including FirstEnergy Corporation in Pennsylvania as a transmission scheduler, and Consumers Energy Company in Michigan as a distribution system operator. Sawyer holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering Technology from Michigan Technological University.
Scott Turn is a Researcher on the faculty of the Hawai‘i Natural Energy Institute at the University of Hawai‘i. Over the past 20 years, his research has focused on biomass resources in Hawai‘i and their utilization. This work has been supported by both the public and private sectors. Research interests include biomass resource assessment, biomass feedstock processing and characterization, thermochemical conversion, hot gas cleaning, fuel reforming, and biofuel properties. In 2009, he headed the team that developed the bioenergy master plan for the State of Hawai‘i.
Sharon Chan earned M.S in Natural Resources and Environmental Management and B.A in Geography from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Her professional activities are primarily focused on performing analyses and delivering HNEI research results based on spatial referencing management tools. She specializes in use of Geographic Information System (GIS) technology to participate in HNEI research projects related to sustainable jet fuel production, Landfill gas and PV efficiency in hoping to help Hawai‘i achieve the goal of 100% clean energy by 2045.
Job Titles:
- Administrative Officer / Personnel Officer
Tammy Furuta has worked at the University of Hawai‘i since 2010 and joined HNEI in 2016. She works with the projects to help with their personnel needs. Tammy has a BBA from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.
Tatyana V. Reshetenko has 18 years of experience in catalysis, material science, fuel cell development and electrocatalysis. She received her Master's degree in Catalysis and Adsorption from Novosibirsk State University (1998) and PhD degree in Catalysis from Boreskov Institute of Catalysis in Russia (2003).
Her Ph.D. thesis was devoted to investigation of high-loading iron, nickel, cobalt catalysts for methane decomposition for production of pure hydrogen and catalytic filamentous carbon and multiwall carbon nanotubes. Subsequently, Dr. Reshetenko worked at Samsung SDI, South Korea on optimizing the membrane electrode assembly (MEA) electrode layer design for direct methanol fuel cells and studying the effects of operating conditions on proton exchange membrane fuel cells performance.
She has been with the Hawai‘i Natural Energy Institute since December 2007. Her research interests are in studies of spatial PEMFC behavior under different operating conditions, local variations of MEA materials properties and fuel/air/system contaminants exposure using segmented cell system.
Tung-Lam Nguyen received the Master's degree in electrical engineering from National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taiwan, in 2014, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, France, in 2019. Since 2010, he was a Lecturer with the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, The University of Danang - University of Science and Technology, Danang, Vietnam. He was a Post-Doctoral Researcher with the Grenoble Institute of Technology, Grenoble, France, as part of the G2ELab in 2019 and with Florida International University, U.S. in 2021.
He is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher as a part of the Grid START team. His research interests include distributed control and optimization, cyber-physical system, interoperability, co-simulation and Hardware-in-the-loop in smart grid. He's participating in the research and development of advanced power systems solution to enable grid integration of renewable energy while achieving efficient, secure, reliable, and resilient grid operations.
Yunfeng Zhai has over 10 years of experience in developing and testing membranes and electrocatalysts for proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). He was awarded a PhD in Chemical Engineering by Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics in 2008. His Ph.D. dissertation was based on studies of performance degradation of H 3 PO 4/PBI high temperature PEMFC and development of high temperature proton conductive membranes.
He joined the Hawai‘i Natural Energy Institute at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa as a postdoctoral fellow in November 2007. He has been working on the effect of air pollutants and system contaminants on durability and degradation of PEMFCs, and the degradation and contamination mechanisms of PEMFCs for 8 years. He is also interested in the development of electrolytes and electrocatalysts materials and electrode structures for energy storage and electrochemical technologies.
He is a reviewer of several journals in electrochemical and energy field, and member of The Electrochemical Society and American Chemical Society.