2020-2021 Energy Institute Fellows

Aldo Flores-Quiroga, former Deputy Secretary of Energy for Hydrocarbons at Mexico’s Ministry of Energy

Aldo Flores-Quiroga is former Deputy Secretary of Energy for Hydrocarbons at Mexico's Ministry of Energy, where he led a team of more than 180 government officials to implement the historic opening of Mexico's hydrocarbons sector. Previously, Flores-Quiroga was secretary general of the International Energy Forum (IEF), Assistant Secretary for International Affairs at Mexico's Ministry of Energy, and Assistant Secretary for Bilateral Economic Relations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Flores-Quiroga has published books and articles in English and Spanish on Mexican trade, exchange rate and energy policy, and has been featured on CNN, BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC and other media outlets. Currently, he's also a Visiting Professor at UT Austin's LBJ School of Public Affairs.

Brett A. Perlman, CEO & President, Center for Houston’s Future

Brett Perlman is currently CEO and President of the Center for Houston’s Future, a non-profit focused on developing consensus-based solutions to important social issues for the entire Houston region and on mobilizing community leaders to implement those solutions. Perlman is a former Commissioner on the Public Utility Commission of Texas, after which he founded an entrepreneurial management consulting firm. Brett is an independent Director of Just Energy Group, a gas and electricity retailer. He holds advanced degrees in public policy from Harvard University and in law from the University of Texas.

Vijay Betanabhatla, Associate Director at Guidehouse

As an Associate Director at Guidehouse with 15 years of experience in the industry, Vijay Betanabhatla helps electric utilities, power generators, and consumers adopt 21st century technologies. He provides project and program management, financial advisory, data analytics and regulatory policy support to electric utilities, state commissions and corporations across North America. Vijay currently serves on the Central Market Leadership team at Guidehouse. Vijay is working with Guidehouse Data Science team to bring Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning solutions to solve traditional electric industry challenges. Vijay worked at Baker Tilly and in the ERCOT control room before coming to Guidehouse.

Anna Ebers Broughel, Ecological Statistician at Tetra Tech

Anna Ebers Broughel is a renewable energy economist and statistician in Tetra Tech’s environmental services division. Her technical expertise includes economic and policy analysis that uses the state-of-the-art statistical techniques. Prior to joining Tetra Tech, Dr. Ebers worked at the Solar Energy Technologies Office at the U.S. Department of Energy as a Science & Technology Fellow. She has completed four years of post-doctoral training at the Institute for Economy and the Environment at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, and the Center for Global Sustainability at the University of Maryland. Dr. Ebers is a Council Member and the Government Committee Member at the U.S. Association for Energy Economics. She earned a Ph.D. in economics and policy from SUNY-ESF in association with Syracuse University.

Dana Harmon, Executive Director, Texas Energy Poverty Research Institute

Dana Harmon serves as the Executive Director of the Texas Energy Poverty Research Institute in Austin. She is working to ensure the radically evolving energy sector provides opportunities for underserved communities to thrive, leading collaborative efforts between industry, academia, and the social sector. Previously, Dana held leadership positions in multiple successful energy technology start-ups. She is a Marshall Memorial Fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. She serves on the City of Austin Resource Management Commission as well as on the Board of the Association of Women in Energy. She earned a B.S. of Industrial and Systems Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Michael E. Legatt, CEO & Founder, ResilientGrid, Inc.

Dr. Michael E. Legatt founded ResilientGrid, Inc. to empower critical infrastructure operations that continually strengthen resilience and reliability. His current work with electric utilities facilitates and fosters a transformation towards improved organizational culture, enhanced collaboration in emergency situations, and a support of organizational creativity as a means to both reduce operating errors and operational costs. For ten years prior to founding ResilientGrid, Dr. Legatt served as the principal human factors engineer for ERCOT. He has PhDs in both Energy Systems Engineering and Clinical Health Psychology/Neuropsychology.

Scott Nguyen, CEO, Bodhi

Scott Nguyen is co-founder and CEO of Bodhi, a design-focused clean energy software company that strives to usher in the next wave of wide-scale solar adoption. He has spent his career inventing technology and business models to accelerate our transformation to a cleaner, more efficient energy economy. Previously, he helped spur Austin's inaugural low- income solar program, sent robots to explore the oceans, and introduced renewable energy technology into Shell’s Portfolio. Scott is the holder of 17 USPTO patents and received a PhD in Physics from Harvard University and a BS in Physics from the University of Texas at Austin.

Sudeshna Pabi, CEO, Acclime Labs

Sudeshna Pabi is currently the Founder and CEO of Acclime Labs, and also serves as Principal Advisor to Larta Institute where she provides guidance to innovative start-ups. She has also served as Technical Leader at Electric Power Research Institute with focus on clean energy solutions for problems related to energy and environment. Dr. Pabi holds M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford University and a B.S. from Indian Institute of Technology. As a NASA graduate research fellow at Stanford University, Dr. Pabi assessed the climate impacts on the carbon budget of the Arctic Ocean by coding numerical models and developing remote sensing algorithms.