U.S. Energy Information Administrator DeCarolis Discusses Impact of EPP Degree
By Sera Passerini
This November, Dr. Joe DeCarolis joined the Scott Institute to discuss the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)’s role in energy policymaking, markets and education as well as the agency’s goals and trajectory for future capabilities. Dr. DeCarolis is the current Administrator of the U.S. EIA. An alum of the Engineering and Public Policy program at Carnegie Mellon University, Dr. DeCarolis demonstrated how his education at CMU is put to use every day at the EIA.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) is responsible for collecting, analyzing and distributing information about energy to other parts of the government, the markets and the public. They collect data on electricity, petroleum and natural gas. Tying in his experience in the Engineering and Public Policy program at CMU, DeCarolis emphasized the importance of strategies and topics highlighted in his education such as interdisciplinary perspectives. “Connecting the dots is just as important as the dots themselves,” DeCarolis said, “You have to seek solutions wherever they take you. The interesting insights and answers almost never respect disciplinary boundaries.”
DeCarolis discussed the priorities of the EIA: modernizing EIA’s IT enterprise; making information more transparent and accessible; providing new insight into community-level impacts; and expanding energy modeling capabilities for applications in future scenarios. Undertaking new hardware and redesigning their data architecture, the EIA is creating wider accessibility and flexibility. Modernizing their IT enterprise also is helping to provide more applications for the data including visualization and manipulation. As the EIA focuses on community-level impacts, they engage with other agencies and reveal areas with higher energy burdens or openings for efficiency investments. With their Annual Energy Outlook, the EIA is expanding their modeling capabilities and exploring a variety of cases. DeCarolis explained some of the process of analyzing and forecasting scenarios, and the ways in which the EIA is aiming to improve the process.
Overall, DeCarolis expressed excitement surrounding developments and the potential of the EIA’s contributions to the energy field. DeCarolis encouraged the audience to embrace consistent learning, asking questions and pursuing innovations outside of disciplinary limits to help create new systems and improvements to our current understanding of energy.
++++
Dr. Joseph DeCarolis (EPP '04) currently serves as the Administrator of the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Before his appointment as EIA Administrator, Dr. DeCarolis served as a professor in the Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering at North Carolina State University (NC State). He also previously worked as an environmental scientist in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Research and Development, where he engaged in energy systems modeling to quantify the air pollution impacts from future energy system development.
His career and publications have centered on addressing energy and environmental challenges as they relate to engineering, economics, and public policy. His core research involves developing and applying energy system models to examine energy futures under uncertainty. The modeling work has focused on maximizing transparency, partly through open source code and data and partly on developing a toolkit to rigorously assess future uncertainty. He has also engaged in collaborative research focused on conducting techno-economic assessments of various energy technologies, integrating building energy simulation into the architectural design process, and applying life cycle assessment to solid waste management.
His distinguished honors and awards include the NC State Outstanding Teaching Award, NC State Alcoa Foundation Engineering Research Achievement Award, the American Society for Engineering Education Outstanding New Teacher Award (Southeastern Section), and the National Science Foundation CAREER Award. He was also named a University Faculty Scholar at NC State.
Dr. DeCarolis received a PhD in Engineering and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University, and he holds a BS in Physics and Environmental Science and Policy from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts.