Mike Blackhurst
Executive Director, Open Energy Outlook Initiative
Bio
Dr. Mike Blackhurst is the Executive Director of the Open Energy Outlook (OEO) initiative, a collaborative initiative that aims to examine U.S. energy futures to inform energy and climate policy efforts by applying the gold standards of policy-focused academic modeling, maximizing transparency, and building a networked community.
Mike was previously the Co-Director of the Urban and Regional Analysis Program at the Center for Social and Urban Research and the Leonard Peters Faculty Fellow in Sustainability at the University of Pittsburgh. He received a doctorate in Engineering and Public Policy/Civil and Environmental Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, an MS in Environmental and Water Resources at the University of Texas at Austin, and a BS in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.
Emily Grayek
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Bio
Emily Grayek is a postdoctoral researcher and is part of the National Network for Critical Technology Assessment. Emily is working with Baruch Fischhoff to research the public perception of biotechnology and technology investments. Her past work focused on medical decision making from the perspective of regulators, practitioners, and patients. Her research interests include public risk perception and risk communication in order to improve how the public can be used to inform policies.
Emily received her PhD in Engineering and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University and B.S. in Bioengineering from University of Missouri - Columbia. Prior to joining CMU Emily worked in Technical Services at Epic Systems maintaining electronic record systems.
Jason O'Connor
Senior Research Scientist, National Network for Critical Technology Assessment
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Bio
Jason O'Connor is a Senior Research Scientist in the Department of Engineering and Public Policy. Since joining Carnegie Mellon full-time, he has worked on the Energy Storage demonstration project of the National Network for Critical Technology Assessment program with Professor Kate Whitefoot. His research interests lie at the intersection of the economics of innovation and industrial organization. Prior to his current position, he was a staff Economist at the Federal Trade Commission and a Research Scientist at the Medicaid Research Center at the University of Pittsburgh.
Natalie Ross
Project Manager, National Network for Critical Technology Assessment
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Bio
Natalie Ross is a project manager working on the National Network for Critical Technology Assessment. She is currently managing the NNCTA’s quality and communications review and report production process. Prior to the NNCTA, Natalie was a Program Manager at Google Pittsburgh, working within the Cloud organization where she managed the entire life cycle of programs that involved turning up new datacenter capacity. She began her career at Google headquarters in the Bay Area as an Administrative Business Partner. Natalie received her B.A. in International Relations and Russian from Bucknell University.
Mengying (Mandy) Wu
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Bio
Mandy obtained her doctoral degree in Social and Engineering Systems at MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society. Her research interest lies in environmental economics and public bureaucracy, with a special focus on policy design and institutional management of air pollution and climate change mitigation. Her research seeks to comprehend the factors influencing technological investments and business choices in the international (and particularly Chinese) energy industry, as well as the organizational difficulties that policymakers have when putting sustainability changes into practice.