Earth, Energy & Environmental Science

Staff Page • R&D Mechanical Engineer. Biography Adam Keester is a research and development (R&D) engineer in the Water Power Technologies Program at Sandia National Laboratories. Adam’s research focuses on developing open-source software, numerical modeling and data processing. His current work involves the development and support of open-source software for wave energy converter...

Staff Page • Member of Technical Staff. Biography Adam K. Summers is a Senior Member of the Technical Staff in the Electric Power Systems Research Department at Sandia National Laboratories. He holds a Master’s in electrical engineering from The University of New Mexico focused on electric power systems. He is a Member of...

Staff Page • CFD and Aeronautical Researcher. Biography Dr. Alan Hsieh is a CFD and Aeronautical Researcher in the Wind Energy Computational Sciences Department at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, NM. His current research interests include the verification, validation, and uncertainty quantification of wind farm computational models, atmospheric boundary layer simulations of different...

Staff Page • Mechanical Engineer. Biography Alex Bates is a Senior Member of Technical Staff in the Power Sources Technology Group at Sandia National Laboratories. Alex has been working in the energy storage field for 15 years including direct work on fuel cells, flow batteries, Li-ion batteries, and solid-state batteries. His current work...

Staff Page • Postdoctoral Appointee. Biography Alicia Keow is a postdoctoral appointee in the Water Power Technologies Program at Sandia National Laboratories. Her research focuses on the use of control co-design methodologies to develop next generation Marine Hydrokinetic (MHK) systems. Alicia received her bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Wichita State University in...

Staff Page • Physicist. Biography Amalie L. Frischknecht is a Principle Member of Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories, and a staff scientist at the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies (CINT), a DOE Nanoscale Science Research Center and user facility at Sandia and Los Alamos National Labs. She received her PhD in Physics from...

Staff Page • Laboratory Technologist. Research Interests Ceramics ProcessingNanomaterialsXRD analysisTissue processing, RNA extraction Education M.Sc. in Biomedical Science, University of New Mexico (Albuquerque, NM), 2015M.Sc. in Biology, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (Socorro, NM), 2012B.Sc. in Biology, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (Socorro, NM), 2008 Publications

Staff Page • Principal Member of Technical Staff. Biography Amanda Wachtel is a principal member of technical staff in the Mathematical Analysis and Decision Sciences Department at Sandia National Laboratories. Her primary research areas include resilience, system-of-systems modeling and simulation, and developing analytical capabilities for DoD, DOE, defense energy, and community applications. She...

Staff Page • R&D S&E, Chemistry. Biography Since 2018, Andrea Ambrosini has been a Principal Member of the Technical Staff in the Concentrating Solar Technologies department. Andrea’s research involves the synthesis, characterization, and development of functional oxide materials for renewable energy applications, particularly concentrating solar power and solar-thermal chemistry. She has over 50...

Staff Page • Principal Member of Technical Staff. Biography Andrea Mammoli is a Principal Member of Technical Staff in the Resilient Energy and Distributed Systems Integration program. Andrea was a Director’s Postdoctoral Fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory between 1995 and 1997 and joined the University of New Mexico’s Department of Mechanical Engineering...

Staff Page • Mechanical Engineer. Research Interests Fire Modeling, Heat Transfer, Inverse Problems, Bayesian Statistics, Wildland Fire, Fire Forensics, Parallel Programming, Machine Learning Education Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, The University of Texas (Austin,TX), 2017M.S. in Mechanical Engineering, The University of Texas (Austin, TX), 2013B.S. in Mechanical Engineering, The University of Texas (AustinTX), 2011...

Staff Page • R&D, S&E Mechanical Engineer . Biography Ansel Blumenthal is a mechanical engineer and member of the technical staff in the Concentrating Solar Power program at Sandia National Laboratories. Ansel’s research includes the refurbishment of the National Solar Thermal Test Facility heliostat field with new heliostat dual axis controller hardware and...

Staff Page • Manager. Biography Anthony Martino manages the Photovoltaics (PV) and Materials Technology Department at Sandia National Laboratories. The Department’s Applied Research and Development (R&D) programs focus on performance characterization and models, reliability, degradation, and new materials and fabrication technologies for PV modules and systems. Materials R&D is leading to new PV...

Staff Page • Electrical Engineer. Biography Atri Bera is a Senior Member of Technical Staff in the Energy Storage Technology and Systems Department at Sandia National Laboratories. He received the B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from National Institute of Technology Durgapur, India, in 2015, and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Michigan State...

Staff Page • Controls Engineer. Biography Austin (Gerrit) Motes provides engineering support to multiple projects across the Wind Energy Design and Experimentation and Water Power Technologies Departments at Sandia National Laboratories. While he specializes in dynamics and controls, Gerrit has experience with engineering change management, test and acceptance, electromechanical sensors and actuators, microcontrollers...

Staff Page • Senior Scientist, Grid Modernization and Energy Storage. Biography Dr. Babu Chalamala is a Senior Scientist at Sandia National Laboratories. From 2015-2022, he was head of the Energy Storage Technology and Systems Department and Program Manager for Grid Energy Storage at the laboratory. Prior to joining Sandia in 2015, he was...

Staff Page • Wind Energy Market Barrier Mitigation Researcher. Biography Benjamin leads the Wind Turbine Radar Interference Mitigation (WTRIM) activities for the Wind Energy Design and Experimentation Department at Sandia National Laboratories. He has been a member of the Wind Energy Department since July 2007, and has experience in electric power systems, including...

Staff Page • Systems Analyst / Data Scientist. Biography Benjamin (Ben) Pierce is a member of the Photovoltaics and Materials Technology Program at Sandia National Laboratories. His current research focuses on improving yield of photovoltaic tracker systems using machine learning, as well as systems and database management of photovoltaic data. Ben earned a...

Staff Page • Chemist—MHK Advanced Materials & Coatings. Biography Bernadette A. Hernandez-Sanchez has been with the Water Power Technologies Program since 2009 and is a principal member of the technical staff. Bernadette leads the Advanced Materials Program and the Department of Energy’s MHK Composite Materials Database. The applied research and development from these...

Staff Page • Testing and Operations Engineer. Biography Brandon Davis is a senior member of the engineering staff in Sandia National Laboratories’ Wind Energy Design and Experimentation Department. Since 2010 he has worked in renewable energy technologies and has a background in electrical power systems and control. Since joining the department, he has...

Staff Page • Rotor Aeroelastic Lead. Biography Dr. Brandon Ennis joined Sandia National Laboratories in 2014 and is a member of the Wind Energy Computational Sciences Department. He has supported multiple projects performing rotor structural design as the aeroelastics lead for the National Rotor Testbed and offshore vertical-axis wind turbine projects, wind turbine...

Staff Page • Member of Technical Staff. Biography Brent G. Austgen is a Member of the Technical Staff in the Electric Power Systems Research Department at Sandia National Laboratories. He attained his Ph.D. degree (2024) and M.S. degree (2019) in operations research at The University of Texas at Austin and his B.S. degree...