Earth, Energy & Environmental Science

Staff Page • SWiFT Facility Site Lead. Biography Johnny Luevano is the site lead for the Scaled Wind Farm Technology (SWiFT) facility located at Texas Tech University’s National Wind Institute in Lubbock, Texas. He is a retired Marine who came to Sandia National Laboratories (Sandia) in 2017 with experience in the healthcare sector...

Staff Page • Wind Turbine Controls Lead. Biography Jon Berg is the technical lead for the SWiFT facility’s wind turbine control system and related software system in the Wind Energy Design and Experimentation Department. Much of his work is at the intersection of mechanical, electrical, and software systems—creating an integrated system design that...

Staff Page • Senior Member of the Technical Staff. Biography Jorge A. Leon-Quiroga, PhD, is a Senior Member of the Technical Staff in the Resilient Energy and Distributed Systems Integration (REDSI) group at Sandia National Laboratories. His research is focused on numerical modeling and power grid integration of energy systems, especially for marine...

Staff Page • Senior Member of Technical Staff. Biography Joe Azzolini is a Senior Member of the Technical Staff in the Electric Power Systems Research Department at Sandia National Laboratories. He holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Arizona State University with a specialization in Electric Power and Energy Systems and has 8+...

Staff Page • Blade Reliability Project Lead. Biography Josh Paquette is a member of the Wind Energy Design and Experimentation Department at Sandia National Laboratories. He currently leads wind turbine design and reliability research efforts within the group, including the U.S. Department of Energy-sponsored Blade Reliability Collaborative and the National Rotor Testbed project....

Staff Page • Senior Member of the Technical Staff. Biography Jubair Yusuf is a Senior Member of the Technical Staff in the Electric Power Systems Research Department at Sandia National Laboratories. He received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering with a specialization in Electric Power and Energy Systems from the University of California,...

Staff Page • R&D S&E Materials Science . Biography Kathryn A. Small is a materials scientist with expertise in additive manufacturing, advanced materials characterization, and materials evolution in extreme environments within Sandia National Laboratories’ Concentrating Solar Power program. She has multiple publications on electron microscopy and data analysis of additively manufactured metals, battery...

Staff Page • R&D S&E, Cybersecurity. Biography Keira Elliott currently works as a full-time staff member of Resilient Energy and Distributed System Integration (RDSI) working in R&D and S&E in Cybersecurity along with Jay Johnson, George Fragkos, Sherry Mitchell, and Will Vining. Prior to her appointment in RDSI, Keira worked as a research...

Staff Page • Wave Energy & Hydrodynamics. Biography Kelley Ruehl joined Sandia National Laboratories in 2011 as a researcher after completing her M.S. from Oregon State University. Kelley’s research is focused on numerical modeling, experimental testing, and software development for marine renewable energy applications. Kelley is the Principal Investigator and lead developer of...

Staff Page • Aerodynamic Diagnostics and Modeling Engineer. Biography Dr. Kenneth (Ken) Brown joined Sandia in 2019 and is a member of the Wind Energy Computational Sciences Department. He supports the Scaled Wind Farm Technology (SWiFT) experimental facility and contributes to validation of wind turbine wake models and discovery of novel wake control...

Staff Page • R&D S&E, Systems Engineering. Biography Dr. Kenneth Armijo is a systems engineering staff member who leads molten salt and molten alkali metals research and development at Sandia National Laboratories National Solar Thermal Test Facility (NSTTF). He holds a PhD in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, with minors...

Staff Page • Aeroelastic Software Development Lead. Biography Kevin Moore is a member of the Wind Energy Computational Sciences Department at Sandia National Laboratories. He currently leads aero-elastic and hydro-elastic control co-design, optimization and analysis for a wide variety of applications across the Labs, as well as the development of the OWENS open-source...

Staff Page • Hydrogeophysicist . Biography I am a hydrogeophysicist interested in radioactive waste disposal (especially in salt), hydraulic well/packer testing, parameter estimation and uncertainty quantification, flow and transport in low permeability rocks (e.g., salt and deep borehole for radioactive waste disposal), and coupled hydrogeophysical processes (i.e., electrokinetics, thermoporoelasticity, heat of wetting, and...

Staff Page • Senior Member of Technical Staff. Biography J. Kyle Skolfield is a Senior Member of Technical Staff in the Discrete Math and Optimization department at Sandia National Laboratories. His research interests include power system expansion planning, power system optimization, network resilience, discrete and combinatorial optimization, and process systems engineering. Education Ph.D.,...

Staff Page • Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff. Biography Dr. Laura Biedermann is a physicist in the Ceramics and Materials Physics department at Sandia National Laboratories. In her 15 years at Sandia, her research has impacted energy and water security, nuclear deterrence, and electronic materials development. In 2021, Laura earned a Society...

Staff Page • Scientist. Biography Dr. Laurie Burnham is a scientist in the Photovoltaics and Materials Technology Program at Sandia National Laboratories. She is a major contributor to multiple topics in photovoltaic research, including lifetime performance and reliability, design optimization, monitoring and characterization. Dr. Burnham is the technical lead of the US DOE...

Staff Page • Materials Scientist. Biography Leo Small is a materials scientist and electrochemist at Sandia National Laboratories. He received his B.S. degree from Cornell University and Ph.D. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, both in Materials Science. Over the past ten years, his work at Sandia National Laboratories has spanned the gamut from electrochemical...

Staff Page • Member of Technical Staff. Biography Logan Blakely received his Master of Computer Science degree, specializing in Machine Learning, from Portland State University in 2018. His research focus is in machine learning applied to power systems challenges, particularly in the intersection merging physics domain knowledge with machine learning techniques. Education Master...

Staff Page • Physicist, Battery Safety Lead. Biography Loraine joined Sandia in 2016 to conduct research and development into the safety and reliability of batteries under abusive conditions. The abuse testing work Loraine conducts evaluates batteries well outside of manufacturer recommended specifications and the severity of any catastrophic thermal runaway. Her work in...

Staff Page • Electrical Engineer. Biography Luciano A. Garcia Rodriguez is a postdoctoral appointee at Sandia National Laboratories. He is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). He received his B.S. in electronics engineering from the Universidad Nacional del Sur (UNS), Argentina in 2010. He also received his Ph.D....

Staff Page • R&D Mechanical Engineering. Biography Dr. Luke McLaughlin is a R&D Mechanical Engineer at the National Solar Thermal Test Facility at Sandia National Laboratories. He has researched problems involving thermal systems, solar energy, energy storage, heat and mass transfer, combustion, biomass conversion, aerosol characterization, and computational modelling. Dr. McLaughlin has authored...

Staff Page • Concentrating Solar Program Manager. Biography Dr. Margaret Gordon is the manager of Sandia National Laboratories’ Concentrating Solar Technologies Program at the National Solar Thermal Test Facility with a staff of over 25 engineers, scientists, technologists, and students. Margaret is a PhD inorganic chemist, who has 20 years of experience working...

Staff Page • Principal Member of the Technical Staff. Biography Marios Theristis leads the PV Performance Modeling and PV O&M Analytics programs at Sandia National Laboratories. His work focuses on PV performance modeling and applying data analytics to improve reliability, assess degradation and optimize O&M. He actively engages stakeholders through the PV Performance...