Director for Policy & Analysis for NYSERDA

Vlad is the Director for Policy & Analysis at NYSERDA. He oversees multiple teams charged with ensuring continued energy security, developing policy to advance the state’s Climate Act targets on emissions, equity and workforce development, and overseeing projects to quantitively understand the economic, energy and distributional impacts of these policy choices. In this role, he was a major contributor to the Scoping Plan and its Integration Analysis. He is current engaged in a variety of efforts essential to New York’s clean energy future, including development of the forthcoming Cap-and-Invest program, decarbonizing the electricity system, natural gas system planning, the State Energy Plan, and more. Before joining NYSERDA in 2021, Vlad was a leading clean energy advocate in Washington State, where he helped design and enact a range of marquee policies, including that state’s cap-and-invest, Clean Fuel Standard, and 100% clean electricity laws.

Program Manager of DOE Solar Grid Integration R&D

Dr. Guohui Yuan is the program manager for the systems integration (SI) subprogram within the Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO). He holds a B.S. degree from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China and a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, College Park, both in physics. His team supports research, development, and demonstration of technologies and solutions to enable the widespread deployment of solar energy on the nation’s electricity grid.

Dr. Yuan has been supporting SETO as a technical advisor since 2011. Previously, he held several key positions at industry-leading clean technology startups, including CURRENT Group, GridPoint, and WaveCrest Labs. Early in his career, he worked at COMSAT Labs as a systems scientist. He is a recognized thought leader and has many technical publications. He holds nine patents.

President & CEO at NYISO

Mr. Dewey joined the NYISO in 2000 and has held several pivotal executive roles in Product and Project Management, Strategic Software Development and Quality Assurance.

Previously, he spent several years in IT and Network Services for Husky Injection Molding Systems and Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation. He earned a B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Clarkson University, a M.S. in Computer Engineering from Syracuse University, and is a graduate of Harvard Business School’s General Management Program.

President of UAlbany

Dr. Havidán Rodríguez is the 20th president of the University at Albany, one of the nation’s most diverse research universities. The first Hispanic/Latino president of a SUNY four-year institution, he took office in September 2017. Dr. Rodríguez earned a B.S. in psychology from the University of Maryland, an M.A. in sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Dr. Rodríguez has received funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Ford Foundation, the National Institute of Mental Health, FEMA, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the UPRM Sea Grant Program, among others, for a number of research projects focusing on the social science aspects of disasters and for projects aimed at providing hands-on research training and mentoring to undergraduate and graduate students, as well as faculty. He has served as the principal investigator for the NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Program: Training the Next Generation of Disaster Researchers; and for NSF ADVANCE Adaptation and Institutional Transformation grants aimed at increasing the representation, participation, and leadership of women faculty in STEM fields. He was also one of the project leaders for the AASCU FRONTIER SET PROJECT focusing on student success, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

In addition to Dr. Rodríguez’s numerous journal articles and book chapters in the areas of disasters as well as Latinos/as in the United States, his publications include Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico: Disaster, Vulnerability & Resiliency (co-edited with Mora and Dávila, 2021); the Handbook of Disaster Research 2nd Edition (co-edited with Donner and Trainor, 2018); and Population, Migration, and Socioeconomic Outcomes among Island and Mainland Puerto Ricans: La Crisis Boricua (coauthored with Mora and Dávila, 2017), among others. Dr. Rodríguez has also led and participated in a number of field research projects, including trips to Honduras following Hurricane Mitch; India and Sri Lanka following the Indian Ocean Tsunami; the Gulf Coast following Hurricane Katrina; and Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria.

Conference Chair

Dr. Bruce Bailey currently serves as the Executive in Residence at the NYSTAR Center of Excellence in Weather & Climate Analytics at UAlbany. He has an undergraduate degree in Atmospheric Sciences from Cornell University and a doctorate in Engineering Management from California Coast University. His career began as a Research Associate at UAlbany’s Atmospheric Sciences Research Center, where he became the manager of wind energy programs.

He eventually left the Center to run the technical consulting firm he founded—AWS Truepower—which specialized in meteorological and engineering-related services to the clean energy and air quality sectors. His firm grew to become one of the renewable energy industry’s largest and most-respected consultancies. In 2016 the firm was acquired by UL, a global safety science company, where Bruce became its VP for Renewables. He has since retired from UL.

In addition to his current role at UAlbany, Bruce gives guest lectures, serves on multiple boards, is a technical reviewer for the Renewable Energy journal, and leads development of the new Virtual Offshore Wind Energy Laboratory and Simulator (VOWELS) program. He has also established an Endowed Fellowship at UAlbany that encourages interdisciplinary research for the deployment of grid-connected renewable energy using innovative insights from the atmospheric sciences and other fields.

UAlbany's Vice President for Research & Economic Development

Vice President Dr. Kesavadas was the founding director of the University of Illinois Urbana-

Champaign’s Health Care Engineering Systems Center (HCESC), the largest endowed center in the University of Illinois system. In the center he managed research, IP and commercialization, data warehouse management (HIPAA), regulatory affairs, IRB and human subject protocols, student exchange, graduate programs, external partnerships, government relations, etc. HCESC has 186 members and affiliates.

The Center collaborated and funded research in engineering, social and behavioral sciences, education, applied health sciences, medicine, and veterinary medicine. Twenty research laboratories and institutes, and affiliated hospitals, including Mayo clinic, are supported through the program. A professor of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and a member of the inaugural faculty of the Carle-Illinois College of Medicine, Dr. Kesavadas was named a distinguished University Presidential Executive Leadership Fellow in 2019.

Dr. Kesavadas previously served as a faculty member at the University at Buffalo, where he advanced his research interests in medical robotics, virtual reality/augmented reality in healthcare, manufacturing automation and design of systems. Dr. Kesavadas received his B. Tech degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Calicut, India in 1985, his M. Tech degree in Aircraft Production Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras in 1987, and his Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from The Pennsylvania State University in 1995.

Director, NYS Weather & Climate Analytics Center of Excellence

Jan Timothy Woodcock is the Director of Operations for the NYS Weather and Climate Analytics Center of Excellence. Mr. Woodcock has deep experience driving innovation and transformation in High Tech Industries. He was a senior partner at Deloitte Consulting, Global Partner at Wipro Technologies, and Transformation Leader at Cognizant. His industry experience encompasses the Fortune 100, the small business sector, and Venture Funded start-ups. He specializes in the areas of strategy and operations, with experience spanning data analytics, financial management, customer and product strategy, and digital transformation. His Reverse Innovation research drove a CEO panel at the Davos World Economic Forum.

Director of Atmospheric Sciences Research Center at UAlbany

Dr. Christopher Thorncroft is Director of the Atmospheric Sciences Research Center and a Professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, both at the University at Albany, State University of New York. He is also the Director of the Center of Excellence in Weather and Climate Analytics and of the New York State Mesonet. The NYS Mesonet, a network of 126 automatic weather stations throughout NYS, supports applied research for the economic benefit of NY State through key weather observations in support of protection of life and property. Dr. Thorncroft is Co-principal Investigator of the National Science Foundation funded Artificial Intelligence Institute, The Institute for Research on Trustworthy AI in Weather, Climate, and Coastal Oceanography (AI2ES).

Dr. Thorncroft is a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society and was recently awarded the 2023 American Meteorological Society Joanne Simpson Tropical Meteorology Research Award. He received his PhD in Meteorology from the University of Reading, UK.

Research Faculty, ASRC

Dr. Jeff Freedman is a researcher in ASRC's Boundary Layer Meteorology and Renewable Energy Groups, specializing in renewable energy and atmospheric boundary layer processes. Dr. Freedman’s research centers on advancing wind and solar power forecasting, outage prediction modeling, refining offshore wind energy approaches, and leveraging ASRC's assets for insights into weather and climate impact on renewable resources. Dr. Freedman earned his PhD at UAlbany’s Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, and ASRC. He also has a JD from New York Law School and is a member of the New York Bar. Previously, Dr. Freedman was an Associate Counsel with the New York City Department of Environmental Protection.