Staff Bios
Omar Abdelaziz. Dr. Abdelaziz is a graduate from the University of Maryland with a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering. He has three invention disclosures related to novel heat exchanger designs. His computer skills include MATLAB, Engineering Equation Solver, FLUENT, Gambit, and TRNSYS. Dr. Abdelaziz has received numerous honors and awards, including the Best Paper Award from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the A. James Clark School of Engineering Future Faculty Fellowship, and the Cairo University Excellence Assistantship Award. His research experience includes two-phase flow in heat exchangers, indoor air quality, CFD simulations of room air flow and heat exchangers, and transcritical CO2 refrigeration cycles.
Gina Accawi. Ms. Accawi is a member of the Residential, Commercial, and Industrial Energy Efficiency Group in the Energy and Transportation Science Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory joining the Weatherization team to enhance programs’ software tools. Ms. Accawi is a University of Tennessee graduate. She is a software developer with 14+ years of experience building solutions. In recent years, she has focused on the interchange of data using XML and its related technologies. With a background spanning mainframe programming to web development using Java and .Net, she brings a breadth of understanding and the experience needed to design, implement, test, and deploy solutions. Gina has been a technical trainer for computer programmers and presented on XML and other topics to groups like Microsoft and Java Users Groups.
Nasr Alkadi. Dr. Alkadi is part of the Industrial Technologies Program–Best Practices team in the Residential, Commercial, and Industrial Energy Efficiency Group in the Energy and Transportation Science Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He has 20 plus years of energy management experience in both U.S. and internationally. Over the past 6 years, Dr. Alkadi has been working as a corporate energy manager in General Motors Corporation, where he developed unique solutions for reducing process energy consumption that has been proven successful and applied globally among several corporate affiliated plants. He has worked in several energy and environmental projects with the USAID, DOE-IAC program, the Commission of European Communities (CEC), and the Japanese International Corporation Agency (JICA). He has also worked for 10 years as energy consultant for the Egyptian Organization of Energy Planning (OEP). Nasr’s research interest focuses on green design and manufacturing and product design for energy reduction in concurrent engineering. He received a B.S. and M.S. in mechanical engineering from Cairo, Egypt, and his PhD. in industrial engineering from West Virginia University.
Moonis Ally. Dr. Ally’s principal area of research expertise is in design of adsorption and absorption systems, heat and mass transfer coefficients, thermodynamics, and data gathering and analysis. He has more than 23years experience performing and leading R&D at ORNL and is an Adjunct Professor with the Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee. He is a reviewer for numerous technical journals, including the American Chemical Society's Journal of Chemical and Engineering Data, the American Society of Testing Materials, Separation Science and Technology, the American Institute for Chemical Engineers, Fluid Phase Equilibria, Electrochemica Acta, CALPHAD, and the Journal of Solution Chemistry. He is listed in WhosWho in America 2006, won the Inventor of the Year Award from Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 2000 and a Discover Magazine Award, also in 2000. He has published 54 scientific and technical papers and one patent.
Jerry Atchley. Mr. Atchley is a Senior Engineering Technologist in the Building Technology Group. Responsibilities include build up, instrumentation, and data collection of building envelope test artifacts for thermal, solar, moisture and air-tightness performance. This work is conducted both in the laboratory and in the field. His responsibilities include maintaining the laboratory and operational readiness of the laboratory test equipment. Jerry has been with Oak Ridge National Laboratory since 1991 and with the Envelope Group since 1993. He has an Associate Degree in Electronic Technology.
Van Baxter. Mr. Baxter has 32 years’ experience in research and development in building heating, ventilation, air-conditioning, and refrigeration (HVAC&R) equipment with emphasis on vapor compression refrigeration and heat pump systems, water heating heat pumps, alternative refrigerants and project management. He has published more than 50 papers and reports in the area of buildings energy efficiency improvement. He is a member of ASME, IIR and ASHRAE. During his 30 years as a member of ASHRAE, he has held numerous positions, including chair, Research Administration Committee, 1998/1999; chair, Standards Project Liaison Subcommittee, 2001/2002; chair, Standards Committee, 2003/2004; voting member, Technology Council, 2005 to present; and voting member, Nominating Committee, 2006-2007. He is active on the technical committees (TCs 8.11, 9.4, 10.7) for heat pump and refrigeration equipment and systems and the standards project committee (147P) on refrigerant emissions.
Kaushik Biswas. Dr. Kaushik Biswas is an R&D Associate within the Building Envelopes Group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. His research is focused on whole building energy performance analysis, which includes evaluation of roofs, attics, walls and foundations for their impacts on building energy efficiency. He recently updated the ASTM C 1340 (2004) attic simulation model to a FORTRAN 90/95 version. He’s also involved in research related to ignition and flammability characteristics of building exteriors, thermal transmission property measurements of building materials and wall assemblies, building thermal integrity assessment using infrared thermography and evaluation of building integrated photovoltaic modules. His computer shills include WUFI, FORTRAN, Visual Basic, etc. Dr. Biswas completed his M.S. and Ph.D. from Purdue University with specialization in combustion and flame radiation analysis. His Bachelor of Engineering is from Rajiv Gandhi Technological University in India. His other industrial experience is in investigation of building and vehicle fires for cause and origin determination. He is a participating member of ASTM committee C16, an ASHRAE associate member & a full member of the honor society Sigma-Xi.
Philip Boudreaux. Mr. Boudreaux is a research staff member at ORNL. His research experience includes optical system design, non-invasive medical imaging using non-ionizing radiation, data acquisition and analysis, and more recently data acquisition and occupancy simulation for near zero-energy homes.
Heather Buckberry. Ms. Buckberry holds a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University and an M.S. degree in Engineering Management from the University of Tennessee. She is a Certified Energy Manager, Project Management Professional and LEED AP BD+C. She has more than 17 years experience in building design, as project manager and mechanical engineer for a multi-discipline engineering consulting firm. Heather has designed mechanical systems for industrial, commercial, and government facilities. She has also performed energy studies and energy modeling on a variety of buildings including research facilities at multiple universities, as well as, manufacturing plants. Prior to joining BTRIC, Ms. Buckberry was a mechanical engineer on multiple engineering design projects at the ORNL campus including both phases of the Advanced Materials Characterization Laboratory. As project manager and senior mechanical engineer, she led the design effort for that facility, which included compliance with DOE’s High-Performance Sustainable Building program. The building was also designed to meet the requirements for certification as a LEED Silver building.
Phil Childs. Mr. Childs is responsible for thermal performance testing of wall systems in the Rotatable Guarded Hot Box (RGHB) and for the testing of material properties in the Hygrothermal Test Lab. His qualifications include: expertise in the design and implementation of sensors and data acquisition systems for monitoring in-house and field experiments; proficiency in building envelope diagnostics through the use of blower doors and infrared thermal imaging systems; and experience assessing the durability and energy efficiency of field-installed reflective roofing membranes. Phil is a Research Associate at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, with 35 years of experience. His education includes a B.S., Organizational Management - Tusculum College and Associate of Science, Pre-engineering - Roane State Community College.
Daryl Cox. Mr. Cox has over 30 years of experience working with or in industrial facilities at ORNL. He has 10 years of experience analyzing industrial fluid systems for efficiency optimization and also teaches pumping system optimization workshops. Mr. Cox brings a unique blend of theoretical and field experience. His ability to effectively communicate with all levels of plant personnel, as well as energy experts, facilitates successful assessments. He received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Cincinnati in 1981. His key qualifications include: pumping system assessment tool qualified specialist and PSAT senior instructor.
William Craddick. Mr. Craddick has 33 years’ experience in the conduct and management of research and development (R&D) in mechanical engineering and nuclear engineering. He has personally performed analyses in heat transfer and fluid flow for various applications. He has managed R&D efforts that have included analytical and experimental work involving a wide range of activities within the mechanical and nuclear engineering fields. He is experienced in managing high visibility, high pressure efforts. He was the project manager responsible for establishing three CRADAs, each with major equipment manufacturers, for development of advanced HVAC and water heating equipment.
Andre Desjarlais. Mr. Desjarlais is the Group Leader of the Building Envelopes Group. His areas of research include: in-situ testing protocols, the development of standardized means of determining the long-term thermal performance of closed cell plastic foams, and the impacts of moisture in low-slope roof systems. He was previously employed as the manager of the Thermophysics Laboratory at Holometrix, Inc., where he conducted research on the thermophysical properties of materials and systems with an emphasis on reflective insulation systems and fenestration products. Mr. Desjarlais received a B.S. in Aeronautical Engineering from Boston University. He is an active member of numerous professional societies including: American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) (Past Chair of ASTM Committee C16), ORNL representative and Past Chair of the Federal Roofing Committee, Member and Past Chair of the Single Ply Roofing Institute (SPRI) Technical Committee, SPRI Board of Directors, Director of the Roofing Industry Committee on Wind Issues, Roof Consultants Institute and Board member of their Research Foundation, Research and Vice Chairman of ASHRAE TC 1.8 on Mechanical Insulation Systems, and Chairman of ASHRAE TC 4.4 on Building Materials and Envelopes.
Norm Durfee. Mr. Durfee is a Project Manager and has extensive experience in project and program management in DOE programs and has led numerous design and construction teams in building new facilities as well as modifying and retrofitting existing facilities. The last eight years of Norm’s career have been with ORNL’s Facilities and Operations (F&O) organization, which is responsible for over 1,000,000 SF of newly constructed LEED Certified, Silver and Gold buildings on the ORNL main campus, and for implementing ORNL’s TEAM and Sustainable Campus Initiatives. Norm has provided project management services for numerous modernization and sustainable program projects including ORNL’s first Privately Developed Facilities project – a $90M design/build complex constructed for UT-Battelle Development Corporation and incorporating innovative design features for LEED certification. He has recently become an active member of ORNL’s Solar Tiger Team for supporting Solar America Cities for EERE’s Solar Energy Technologies Program.
Joel Eisenberg. Mr. Eisenberg is the manager of Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s support project for the Department of Energy’s Weatherization Assistance Program. This includes responsibility for national and state-level evaluations of the Weatherization Program and State Energy Program, development of the National Energy Audit Tool, and support for states and local agencies in their efforts to leverage nonfederal weatherization resources. His area of individual expertise is in the estimation of the impacts of energy markets and policies on low-income consumer budgets. He has recently focused on distributive issues emerging in proposed cap-and-trade carbon control legislation. He has published an analysis of the potential impact of one such proposal on low-income residential and transportation expenses entitled The Impact of Carbon Control on Electricity and Gasoline Expenditures of Low-Income Households.
Anthony Gehl. Mr. Gehl has been a member of the buildings technology research staff at ORNL since July 2008. His recent work has been focused on data acquisition and occupancy simulation for energy efficient homes. Prior to joining the staff at ORN,L he was involved with micro-cantilever based detection of explosives, and with detection of cocaine and alcohol in the blood stream using implantable, wireless sensors at University of Tennessee. In 2004 he received an R&D 100 Award for his work on the SniffEx explosive detection project.
Patrick Geoghegan. Dr. Geoghegan has been a research staff member at ORNL since 2006. He received his B.E. in Chemical Engineering from University College in Dublin, Ireland. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England. Dr. Geoghegan's research focuses on two-phase flow dynamics using fiber-optics, anemometry, and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). Experimental work was conducted at University College, Dublin and the CFD work conducted at the Univeristy of Cambridge. He began his career at the Sanger Institute, part of the Wellcome Trust/University of Cambridge Human Genome Project, to minimize micro-fluidic shear stresses that can denature DNA. While at ORNL, Dr. Geoghegan developed a novel jet flow mercury target design and accelerator components for the Spallation Neutron Source. He received a R&D 100 Award for his work on the NextAire Packaged Gas Heat Pump in 2011.
Mike Gettings. Mr. Gettings is a staff engineer in the Energy and Transportation Science Division of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, responsible for the development, deployment, and support of the Weatherization Assistant national residential computerized software, including the National Energy Audit Tool (NEAT) and the Manufactured Home Energy Audit (MHEA), for the Department of Energy's Weatherization Assistance Program. He is the primary programmer for the computational portion of the software. He has also provided technical support to the Weatherization Program by evaluating weatherization measures for warm climates. Prior experience includes evaluation of energy management and control systems (EMCS) installed on U.S. Army bases in Germany and building energy analyses of residential buildings for a major building components manufacturer. Mr. Gettings received a B.A. in Physics from Case Institute of Technology and a M.S. in Engineering from Brigham Young University.
Patrick Hughes. Mr. Hughes has served as the Director of ORNL’s Building Technologies Research & Integration Center since 2005. The focus of his 34 year career, including 20 years at ORNL, has been on research, development, and deployment of sustainable building technologies. Mr. Hughes is a Professional Engineer and has a Masters Degree from Stanford’s Engineering Management Program, a Masters Degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin Solar Energy Laboratory, and also from UW, a Bachelors Degree in Mechanical Engineering. In recent years, Mr. Hughes has been instrumental in the establishment of the Zero Energy Building Research Alliance (zebralliance.com) and several Cooperative Research and Development Agreements or CRADAs (General Electric, ClimateMaster, Lennox). Mr. Hughes served as an ORNL Group Leader (2001-04) and Senior Research Staff member (1989-2001), prior to his current position. From 1998 to 2004, he led the technical support to FEMP’s Energy Savings Performance Contracting (Super ESPC) Program for the Southern Census Region, which accounted for 60% of the nation’s guaranteed cost savings from the program over that period. In 1998, he completed an evaluation of a 4000-home ground-source heat pump retrofit credited with launching deployment in federal facilities (about 80,000 tons of GSHP capacity installed since 1998). Other credits include the International Ground Source Heat Pump Association’s “1998 Outstanding Engineering Achievement Award,” a 1994 ORNL “Significant Event Award” for his role in licensing “GAX” ammonia-water absorption gas heat pump technology to Carrier Corporation, and leading a project that in 1987 received a “DOE Award for Energy Innovation” for a “distinguished contribution to our Nation’s energy efficiency.” In the late 1970’s, he participated in the development of software (TRNSYS, FCHART) that became the international standard for estimating the performance of advanced solar heating and cooling technologies applied to buildings. Mr. Hughes has been active at ASHRAE for decades with roles including Technical Activities Committee, Research Administration Committee, Chair of TC 6.8 Geothermal Energy Utilization, and Research Subcommittee Chair of TC 6.8 and TC 9.4 Applied Heat Pump and Heat Recovery Systems.
Piljae Im. Dr. Im is currently servings as R&D staff in the Residential, Commercial, and Industrial Energy Efficiency Group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He received his Ph.D. and Masters of Science degree in Architecture from Texas A&M University. His research experiences in ORNL includes conducting feasibility studies for Ground Source Heat Pump (GSHP) system applications in various U.S. Navy sites, development of a Combined Heat and Power (CHP) screening tool for high rise multifamily houses, and providing technical supports to FEMP through energy audits and building energy simulation modeling. He has more than 8 years of experience in building energy simulation modeling, and a user of numerous building energy simulation software such as EnergyPlus, eQuest, and DOE-2.1e. In recent years, he focuses on the Building Information Modeling (BIM) integration with energy modeling and Life Cycle Analysis (LCA), the application of GSHP technology, and net zero commercial buildings. Currently, he serves as a member of ASHRAE SPC 100: Energy Conservation in Existing Buildings, and International Building Performance Simulation Association (IBPSA).
Roderick Jackson. Dr. Jackson is a graduate from the Georgia Institute of Technology with a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering. Dr. Jackson has received numerous honors and awards, including 2nd place in the 2008 IEEE International Symposium on Electronics and the Environment poster competition, the Georgia Institute of Technology President’s Fellowship, and the General Electric Foundation Scholarship. His research experience includes transient and steady-state thermal behavior of bipolar transistors in hybrid vehicles, transparent electrodes for organic electronics, and fabrication processes for single wall carbon nanotubes.
Achilles Karagiozis. Dr. Karagiozis is a Distinguished Research and Development Engineer within the Building Envelopes Group. He is internationally renowned with unique expertise in heat, air and moisture transfer, building thermal envelopes, building whole energy performance, retrofit design and analysis, durability, computational fluid dynamics, material science, experimental design, data acquisition and error analysis, fluid flow with application to heating, ventilating and air conditioning. He has been a Project Manager for at least 20 major research or consortium construction research projects during the last 19 years (EIMA, ABAA, MEWS, etc). Dr. Karagiozis received his Ph.D. at the University of Waterloo (Mechanical Engineering), Diploma von Karman Institute in Fluid Dynamics in Belgium (Environmental and Applied Fluid Dynamics), and M.Sc. E. and B.Sc.E. (Summa Cum Laude) at the University of New Brunswick (Mechanical Engineering, Heat Transfer and Manufacturing Option). He has been employed at ORNL since 1998 and is an Adjunct Professor in the Civil Engineering Department, University of Waterloo, Canada. He previously worked at the National Research Council Canada, the Von Karman Institute in Fluid Dynamics, Environmental and Applied Fluid Dynamics, ENTEC Consulting Ltd., and the University of New Brunswick. His relevant professional activities and honors include: U.S. Coordinator for New IEA Annex on “Risk Assessment of Building Physics Performance with a special focus on retrofitting of existing buildings”, U.S. National Coordinator for CIB W40 “Heat and Moisture Transport in Buildings”, U.S. National Coordinator for IEA Annex 41 “Whole Building Heat, Air, and Moisture Response”, Member, ASTM E06, Member of ASHRAE T.C. 4.4, Member of SPC160P on Design Criteria for Moisture Control in Buildings, and member of the International Energy Agency, Annex 24 on Heat Air and Moisture Transport in Insulated Envelope Systems and Parts.
Manfred Kehrer. Mr. Kehrer joined ORNL's Building Envelopes Group in 2011, where he is in charge of hygrothermal research. He received his Dipl.-Ing., in Technical Physics in 1993 from the University of Applied Science in Munich, Germany. After that, he was working at Fraunhofer IBP, Germany, for 10 years in the laboratory of the department Hygrothermics where he set up, used and maintained several hygrothermal laboratory measurement equipments, as well as working on several hygrothermal field tests. After this time he changed to the software development group of the department Hygrothermics, where he started to work on modeling, programming and testing of the transient hygrothermal transport calculation (WUFI). In 2005 he became the Group Manager of that group and was responsible for the development, quality control and sales of the WUFI products and was highly involved in many collaboration projects worldwide. Mr. Kehrer is a voting member of multiple ASHRAE and ASTM committees and on the editorial board of the “Journal of Building Physics”. Together with his development team at Fraunhofer IBP and ORNL, Mr. Kehrer has been awarded with the Moisture Safety Price 2011 from the Moisture Research Center at Lund University, Sweden and named as one of the “2013 Top-10 Green Building Products” from Building Green Inc., Vermont.
Julia Kelley. Ms. Kelley joined Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in 1991. She is the Group Leader for the Residential, Commercial, and Industrial Energy Efficiency Group and the Program Manager for the Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) and the Office of Weatherization and Intergovernmental Programs (OWIP). Ms. Kelly has more than 16 years of experience in the area of utility demand-side management programs. She is a member of the FEMP Utility Program's training team and a member of FEMP's Federal Utility Partnership Working Group Steering Committee. She serves on ORNL's Sustainable Campus Initiative team. She holds a MS in Information Science and a Bachelors' degree in Journalism from the University of Kentucky.
Melissa Lapsa. Ms. Lapsa received her M.B.A. from Western Illinois University and her B.A. from St. Mary’s University. Ms. Lapsa leads Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s (ORNL’s) Sustainable Campus Initiative and is Group Leader of the Whole-Building and Community Integration (WBCI) research group for the Building Technologies Research and Integration Center at ORNL. The WBCI Group is committed to developing partnerships that accelerate the integration of renewable resources, energy-efficient technologies, and advanced energy management into high performance buildings and communities. The WBCI supports the U.S. Department of Energy. Ms. Lapsa has established many cost-share partnerships with industry and utilities including Wal-Mart, Aurora Ballast, LSI Industries, Long Island Power Authority, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District. From 1996-1998, Melissa Lapsa was on assignment from ORNL to the Netherlands Agency for Energy and the Environment (NOVEM). Ms. Lapsa presented International Energy Agency (IEA) Energy and Environmental Technologies Information Center (EETIC) programs in eight different countries while on assignment to NOVEM, including at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UN FCCC) third Conference of Parties (COP-3) Summit in Kyoto, Japan. Currently, she is the Deputy Director of ORNL’s Building Technologies Research and Integration Center.
Randall Linkous. Mr. Linkous is an expert in instrumentation and experimentation and has 32 years’ experience conducting both laboratory and field experiments of energy efficient equipment for ORNL including heat pump water heaters. Prior to joining ORNL he participated in the conduct of material testing for the Space Shuttle Program for NASA. He has a B.S. degree and has studied both engineering science and organizational management. He has been a member of teams that have won an R&D 100 Award and a DOE Energy 100 Award. He has played a key role in the experimental portion of numerous projects.
Xiaobing Liu. Dr. Liu is a member of the Residential, Commercial and Industrial Energy Efficiency Group in the Energy and Transportation Science Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Oklahoma State University (OSU) under Dr. Spitler in 2005. During his Ph.D. program at OSU, he conducted research on applying ground-source heat pump (GHP) technology to prevent ice/snow accumulation on the bridges of highways. Until recently Dr. Liu was the Systems Engineering Manager at ClimateMaster, Inc. In that capacity, Dr. Liu was responsible for upgrading the GHP system representations in eQUEST to be based on the world’s best models, an activity which required some new model development. While at ClimateMaster Dr. Liu also provided technical assistance on the design of approximately 20 high-profile domestic and international projects, including ASHRAE headquarter, the Oklahoma Governor’s Mansion, the Metro Complex building in Turkey, and the Future House in China. Dr. Liu is currently serving as a voting member of ASHRAE Technical Committee 6.8 (Geothermal Energy Utilization) and as research chair of ASHRAE TC 9.4 (Applied Heat Pump/Heat Recovery Systems). He has authored more than a dozen technical papers on the simulation and energy analysis of GHP systems.
Mini Malhotra. Dr. Malhotra is a member of the Weatherization Program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the Residential, Commercial, and Industrial Energy Efficiency Group. She recently received her Ph.D. in Architecture from the Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas.
Curt Maxey. Mr. Maxey has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Tennessee and has expertise in electro-optical systems design and applied solar energy. He has led the installation of the solar photovoltaic systems at ORNL for both research applications and onsite renewable power generation. Mr. Maxey serves as a technical lead and consultant to a variety of solar projects outside of the ORNL campus, including the Knoxville Solar America City project and the State of Tennessee 5 MW Solar Farm. He currently has seven issued patents, has received two R&D 100 Awards, has received multiple regional and national awards for Excellence in Technology Transfer from the Federal Laboratory Consortium (FLC), was the recipient of the 1998 Arnold O. Beckman award from the International Society of Automation (ISA) and recently received the DOE’s Outstanding Mentor Award. Mr. Maxey has extensive experience in the development and deployment of measurement systems for applications spanning a range of technologies, including fuel cells, steel processing, steam characterization, radiation measurement, nuclear materials monitoring and neutron detection. He is currently the lead optical designer for multiple imaging instrumentation systems being developed and deployed at the ORNL Spallation Neutron Source to enhance the reliability and functionality of the SNS facility.
Karen McElhaney. Ms. McElhaney has more than 26 years experience related to production and conservation of energy, with emphasis on component performance and industrial energy efficiency. She has led projects in nuclear plant aging research, energy efficiency improvement, and fusion energy. Ms. McElhaney has experience with industrial codes and standards for pressure equipment and materials. She has authored numerous documents, reports, journal articles, and case studies for the NRC, DOE, and industry user groups and has published several technical papers. Ms. McElhaney has been a member of ASME working groups and code committees. She holds a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Tennessee Technological University and an M.S. degree in Engineering Science from the University of Tennessee.
William Miller. Dr. Miller is a mechanical engineer with over 30 years of experience conducting experimental and analytical analysis of vapor compression refrigeration systems, absorption heat and mass transfer, and building thermal envelopes. He has expertise in finite difference heat conduction including mixed convection regimes common in building envelopes. Dr. Miller received his Ph.D., M.S., and B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and a B.S. in Agronomy at the University of Tennessee. He has been a staff member at Oak Ridge National Laboratory since 1979 and previously contributed to ORNL programs in Falling Film Absorption technology, and in Refrigeration Relevant professional activities include: Pi Tau Sigma, Phi Kappa Phi, ASME, ASHRAE and SPRI. He formerly chaired SPRI’s reflectance committee and ASHRAE’s T.C. 1.2 on Instruments and Controls.
Jeffrey Munk. Mr. Munk recently became a member of ORNL’s Whole-Building and Community Integration Group. He has five years of industry experience working for Carrier Corporation on residential packaged products and gas furnaces. His work included heat exchanger design, new product development, laboratory testing, vibration analysis, and quality improvement.
Joshua New. Dr. New is a computer scientist joining ORNL in 2009. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of Tennessee in 2009, his M.S. in Computer Systems and Software Design and his B.S. with a double major in Computer Science and Mathematics with a Physics minor from Jacksonville State University. His work experience includes graduate research assistantships at both the University of Tennessee and Jacksonville State University, 3 research internships with ORNL, several ORNL/UT collaborative projects and developed special-purpose computer systems for Vital Images and Ft. McClellan. He has 7+ peer-reviewed publications and is an active member of IEEE and ACM.
Sachin Nimbalkar. Dr. Nimbalkar is a member of the Residential, Commercial, and Industrial Energy Efficiency Group in the Energy and Transportation Science Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He received his Ph.D. from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in 2009 in Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering. While at Rutgers, he worked as a graduate research assistant in the Center for Advanced Energy Systems and the DOE sponsored Industrial Assessment Center. In 2008, Sachin began working through ORAU as a post-doc in the Residential, Commercial, and Industrial Energy Efficiency group providing support to the Industrial Technology Program–Best Practices team.
Greg Palko. Mr. Palko has twenty-seven years of facility engineering and management experience. He has a Master's in Engineering Management from the University of Tennessee. In 2012, Greg received a DOE Sustainability Award for project work exemplifying innovation and commitment to sustainability. Greg is involved in DOE’s Federal Energy Management Program, ORNL's Sustainable Campus Initiative, DoD's Transformative Reductions in Operational Energy Consumption, and DOE's Sustainble Performance Office.
C. Keith Rice. Dr. Rice has 31 years’ experience in energy efficiency R&D at ORNL, with particular emphasis on thermal systems modeling and analysis, performance-based cycle models, and equipment seasonal performance modeling. He has led the development of the hardware-based DOE/ORNL Heat Pump Design Model (HPDM), which continues to be used extensively by both researchers and private industry. He is a 27 year member of ASHRAE, a corresponding member of ASHRAE TC 8.4 on Air-to-Air Heat Exchangers, and a member of ASHRAE TC 8.11 on Unitary Heat Pumps and Air Conditioners. He is also an Associate Member of the International Institute of Refrigeration (IIR), Commission B1, and a member of the U.S. National Committee for IIR. He was also a lecturer for USNC/IIR short courses on Simulation Tools for Vapor Compression Systems and Component Analysis, Purdue International Refrigeration Conference, 2000 and 2004. He holds two patents (jointly with DuPont) on ternary and quaternary high-glide refrigerant mixtures for possible use in unitary equipment as future alternatives to R-410A, has been a member of teams that won an R&D 100 award, a DOE Energy 100 award, a DOE Energy at 23 award, and Consider It Solved Award from Emerson Climate Technologies. He has more than 30 technical publications in energy efficiency R&D.
Terry Sharp. Mr. Sharp has M.S. and B.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering and more than 20 years of experience in the areas of assessing and advancing the performance of buildings. His work includes the development of advanced building energy performance benchmarking tools that are now in production use in both the commercial and residential sectors. His work also includes accomplishments in improving the strategic energy management of buildings and building portfolios, evaluation of large-scale energy efficiency projects, performance measurement and verification for buildings and building systems, building efficiency assessments, and the analysis of building energy use data for large portfolios. Mr. Sharp pioneered the advanced energy performance benchmarking techniques that enabled the development of EPA's nationally-recognized Energy Star ratings capability for commercial buildings. More recently, he has developed benchmarking tools for the State of California, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), the Department of Defense, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. His work has been published and presented through ASHRAE, ACEEE, ASHE, GovEnergy, and other conferences.
Bo Shen. Dr. Bo Shen is a member of ORNL’s Whole-Building and Community Integration Group. He graduated from Herrick Labs, Mechanical Engineering School, Purdue University with a Ph.D. degree, in 2006. For his Ph.D. research, he conducted extensive testing and simulations on unitary air conditioners and heat pumps under extreme operating conditions, contributed to the Purdue vapor compression system simulation model – ACMODEL and detailed heat exchanger modeling. In addition, he conducted in-depth study about lubricant influence on refrigerant heat transfer and pressure drop. He had 6.5 years of industry experiences, with 4 years working for Trane Commercial Systems, WI, and 2.5 years for Hitachi, Shanghai, China. He is a six-sigma green belt certified and black belt trained. While working at Trane, he authored the company’s internal advanced heat exchanger design models of fin-&-tube, shell-&-tube and evaporative condenser, which can guide product design by identifying local flow mal-distribution, phase-separation, and dry-out, etc. He also greatly contributed to the company’s next generation equipment system design model. Dr. Shen has 15 technical publications, and is a reviewer for two international research journals. He was a lecturer for Vapor Compression Systems and Component Analysis, Purdue International Refrigeration Conference, 2004. He is a member of ASHRAE. After joining ORNL in 2010, his practices are mainly focused on vapor compression equipment design and model development, building energy simulation, etc.
John Shonder. Mr. Shonder is a Senior Mechanical Engineer at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). He has more than 20 years of experience in the design, implementation and evaluation of energy conservation projects at federal government sites. Shonder is Principal Investigator for ORNL’s support to DOE’s Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP), whose mission is to reduce the cost and environmental impact of the federal government by advancing energy efficiency and water conservation, promoting the use of renewable energy, and improving utility management decisions at federal sites. A nationally-recognized expert in geothermal heat pump technology, Shonder is an active member of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), and currently serves as chairman of Technical Committee (TC) 6.8, Geothermal Energy Utilization. A graduate (BS/MS) of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, he is the author of more than 50 articles, technical papers and reports on a variety of topics related to energy use in buildings.
Som Shrestha. Dr. Shrestha is a Research and Development Staff Scientist within the Building Envelopes Research Group. He received his Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering at Iowa State University in 2009/2006. He previously received an M.S. (Honors), in Mechanical Engineering from the Odessa State Academy of Refrigeration, Ukraine in 1994 and his Proficiency level in Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineering, from Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal in 1987. His work experience includes a research internship at the Industrial Assessment Center at Iowa State University and multiple construction and HVAC consulting companies in Nepal. His M.Sc. thesis involved a combination of Energy Plus modeling and the development of a carefully controlled experiment for comparison. His Ph.D. project was related to performance evaluation of carbon-dioxide sensors used in building HVAC applications. He is a member of Tau Beta Pi, ASHRAE, and ASME. He is also a corresponding member of ASHRAE TC 4.1 on Load Calculation Data and Procedures, TC 4.3 on Ventilation Requirements & Infiltration, and TC 2.8 on Building Environmental Impacts and Sustainability.
Mark Ternes. Mr. Ternes is a research staff member within the Building Technologies Research and Integration Center in the Residential, Commercial, and Industrial Energy Efficiency Group at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Mark has over 30 years of experience in research and development related to energy efficiency in residential buildings, including military, public, and low-income housing. His expertise includes developing energy audits to select weatherization measures for existing homes, field testing the performance of weatherization measures and energy audits in heating and cooling climates, and evaluating weatherization programs. Mark's current work is focused on expanding the capabilities of the Weatherization Assistant energy audit program to meet the needs of the DOE Weatherization Assistance Program network, training users on the audit, and providing technical assistance to users. Mark received his M.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Tennessee and his B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Florida. Mark holds a patent for a gas hydrate cool storage system and has published over 25 peer-reviewed papers as well as numerous other technical reports.
Ed Vineyard. Mr. Vineyard is a senior research staff member at ORNL with over 30 years of experience in research and development of high-efficiency appliances, HVAC systems, and distribution systems. He has published more than 50 technical papers and reports involving all aspects of improving efficiency for residential HVAC systems. For the past few years he has led the Thermally Activated Program at ORNL, providing direction to the Department of Energy in developing improvements in heat transfer and efficiency for gas-fired equipment. He is an active member of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), program chair of TC 8.4, Air-to-Refrigerant Heat Exchangers, and a member of TC 6.3, Central Forced Air Heating and Cooling Systems. Prior to this, he served as chair of TC 7.1 Domestic Refrigerators and Food Freezers. He has received four ASHRAE Best Paper awards and both the ASHRAE Distinguished Service and Exceptional Service awards. He participated in a team that received a DOE Energy 23 award for the highest rated national laboratory program in DOE’s history.
Tom Wenning. Mr. Wenning joined Residential, Commercial, and Industrial Energy Efficiency Group in the Energy and Transportation Science Division at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in July 2009. He is supporting the Industrial Best Practices Program and the Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP). Tom has his Masters in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Dayton in Dayton, Ohio. He was the Lead Student/Process Engineer in the Industrial Assessment Center in Dayton, which was funded by the Department of Energy.
Abdi Zaltash. Dr. Zaltash is part of the Building Envelopes Research Group in the Energy and Transportation Science Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He is an expert in heat activated equipments, cogeneration systems, heat and mass transfer, and experimental design. He received his Ph.D. (Chemical Engineering), M.S. (Chemical and Petroleum Engineering), and B.S. (Chemical Engineering) at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Zaltash has been a member of the ORNL research staff since 1989, working on programs in the Cooling, Heating, and Power; Heat-Activated Technology; and Building Envelope Programs. He is a Member of the ASHRAE TC 1.10, Cogeneration Systems and assisted in the re-write of Chapter 7 of the 2008 ASHRAE Handbook on Cogeneration Systems. He also served as the Program Subcommittee Chairman of ASHRAE TC8.03, Absorption and Heat Operated Machines and voting member of SPC182. He is a member of the ASME Advanced Energy Systems Division Executive Committee, past chair of the ASME Heat Pump Technical Committee, and served as the Associate Editor for the ASME Journal of Energy Resources Technology.
