Sandia Energy > Programs > Renewable Energy > Photovoltaic Solar Energy > People > Thushara Gunda, PhD Thushara Gunda, PhD Engineer/Data Scientist Thushara Gunda is an engineer/data scientist working with the Photovoltaics (PV) and Materials Technology Program at Sandia National Laboratories. Her research focuses on leveraging data science to identify patterns in both time series (e.g., PV performance) and discrete event (e.g., PV O&M) datasets. Current projects are focused on using text analytics to gain insights into the impact of weather on O&M issues across climate regions and using machine learning to understand patterns in clipping. Her work is highly collaborative, engaging both industry partners as well as colleagues across national labs and research institutes. Dr. Gunda has bachelor’s in environmental sciences and environmental policy from the University of Virginia, and a PhD in environmental engineering from Vanderbilt University. Her dissertation focused on data-driven, interdisciplinary approaches to improve decision-making at the water-food nexus. Dr. Gunda’s work has been published in multiple peer-reviewed journals including the International Journal of Climatology, Environmental Research Letters, and Water Resources Research, and shared at various conference venues, including Solar PV Operations USA. Visit Thushara Gunda’s Google Scholar page.