Emerging Professionals Forum
Moderator: Kaycee Chang
The Emerging Young Professionals Forum will provide students and emerging professionals to gain knowledge from professionals, build networks, and obtain guidance for navigating early career challenges. This event attracts attendees from a diversity of professional backgrounds and represents the interdisciplinary nature of the renewable energy community. ASES is committed to furthering professional development of our student members and the emerging professional community through education and supportive networking.
Speakers
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Amy SedlakGraduate Researcher Intern at the National Renewable Energy Lab“Amy Sedlak is a recent graduate of the Masters of the Environment program at the University of
Colorado, Boulder, focusing on renewable and sustainable energy. Currently working towards a
career in offshore wind development. She is currently at the National Renewable Energy Lab
working on both onshore wind and marine energy projects. Amy is assisting in the development
of a levelized cost of marine energy tool and also working on an economic guidebook of best
practices for local governments during the onshore wind development process.
She also holds a Bachelors of Engineering degree in Mechanical Engineering from Stevens
Institute of Technology. Through her engineering background she has contributed to large-scale
building projects in New York, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., and Boston while working at
WSP USA for four years. Amy is a certified LEED AP BD+C as well as an Engineer in Training.
Amy is knowledgeable in many types of renewable energy, energy policy, and sustainability.” -
Chris HerrSustainability Officer at Auraria Higher Education Center - University of Colorado, DenverChris Herr is the Sustainability Officer for the Auraria Campus in Downtown Denver which serves around 40,000 students, staff and faculty. Examples of current projects include the 779kW solar array on the Auraria Library, Development of the campus-wide Water Action Plan, and a campus-wide compost expansion. He is a graduate from the School of Public Affairs at CU Denver with a Master’s in Public Administration that was completed in 2017 and has held his current position for about 3 years.
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Emily RogersMasters Candidate in Civil and Environmental EngineeringUniversity of California, Berkeley
Masters Candidate in Civil and Environmental Engineering -
Pan ChuenFinance Associate at 8minute Solar EnergyAs a Finance Associate on the Project Finance team at 8minute Solar Energy, Pan helps to conduct in-depth economic analysis of renewable energy projects, supporting the overall project development life cycle, including in power marketing and M&A transactions. Before his current role, Pan’s first job out of college was as a Rotational Associate at D.E. Shaw & Co., L.P., where he had stints at corporate development, special situations, and at D.E. Shaw Renewable Investments.
Pan’s interest in the renewable energy sector stemmed from his time at Stanford University, where he graduated in 2018 with a Master’s degree in Management Science & Engineering and a Bachelor’s in Chemical Engineering. In the classes that he took, he was motivated by the faculty and his classmates to strive towards driving the transition to clean and sustainable energy. Outside of the academic curriculum, he spent time doing research on perovskite solar cells, joined the Stanford Solar Car team, and participated in the Stanford Energy Club. During his summer breaks, he got a taste of cutting edge clean energy companies, interning at companies such as SunPower and Tesla in both technical and business oriented roles.
Currently, Pan is sheltering in place in San Francisco. He loves the outdoors and cannot wait to play pickup soccer at the Golden Gate Park again.
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Raphael Oluwaseun GeorgeRegional Operations Engineer at Starsight Power Utility Limited“Raphael is an expert in commercial and industrial solar photovoltaic energy project
development and operations, with about 6 years of technical field experience. He is currently
a Regional Operations Engineer at Starsight Power Utility Limited where he coordinates
operations and maintenance of Solar PV/ Energy Storage/DieselGenset/Grid Hybrid
Microgrids for financial institutions like First Bank and FCMB Nigeria as well as Oando
Downstream Petrol Stations, helping to reduce grid dependence and optimize fuel
consumption costs.
Prior to Starsight Power, Raphael was an Energy Systems Engineer at Sunhive Ltd, a solar
energy startup based in Lagos, Nigeria and the United Kingdom, he was also Operations Team
Lead at the Lagos State Government’s 5MWp embedded Solar project for 213 secondary
schools and hospitals.
He is a member of the International Association of Engineers, Nigerian Society of Engineers
and an alumni of the prestigious Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria where he
received his Bachelor’s in Agricultural and Environmental Engineering. He also recently
received nomination for Fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants, Nigeria.” -
Tim PollnowPV Engineer/Designer at IPS SolarTim has been working as a PV designer and engineer at IPS Solar since his graduation in 2016. Starting as an intern, Tim learned to design residential rooftop solar. After 4 years, Tim has designed and supported construction for over 10 MW of residential and commercial systems.
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Uriel RuizMasters Student in Energy Innovation at KTH Royal Institute of TechnologyUriel is based in California, and is currently interning with a vertically integrated IPP in the sf bay area, contributing towards developing 500MWP of solar power to CCAs within the next 5 years. He graduated from UC Merced in 2017 with a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering, and worked with Intel for a year as a recent graduate. During this period, he gained a large interest in the renewable energy industry. He joined Europe’s InnoEnergy double degree master’s program in renewable energy shortly after, where he’s now writing his master thesis along with his internship.