I am a 5th year Mechanical Engineering PhD student, in the Quadracci Sustainable Engineering Lab at Columbia University. My research focuses on Electricity Demand Analytics & Prediction and Energy System Design .

Through the e-GUIDE initiative (a multi-university collaboration funded by the Rockefeller Foundation), I develop deep learning techniques to understand and predict latent electricity demand. My work combines large amounts of electricity consumption data (obtained from electric meters) with remote sensed satellite imagery, to infer electricity demand from satellite imagery.

This is of interest to energy providers who can leverage outputs from such techniques to design energy systems required to meet demand upon electrification. Concurrently, I apply network optimization to design the placement of energy infrastructure (transformers, low and medium voltage lines), given anticipated demand.

Prior to starting my PhD, I worked as a Research Scientist at the IBM Research - Africa Lab in Nairobi. There I focused on data-driven approaches for improving electricity access.

I hope my research will contribute to the design and operation of more energy efficient systems, which offer high levels of reliability.

Education

B.S. in Environmental Engineering, Oregon State University, 2012

M.S. in Environmental Engineering, Stanford University, 2014

Ph.D in Mechanical Engineering, Columbia University, 2021 (expected)