modi research group - current lab staff
Edwin Adkins, Lead Researcher, Lantern Project &
jea98@columbia.edu Biomass Cookstoves
Edwin Adkins works as an Research Coordinator, specializing in energy-related issues, for the Millennium Villages Project, a multi-sectoral project with 12 sites throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Edwin investigates potential technologies to meet villagers' basic needs in areas of electricity and lighting, cooking, and mechanical power, then works with the site teams throughout Africa to implement related interventions. He also helps to develop monitoring and evaluation tools to assess progress toward a variety of energy-related objectives in each of the sites.
Matt Basinger, Lead Researcher, Biofuels & Lister Engine
mlb2133@columbia.edu
Matt Basinger is an Earth and Environmental Engineering doctoral student investigating biofuels for developing country applications. He coordinates the BELT (Biofuel Engine Longevity Test) Cooperative involving collaborative research between several universities all performing parallel endurance tests with vegetable oil fueled stationary engines common to Africa and India. He is also studying the appropriateness and scaling of potential feedstock sources like Jatropha Curcas.
Matt Berg, ICT Coordinator, Millennium Villages Project (MVP)
mlb2178@columbia.edu
Jiehua Chen, Postdoctoral Statistician, MVP
jc3288@columbia.edu
Jiehua Chen is a Postdoctoral researcher working in the Applied Statistics Center and Professor Vijay Modi's research lab, as well as a term assistant professor in the Statistics department. She received her PhD in Statistics from Stanford University in 2008. Her research focuses on the development of statistical tools for analyzing data with spatial and temporal information, such as remote sensing data, climate change problems, etc. She is also working on Bayesian analysis of social networking casual inference problems.
Craig Danton, Researcher, Lantern Project
cad2118@columbia.edu
Craig Danton is an Electrical Engineering undergraduate specializing in the testing and analysis of electrical circuits for lighting and consumer products. Specifically he is working on the lantern project as well as cell phone charging products for business and health care applications. Craig has also been looking into geographical modeling of community health care workers to improve the efficiency of their allocation to developing areas.
Ram Fishman, Researcher, India Water Project
rf2241@columbia.edu
Ram Fishman is a 3rd year phd student in the sustainable development
program. He holds a B.Sc. in mathematics from Tel Aviv university and
a M.Sc, in Physics from the Weizmann Institute of Science. Having
grown up in Israel, where water scarcity is constant issue, and having
spent many months travelling in India, he was excited to participate
in the project.
Brett Gleitsmann, Water Research Coordinator
bag2120@columbia.edu African Piping Project
Roy H. Han, Researcher, Rural Electrification
rhh2109@columbia.edu
Roy H. Han is working on a program to find houses automatically in
rural satellite images. The distribution of houses helps plan the
placement of infrastructure for the UN Millennium Villages project.
He has worked in various labs and industries ranging from retail and
neurogenetics to technology transfer and airline reservation systems.
Panos Kotsidas, Researcher, Solar Concentration
pk2252@columbia.edu
Panos Kotsidas graduated from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering focusing on aerodynamic optimization of external and internal flows through adjoint equations. He acquired field experience working in Unilever Netherlands and Greece. He received his MS degree in Mechanical Engineering from Columbia University. His research is focused in sustainability and solar energy. He is currently working towards his PhD, exploring the development of a Concentrating Photovoltaic (PV) system. Through a novel approach to tracking, and capitalizing on different approaches to concentrating technologies, he is aiming for the cost reduction of a complete PV system that finally allows for the development and commercialization of solar concentrating technologies for residential and industrial applications.
Sudeep Moniz, Researcher, Rural Electrification
sm2716@columbia.edu
Sudeep Moniz has been working on analyzing empirical data on the levels of electrification in Indian states. He has attempted to derive relationships of electrification metrics, such as length of transmission line per connection and connections per transformer, as functions of explanatory variables such as connection density and percentage of rural households electrified. The goal is to give an empirical basis for hypothetical estimations of these metrics.
Kristine Oppelstrup, Energy Data Coordinator, MVP
ako2105@columbia.edu
Kristine Oppelstrup works on the Millennium Villages Project, analyzing data mainly related to energy and infrastructure in the Millennium Villages sites throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. She also helps with planning research and interventions. Kristine has a diverse background, which includes a law degree (LL.M.) from Lund University in Sweden and an M.S. in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from Penn State University.
Aly Sanoh, Researcher, Rural Electrification
as3047@columbia.edu
Aly Sanoh is a 3rd year PhD student in sustainable development at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University. His research interests include investment and planning in rural electrification, power sector development, and regional electricty supply integration in West Africa.
Nathan Stodola, Researcher
nbs2115@columbia.edu Solar Concentration
Nathan Stodola completed his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering at Union College and has worked for two years at the cryogenics company Clever Fellows Innovations Consortium. At Columbia, he has worked on linear tracking mechanisms for concentrated photovoltaic systems, and is currently investigating the correlation in the timing of solar energy and dispatchable power.
Victor Vazquez, Researcher, India Water Project
vv2158@columbia.edu
Victor Vazquez holds a degree in Civil Engineering from Universidad de la Coruña (Spain). He is now a Master of International Affairs student specialized in Economic and Political Development and Environmental Policy at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). He had a summer 2008 internship in Blantyre (Malawi) doing research on water and sanitation in the urban area for the Millennium Cities Initiative. Previous experience with Engineers Without Borders in rural water and sanitation projects in Central America.