People
Researchers
Dr. Ning Lin is the Chief Economist of the Bureau of Economic Geology at The University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Lin has over 15 years of experience in advanced market analysis and technology-commercialization across natural gas, power, hydrogen, and downstream industrial value chains. Prior to UT Austin, she led global market analytics and commercial development at Shell Trading, Koch Industries, and Tenaska, with work spanning petrochemical derivatives, intermediate chemicals, polymers and fibers, and large capital project development, including technology licensing, market entry, and investment evaluation.
Dr. Arzumanyan is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Bureau of Economic Geology. Her work applies quantitative modeling and data-driven analysis to energy economics, infrastructure, and large-load industries such as data centers, biofuels, hydrogen, and ammonia. With a background in mathematics, economics, and data science, she focuses on clarifying the economic and policy dimensions of energy and natural resources to inform decision-makers in the community, government, and industry.
Mr. Chapman’s passion is delivering advanced technology that can change the world by satisfying the triple bottom line (financial, environmental, and societal profitability) with commercially sustainable competitive advantages. Mr. Chapman manages multiyear, cross-university research programs for the BEG, drawing on proven strengths in technical and business development, with 28 years’ experience developing advanced technology with UT Austin, Motorola, Intel, Research Triangle Institute, and SEMATECH.
Justin’s key expertise is water resource management and planning; a nexus of hydrology, policy, and economics. His dissertation research focused on relating groundwater management in Texas to hydro-economic impacts to pumping. Justin brings a multifaceted perspective to his research. He was an international project finance professional prior to his graduate studies and is proficient in Mandarin Chinese. He has also served as a manager to a Texas wastewater utility, worked as a paralegal, and volunteered with a non-profit bringing ground/rainwater solutions to underserved communities in East Africa.
Dr. Jani Das is a Research Assistant Professor at the Bureau of Economic Geology. She was working in the "Comparing Electricity Options" project with Michael Young and Gurcan Gulen. Her research interests are life cycle analysis, techno-economic analysis, and electric grid modeling. She is presently looking into electricity sources for data centers and is involved in studies related to prospective integration of geothermal energy into the ERCOT grid. Prior to joining BEG, Dr. Jani worked as Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering at Muthoot Institute of Technology and Science, Kerala, India. Dr. Jani was also associated with the DST sponsored Indo-UK project "Intelligent Microgrids with Appropriate Storage for Energy (IMASE)" at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. She has over 18 years of academic experience and holds a PhD in Energy Science and Engineering from IIT Bombay. She holds a master's in electrical engineering from National Institute of Technology Calicut, Kerala, India and an undergraduate degree in Electrical and Electronics engineering from University of Calicut, Kerala, India.
Shipra is an energy policy professional with a background in law, mineral resources, and energy systems. She began her career at India’s Ministry of Coal and Mines, contributing to mining policy reforms and energy security initiatives. Most recently, she served as a policy analyst in the Texas Capitol for Rep. Drew Darby, working on produced water, geothermal, battery storage, and large-load interconnection issues. She has an MPA (energy policy) from Cornell University, and a Bachelor of Laws from India. Her areas of interest include critical minerals, produced water reuse, large load interconnection and grid reliability.
Lucy Ko is a geologist and geochemist at the Bureau of Economic Geology. She has recently been involved in the University Lands Emerging Energy project, where she manages and supports initiatives related to hydrogen, carbon capture and storage (CCS), critical minerals, and geothermal energy in Texas. As part of this work, she has helped develop the GIS database framework that supports these emerging energy resources. Her expertise in geochemistry is readily transferable to groundwater geochemistry, including the interpretation of water–rock interactions, water quality, treatment processes, and mineral scaling.
UT Collaborators:
Vaibhav Bahadur
Vaibhav Bahadur (VB) is a Professor and Carl J. Eckhardt Fellow in Mechanical Engineering at UT Austin. His research interests include thermal-fluids sciences, energy-water systems and materials with applications in semiconductor thermal management, data centers, desalination and carbon capture. VB has a PhD from Purdue University, a Postdoc from Harvard University and 4 years industry R&D experience (GE Global Research and Baker Hughes). VB has authored 80 journal articles (h-index of 35), 45 articles in conference proceedings, 1 book chapter, and has 8 patents issued or pending.
Kasey Faust
Dr. Kasey M. Faust is an Associate Professor and John A. Focht Centennial Teaching Fellow in the Fariborz Maseeh Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering at UT Austin. Her research examines infrastructure as sociotechnical systems, recognizing that performance depends on the interplay of technical, organizational, and cultural dimensions. Her current work spans digital representations of remote infrastructure, infrastructure interdependencies and community adaptation, workforce training for improved service delivery, and capital project delivery.
Shannon Strank
Ms. Shannon Strank serves as Deputy Director of The University of Texas at Austin's Center for Electromechanics (CEM). In her primary role, she leads business development efforts, working closely with CEM Program Managers to develop and implement funding strategies, engage stakeholders, and cultivate partnerships with research sponsors, corporations, and foundations to advance transformative research initiatives. In addition, Ms. Strank provides oversight for several projects within the UT-CEM Grid Solutions program. These projects encompass a wide range of applications, including medium-voltage direct current (MVDC) electric ship design and control, fault prediction and mitigation, fault detection technologies, lifetime prediction of insulating materials, and other advanced grid and energy system solutions. Ms. Shannon works with Dr. Yahav Morag (Grid/AI: Grid) and Dr. Pablo Paz(Stability).
Lars Koesterke
Alumni:
Dr. Yashvi Malhotra
Roxana Darvari
