Energy Policy Research Conference

Dr. Kathleen Araújo is Associate Professor of Energy Innovation Systems and Policy, and Director of the Energy Policy Institute at Boise State University, the policy arm of the Center for Advanced Energy Studies, a consortium of public universities plus Idaho National Laboratory. She works to advance critical decision-making on energy systems change in line with priorities that include resilience, security, and industrial development. Her book Low Carbon Energy Transitions: Turning Points in National Policy and Innovation (Oxford University Press) provides an in-depth look at four, socio-technical system transformations that occurred since the global oil crisis of 1973. Dr. Araújo is the Book Series Editor for Routledge’s Studies in Energy Transitions and consults for governmental/inter-governmental organizations as well as industry.

Camila Apablaza is a Ph.D. student in public policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology, specializing in energy and environmental policy, and a Fulbright scholar. She is interested in the intersection between technology, policy and economics. Currently, her research is aimed at understanding the motivations of different sectors of society that lead to the adoption of alternative fuel vehicles. Camila is originally from Chile and she hopes to contribute to the decarbonization of transportation in Chile and the rest of Latin America in the future.

Michelle Arnold is originally from Upstate New York and received her B.S. in Conservation Biology at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. Her research interests center around human-energy interactions. This includes doing research on traditional along with alternative energy sources. Michelle’s dissertation at Utah State University focuses on whether alternative liquid biofuels are not only a viable option, but also feasible and desirable in the United States.

Youngsun Baek is an energy modeler for the Climate & Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Prior to joining UCS, Dr. Baek worked as a research and development associate at the Power and Energy Systems Group in the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and as a graduate research assistant at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she co-authored several reports on clean energy. Dr. Baek has an M.A. in economics from Seoul National University, and a B.S. in environmental science and engineering from Ewha Womans University in South Korea. She earned a PhD in public policy from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her current research interests are demand-side policies such as energy efficiency and demand response considering energy consumer behavior.

Mayur Bandekar is a senior at the University of Michigan studying environmental science, earth science, and is completing a minor in business through the Ross School of Business. He has a background of playing classical piano for over 10 years, and relishes reading anything from Japanese anime to literary classics. He also enjoys taking part in rigorous exercise, including weightlifting, CrossFit, and running in his free time. Mayur’s career interests rely primarily in the energy industry, where he hopes to make significant change in a future position that intersects with the private energy sector and governmental entities.

Galen Barbose is a Research Scientist in the Electricity Markets and Policy Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Galen has worked at the lab for 18 years, conducting research on issues in the electricity industry surrounding renewable energy, energy efficiency, and electric system planning. Galen is one of the principal investigators leading the group’s solar energy-related research activities, with a focus on PV system pricing dynamics, adoption trends, and utility rates and regulatory policy.

John Bell is a Graduate Research Student of Electrical Engineering at the University of Idaho. He currently focuses his studies in electrical grid stability and security. John is currently part of a research team working on the cyber security of HVDC control systems. Before joining the University of Idaho, he was a student at Brigham Young University Idaho where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. During his time at BYU-Idaho he was a part of the ASME aerospace and human-powered vehicle challenge teams. In his free time, he enjoys racing motorcycles or snowboarding during the winter months.

David Bernell is an Associate Professor of Political Science in the School of Public Policy at Oregon State University. His research and teaching focus on US energy policy and energy security, international security, and international political economy. He is the author of the book, The Energy Security Dilemma: US Policy and Practice.  He formerly served as an appointee in the Clinton Administration with the US Office of Management and Budget in the Natural Resources, Energy, Science and Water divisions; and with the US Department of the Interior as an Advisor on Trade and the Environment.

Valerie Brader is the CEO of Rivenoak Consulting and a co-owner of Rivenoak Law, P.C..  Her professional life revolves around navigating the intersection of business and government, primarily in the energy and environmental spaces.  Known as a change agent, Brader has worked in both the public and private sector. Most recently she served as the State of Michigan’s cabinet member for energy.  A Rhodes Scholar and published author in both the legal and scientific presses, Brader has degrees from Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges, Oxford University, and Georgetown University Law School, and has taught at the University of Michigan Law School.

Gerald Braun is a solar industry veteran and founding director of federal, state, utility and university-based renewable energy R&D programs.  He founded and manages the Integrated Renewable Energy Systems Network (IRESN, Inc.), a registered nonprofit business league advancing local energy collaboration and clean energy integration in the US.  He chairs the Valley Clean Energy Community Advisory Committee and is a member and former chair of the Gas Technology Institute Public Interest Advisory Committee and the City of Davis Utility Rate Advisory Commission.  He holds degrees in mechanical and nuclear engineering from the University of Michigan and MIT.

Dr. Breetz is a political scientist who studies the political economy of alternative energy, focusing on biofuels and synthetic fuels. Her research investigates both the drivers of alternative energy policy – including the role of interest groups, decision-making institutions, and information about science and technology – as well as the impact of energy policy on innovation and technological change.

Since graduating as an electronics engineer in 2004, JP Carvallo has been working, studying, and researching different aspects of the energy field. His current interests relate to varied topics in sustainable development for less industrialized economies, with a geographical focus in Latin America and Asia. He brings together different disciplines – engineering, economics, political science, and sociology – to study long term evolution of high renewable energy penetration electricity grids, alternative energy systems, and rural energy access, among others. His theoretical interests encompass market design, institutional emergence, innovation, and change, technology adoption as a social construction, and theoretical aspects of the policy process.

Ben Chou is a graduate student at Pennsylvania State University pursuing a master’s degree in Geographic Information Systems (GIS). He has more than ten years of experience in the public and non-profit sectors and is currently working for the City of Santa Clarita, CA. He has worked previously for the City of Burbank, CA; the Natural Resources Defense Council; and the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality. He is a graduate of the University of South Carolina and Columbia University.

Wesley Cole is a senior electricity sector modeler and analyst in the Economics and Forecasting Group at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). His work focuses on capacity expansion modeling of the U.S. power system. Within this domain, he specializes in renewable energy integration, battery storage market potential, and impacts of high solar penetration futures. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin and his B.S. at Brigham Young University, both in chemical engineering.

Steve Dahlke is a PhD candidate at Colorado School of Mines and will be working as a DOE solar energy innovators research fellow in partnership with First Solar during 2019 and 2020.

Dr. Naïm Darghouth is a Senior Scientific and Engineering Associate in the Electricity Markets and Policy Group at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Naïm conducts research and analysis on renewable energy policy, both US and international, including electricity rate design and its impact on the value of residential renewable energy systems, economics of renewable energy technologies, and federal and state energy policies. Naïm has a masters and PhD in Energy and Resources from UC Berkeley, and holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Cornell University and Georgia Tech, respectively.

Jenny Frank is a PhD student in the Sustainable Energy program in the Department of Forest and Natural Resources Management at SUNY ESF. Her research focuses on the integration of stochastic methodology into techno-economic analyses for renewable energy pathways.

Will Frazier studied physics at the University of Nevada, Reno and Materials Science & Engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder. His graduate research was in the development of transparent and insulating materials for window retrofitting purposes. During his graduate career Will also studied energy policy and modelling within the Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute, a joint institute between CU Boulder and NREL. Will has been part of the Economics & Forecasting group at NREL since his graduation in 2018, where he has worked on the representation of variable generators and storage in NREL’s ReEDS capacity expansion model.

Dr. Gardner is a professor of mechanical and biomedical engineering at Boise State and directs the energy efficiency activities at the Center for Advanced Energy Studies. John recently spent 6 months at the Universities of Melbourne and Auckland studying advanced control of microgrids. He has published more than 60 peer-reviewed research publications, 2 textbooks, co-inventor of 3 US Patents and gave a talk in the TEDxBoise conference earlier this year.  John is a registered professional engineer in the state of Idaho and a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

David Gattie’s research is focused on comprehensive energy policy and integrated resource planning in the electric power sector. He is a Resident Fellow in UGA’s Center for International Trade and Security where he engages in collaborative research on energy security and the national security implications of nuclear power. Dr. Gattie also leads UGA’s solar tracking demonstration project.

Rob serves as the Director of the University of Wyoming’s Center for Energy Economics and Public Policy, and is also a member of the Economics Department at UW. His research areas include natural resource, energy and environmental economics, industrial organization and macroeconomic policy where he has authored books and journal articles. He has also prepared studies for the Wyoming government on energy, economic development, labor market and education policy. His comments also often appear in the international, national and local media. Rob’s passions outside of work include sports-car and bicycle racing, both of which he has participated in rather unsuccessfully.

Will Gorman is a graduate student in the Energy and Resources Group at UC Berkeley and a researcher in the Electricity Markets and Policy Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. His research focuses on the economics of distributed energy resources, the integration of variable generation into electric systems, and the impact of autonomous and electric vehicles. Will received his M.S. in Energy and Resources from the University of California, Berkeley and is currently working towards his Ph.D. in the same department. He has a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and a B.A. in Plan II Honors from The University of Texas at Austin.

At the Chan Lab at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs, Matt researches the ever-changing politics, institutions, and economics of distributed energy resources, electric utilities, and decarbonization. Current projects include community solar policy and business model development for low-income and wholesale markets. Prior to Humphrey, Matt worked in environmental advocacy, journalism, and education. He received both his M.S. in Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy and B.A. in English from the University of Minnesota.

Emily Grubert studies how we can make better decisions about large infrastructure systems, with a particular focus on societal priorities and energy and water systems in the US. Grubert is an Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and, by courtesy, of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She holds a Ph.D. in Environment and Resources from Stanford University.

Jason Johnson is originally from San Francisco and has lived overseas for more than 10 years. He is a lecturer, consultant and start-up coach for environmentally friendly enterprises. Johnson earned his BA from the University of California, Santa Barbara, his JD and MBA from Chapman University, School of Law and his Masters of Laws, International and European Energy Law from Technische Universität Berlin.

Anna Karmazina was born and raised in Tomsk (a Russian city also known as the Siberian Athens because of its numerous universities and huge student population). By virtue of the Fulbright Scholarship, Anna came to Oregon State University where she is currently pursuing a PhD degree in Public Policy. For her PhD research project, Anna is examining determinants of, and variation in, state-level policies and practices related to demand response in the U.S. electricity sector. Away from the books, Anna enjoy listening to live music and exploring new places.

Lynne Kiesling’s research in transactive energy uses transaction cost economics to examine regulation, market design, and technology in the development of retail markets, products and services and the economics of smart grid technologies in the electricity industry. She is currently serving as a member of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Smart Grid Advisory Committee. She has a B.S. in Economics from Miami University and a Ph.D. in Economics from Northwestern University.

Andrew Kleit is a Professor of Energy and Environmental Economics at Penn State. Professor Kleit is the founder of Penn State’s innovative undergraduate program in Energy Business and Finance. He teaches classes in energy risk management, energy market competition, and energy contracts. He has been at Penn State since 1998.  He has also worked for several government agencies. Professor Kleit’s research focuses on how energy markets operate, and the impact of government policies on them. He is the author of over 80 publications in refereed journals, and six books, including Modern Energy Market Manipulation (Emerald, 2018).

Benjamin is a research associate at Boise State University’s Idaho Policy Institute. He is engaged in a number of research projects including renewable energy surveying, health insurance network research, and housing insecurity and homelessness. Ben’s broader research interests include social movements, policy change, LGBT studies and legislative behavior. Ben has taught a range of courses, including American government, quantitative techniques, research methods and LGBTQ+ policy.

Stephanie Lenhart is a Senior Research Associate with the Energy Policy Institute, part of the Center for Advanced Energy Studies, and is faculty in the School of Public Service at Boise State University. She studies energy system governance, environmental policy implementation, and inter-organizational collaboration. Recent work has focused on decision-making by public utilities and electric cooperatives and inter-organizational collaboration in regional transmission organizations.

Kristin McGill currently resides near Portland, Oregon with her husband and their pup. She obtained a dual B.S. from the Florida State University in 2005, M.S. from American Public University in 2015, and will be graduating with her Ph.D. in Public Policy and Administration in January 2020. Kristin has worked in the environmental or energy field for over a decade, and has volunteer with local community organizations in her spare time. She loves traveling and hopes to reach every continent in her lifetime.

Dr. Shaun McRae specializes in the industrial organization and regulation of energy markets. His research focuses on how households respond to nonlinear electricity tariffs and how this affects electric utilities. He also analyzes the behavior of electricity generation firms in wholesale markets. Related to hydrocarbon markets, Shaun has studied the effects of pipeline infrastructure projects as well as the gasoline consumption and purchasing behavior of drivers. Shaun has a particular interest in energy markets in low and middle-income countries and has worked with the World Bank and the IADB on projects related to electricity tariff design in Africa and Latin America.

Sarah Mills is a Senior Project Manager at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, where she directs the Renewable Energy Policy Initiative and the Center’s Energy and Environmental Policy Initiative. Sarah’s research considers how renewable energy development impacts rural communities, the disparate reactions of rural landowners to such projects, and how state and local policies facilitate or hinder renewable energy deployment. She also conducts applied research and outreach with local governments across the state on planning for renewable energy, and provides technical assistance to communities for meeting their clean energy goals. She has a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Michigan, a master’s in engineering for sustainable development from the University of Cambridge, a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Villanova University.

Stefi Mitova’s work and interests are in the field of clean energy technology and innovation: particularly solar energy and electric vehicles. Research areas focus on optimizing the transformative potential of these technologies; building/transportation energy impacts; integration into urban and infrastructural systems, etc. Sustainable energy production/consumption has been analyzed from environmental/energy, economic, and technological point of view. Over the years Stefi has worked on electric vehicles at Sunrun, the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (Washington DC); environmental footprint methodologies at the European Union (Brussels, Belgium); clean energy accreditation at the United Nations (Bonn, Germany), among others.

Evvan Morton is a Sustainable Engineering PhD student at Arizona State University. Evvan’s research discovers how using a waste management approach to managing carbon dioxide emissions may help to combat climate change. This includes understanding how this waste management approach effectively integrates current environmental policies with negative emissions technologies. Her other projects include developing waste management strategies using anaerobic digestion in Belize and analyzing the food-water-energy nexus concerning concentrating solar power in Morocco. Upon graduation, Evvan plans to work for a US government agency or think tank to develop and analyze innovative policies for transitioning to a sustainable energy future.

Alex is a human-environment geographer whose interests focus on the energy, water and climate change nexus. He has a background in both Human and Physical Geography and also completed a graduate certificate in GIS. His Ph.D. research will seek to engage in projects in the Northwestern United States and Latin America that look at renewable energy projects, water resource sustainability initiatives, and how climate change influences these issues.

John is a graduate student in nuclear engineering at the University of Idaho in Idaho Falls. His research interests are primarily in the areas of nuclear cybersecurity and nuclear power plant design and simulation. He has worked with researchers at the Idaho National Laboratory and the International Atomic Energy Agency Environment Laboratories in Monaco on topics ranging from environmental policy to nuclear power plant regulation and safety.

Dr. Kody Powell is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Utah. His research is focused on finding ways to make complex energy systems more efficient, reliable, and cost effective. His research group uses the tools of system design, modeling, advanced controls, and optimization to develop energy systems where the individual components are synergistic and lead to a global, systems-level optimum. Dr. Powell is also the director of a U.S. DOE-funded Industrial Assessment Center, which focuses on improving energy efficiency for industrial facilities. Dr. Powell received his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin.

Jessica Price is Renewable Energy Strategy Lead for the Nature Conservancy in New York. With an interdisciplinary background, Jessica applies both natural and social science expertise to develop strategies that address large-scale challenges affecting both people and nature, including clean energy solutions to meet New York’s ambitious renewable energy goals and lower greenhouse gas emissions, projects to build community resilience to climate change, and nature-based approaches to improve the health of people and ecosystems in urban landscapes. Prior to moving to New York, Jessica partnered with The Nature Conservancy in Wisconsin and Michigan to help land managers and conservation practitioners understand the possible outcomes of alternative land management strategies and climate change impacts on their forests and wetlands using spatial landscape modeling.  She also worked as a scientific writer and editor at the University of Chicago. Jessica received her PhD in Landscape Ecology at the University of Wisconsin Madison where she was a National Science Foundation Integrative Graduate Education and Research Fellow.

Thomas Ptak is a human-environment geographer. His work is driven by a strong motivation to help solve some of the world’s most pressing human and ecological challenges, which are often embedded within processes linked to the production, distribution, consumption and storage of energy. The range of challenges covered by Dr. Ptak’s research include human-induced climate change, energy centered inequality, access and exploitation of resources, uneven, unsustainable and inequitable development, water, food & energy security.

Daniel Raimi is a Senior Research Associate at Resources for the Future and a lecturer at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. He works on a range of energy policy issues with a focus on oil and gas regulation and taxation and climate change policy. Current research examines the future of oil and gas development in the United States, with a focus on how producing communities are managing near-term impacts while planning for the future. Raimi is the author of The Fracking Debate (Columbia U. Press, 2017), is currently developing a new book on climate change, and hosts Resources Radio, a weekly podcast from Resources for the Future, in which he interviews leading researchers on energy and environmental topics.

Ashwin Ramdas is part of the Distributed Systems and Storage group at NREL and works mainly with the Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) and Distributed Generation (dGen) team. He focuses on projecting distributed generation adoption and creating models to project PV costs.

Dakota Roberson is an Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Idaho, where he is an Associate of the Center for Advanced Energy Studies. Dakota leads an interdisciplinary research team studying electrical grid stability and security and is an appointed Nuclear Engineering Affiliate Faculty.  Before joining the University of Idaho, he was with Sandia National Laboratories.  Dakota was awarded a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering with a Graduate Minor in Statistics at the University of Wyoming and holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering, Minor Mathematics, from the same institution.

Dr. Ryu joined the management faculty at New Mexico Tech in 2017. While at NMT, he is teaching economics, management, and policy courses. He is also taking an active role in promoting entrepreneurship on campus by championing the state-wide Studio G program and advising the student entrepreneurship club. Before coming to NMT, he was an assistant policy researcher at RAND Corporation and a Christine Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. After serving as a military officer in the Corps of Engineering, he worked as a patent information analyst and consultant for small businesses’ technology commercialization for five years.

Sandra Sattler is a senior energy modeler in the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. She analyzes and models clean energy, energy efficiency, and global warming policies at the state, regional, and national level. She also quantifies the economic, environmental, and public health impacts that such policies would have on society. Ms. Sattler joined UCS in 2008 after working as an engineer at TIAX LLC and earning her doctorate in mechanical engineering at Cornell University. She holds a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Columbia University and a B.A. in mathematics and physics from Whitman College.

Todd Schenk is an Assistant Professor in the School of Public and International Affairs at Virginia Tech, and an affiliate of VT’s Global Change Center. He has extensive research, teaching and consulting experience working on environmental policy and collaborative governance issues around the world. He received a Ph.D. in Public Policy and Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, served as the Assistant Director of the MIT Science Impact Collaborative, and held a research fellowship with the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School. Dr. Schenk has also held positions with the Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe and the Consensus Building Institute.

Bob Schmitt is an economist with an undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin and did his graduate work at MIT. He has worked most of his career at the Department of Energy. In his first stint at the DOE Policy Office, he worked on oil, natural gas, transportation and environmental regulatory issues. At the Energy Information Administration, he worked on finance, investment, and upstream oil and natural gas issues and data. Back for a second stint at the DOE Policy Office, Bob works on a variety of issues, including energy water issues.

Dr. Joachim (Jo) Seel is a Scientific Engineering Associate at the Electricity Markets and Policy Group at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. His research focuses on solar and wind market developments, and the integration of high shares of intermittent and distributed renewable generation into electricity markets. He presented in front of the California Governor, the California Energy and Public Utilities Commissions, and at academic and industry conferences. Joachim holds a PhD in Energy and Resources and a Master in Public Policy from UC Berkeley and a BA in International Politics and History from the Jacobs University in Germany.

Brian is a research engineer in NREL’s Power Systems Design and Studies group. His work primarily focuses on applying modeling, optimization, and policy analysis methods to questions related to transition in the electric power sector and to energy systems more broadly. He is also interested in exploring how public perceptions and preferences affect energy use and the adoption of new technologies or policies. Brian completed his PhD in Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon and has previous experience at the Science and Technology Policy Institute and the Breakthrough Institute.

Braeton Smith is a postdoctoral researcher with Argonne National Laboratory. His research is primarily concerned with issues related to supply chains for critical and strategic minerals used in clean energy and defense technologies. During his graduate studies at the Colorado School of Mines (CSM), Braeton supported the U.S. Department of Energy’s Critical Materials Institute (CMI) in its efforts to assess the criticality of materials in clean energy technology and developed and applied methods for quantifying material substitutability. He also served for 9 years as an intern and contractor with Sandia National Laboratories, where he conducted economic consequence analysis for hypothetical and real disruptions to the nation’s critical infrastructure. He holds PhD and MS degrees in Mineral and Energy Economics from the Colorado School of Mines (CSM), a MS in Applied Economics from Oregon State University, and a BA in Economics from the University of New Mexico.

Esteban Soto is an Industrial Engineer, Master in Industrial Management, and he is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Technology at Purdue University. Before beginning his postgraduate studies in the United States, he worked at the Ministry of Energy of Chile in charge of the implementation of the Energetic Efficiency program in the Biobio Region. His areas of interest are Innovation and technology transfer, mainly linked to the development of new technologies friendly to the environment.

Greg Stelmach is a PhD student in the School of Public Policy at Oregon State University.  His research interests include electricity demand response in residential households and public attitudes towards the export of fossil fuels, particularly liquefied natural gas.

Brady Stoll is an engineer in the Strategic Energy Analysis Center at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Her primary research focus is on capacity expansion modeling for high renewable energy futures, particularly using the Resource Planning Model, and analysis of demand response in production cost models. She received her Ph.D. In Mechanical Engineering in May 2015 from the University of Texas at Austin analyzing global use of solar power and storage.

Tenzin Dawa Thargay is a first-generation Tibetan American from Boston, MA and first-year student at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. He is pursuing a  Master of International Affairs and concentrating in Energy and Environment. Thargay was a Fulbright Scholar in Seoul, South Korea at Hanyang University’s Center for Energy Governance and Security where he researched intersections of anthropology and security in energy studies. Thargay is 2019 U.S. Department of State Charles B. Rangel Fellow and will enter the U.S. Foreign Service in 2021 serving as a Foreign Service Officer.

Jamie Van Nostrand is a Professor and Director of the Center for Energy and Sustainable Development at the WVU College of Law. Previously, he was Executive Director of the Pace Energy and Climate Center in White Plains, New York. Prior to his transition to law school teaching, he was a partner in the energy and environmental practice groups of large law firms based in the Pacific Northwest. Van Nostrand received his LL.M. in Environmental Law from the Pace School of Law, his J.D. from the University of Iowa College of Law, his master’s degree in economics from SUNY at Albany, and an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of Northern Iowa.

Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Tim Tatum is responsible for the management of economic regulatory activities in both the Idaho and Oregon retail jurisdictions and with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).

Tatum began his career with Idaho Power in 1996 in the company’s Customer Service department. He spent six years there before assuming the role of economic analyst supporting the implementation of Idaho Power’s energy efficiency programs.

In 2004 he joined the Regulatory Affairs department as a regulatory analyst, and has served as a company witness in numerous regulatory proceedings relating to revenue requirements and rate design as well as the company’s energy efficiency program activities.

Tatum was promoted to cost of service manager in 2008. In that role he was responsible for the company’s revenue requirement determinations and other cost of service studies used to support the ratemaking process. In 2015, Tatum was promoted to general manager of regulatory affairs where his responsibilities broadened to include rate design, integrated resource planning and matters related to power purchases under the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act, or PURPA.

Tatum holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in economics and Master of Business Administration from Boise State University. He completed the University of Idaho Utility Executive Course in 2012 and is currently on the faculty for that course.