People

Professor Robert Pilawa-Podgurski

Director and Acting Executive Director

Bio | Website

Professor Jessica Boles

Co-Director and Principal Investigator in Power Electronics

Bio | Website

Professor Duncan Callaway

Principal Investigator in Power Systems

Bio | Website

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Professor Emeritus Seth Sanders

Principal Investigator in Power Electronics

Bio

Dr. Sascha von Meier

Principal Investigator in Power Systems

Bio

Professor Costas J. Spanos

Principal Investigator in Building Energy Efficiency

Bio

BPEC Researchers

Graduate Student Researchers

Dr. Yicheng Zhu
Sahana Krishnan
Tucker Skinner
Nagesh Patle
Nathan Biesterfeld
Sourav Naval
Elisa Krause
Francesca Giardine
Haifah Sambo
Rod Bayliss
Wentao Xu
Tahmid Mahbub
Dennis Woo
Emmi Wyttenbach
Shuyu Zhang
Xi Zhao
Chia-Hao (Hubert) Lin
Seokwon (Harry) Choi
Khalid Durani

Undergraduate Student Researchers

Shirina Agrawal
Jessica Li
Stephanie Schaupp

BPEC Alumni

Ph.D. and Post-Doctoral Alumni

Dr. Logan Horowitz, Post-Doctoral Scholar and Ph.D. (2025) – Now at the University of Colorado, Boulder
Rahul Iyer, Ph.D. (2025) – Now at Tesla
Dr. Mustapha Touhami (2025)
Dr. Nathan Ellis, Post-Doctoral Scholar (2023) – Now at the University of California, Santa Cruz
Rose Abramson, Ph.D. (2024) – Now at NVIDIA
Maggie Blackwell, Ph.D. (2023) – Now at Hanwha Q Cells
Kelly Fernandez, Ph.D. (2023) – Now at Form Energy

Nathan Brooks, Ph.D. (2023) – Now at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
Samantha Coday, Ph.D. (2023) – Now at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Ting Ge, Post-Doctoral Scholar (2022) – Now at MPS
Richard (Ricky) Liou, Ph.D. (2022) – Now at Amber Kinetics
Sophia Chou, Ph.D. (2021) – Now at Enphase
Zitao Liao, Ph.D. (2021) – Now at Tesla
Nathan Pallo, Ph.D. (2021) – Now at Form Energy
Wen-Chuen (Joseph) Liu, Ph.D. (2020) – Now at Cirrus Logic
Pourya Assem, Ph.D. (2020) – Now at Texas Instruments
Zichao Ye, Ph.D. (2020) – Now at Google

Previous Visiting Researchers

Leheng Wang, Ph.D. Exchange (2025) from Tsinghua University

Yixuan Wu, Ph.D. Exchange (2023-2024) from KTH Royal Institute of Technology

Undergraduate Researcher Alumni

Marrin Nerenberg (2022-2025)

Yayun Zhao (2025) – Now pursuing M.Eng. at Cornell University
Evan Sandoval (2023-2025)
Khalid Durani (2023-2025) – Now pursuing Ph.D. in BPEC’s own Pilawa Group!
Ben Liao (2022-2024) – Now pursuing Ph.D. at Cornell University
Anya Shah (2024) – Now at Blue Origin
Suhrith Bellamkonda (2022-2024)
William Vavrik (2023) – Now pursuing M.S. at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champagne
Linshen Liu (2022-2023) – Now pursuing M.S. at University of Texas, Austin
Amanda Jackson (2019-2023) – Now pursuing Ph.D. at Massachusetts Institute of Technology