UT Energy Symposium

A weekly guest lecture series that is both free and open to the public and available for course credit.

In an effort to provide a multidisciplinary platform for UT faculty and students to interact on the most pressing energy issues facing our world, the Energy Institute sponsors the UT Energy Symposium (UTES), which entered its 30th semester in fall 2026. 

The UTES serves as a “convener” for the campus community, uniting students interested in energy issues with faculty and others working on sustainable energy security. Students who register for the symposium receive one credit hour for the 15-week seminar course, which is open to both undergraduate and graduate students. The course is taught in both the fall and spring semesters.

Ongoing themes for UTES include climate change policy, innovation and diffusion of energy technologies, low-carbon technology options and status, and behavioral aspects of energy consumption.

Each UTES talk is recorded and posted on this page and on the Energy Institute YouTube channel.

Instructor: Carey King
Unique Number (Fall 2026): 66045 (graduate students) / 65750 (undergraduates) 
Day & Time: Tuesday, 12:30 – 1:45 p.m.

If you need an accommodation to participate in this event, please contact Christa Hopkins, who can be reached at 512-475-8447 or christa@energy.utexas.edu, no later than five (5) business days prior to the event.


Upcoming UT Energy Symposium Talks

DateSpeakerJob Title Talk Title
September 8Steve LeVineEditor of The Electric, from The Information, Author, The Powerhouse: America, China and the Great Battery WarWhy the U.S. Should Race Post-Haste to Use China’s Batteries
September 15Alvin CambaLead Scientist & Director of Research, Lyvi AITBD
September 22Zhaomiao GuoAssistant Professor, Fariborz Maseeh Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering, University of Texas at AustinThe Future of Energy Storage is Mobile: Unlocking EV Flexibility Through Market-Based V2G
September 29Martín Esteban González LópezProfessor, Chemical Engineering, School of Engineering and Sciences, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus GuadalajaraFrom Waste to Energy in Mexico: Technical and Policy Challenges for Resource Recovery in the Water–Energy Nexus
October 6Yicheng Zhu Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The University of Texas at AustinPowering the AI Revolution: A New Voltage Regulator Enabling Vertical Power Delivery for Next-Generation AI Processors
October 13Shuo Ji & Zhiping YangShuo Ji is the Director of Acquisition Processing and Geology, Viridien Group and Zhiping Yang is a Technical Project Manager, Viridien GroupAdvancing Subsalt Imaging in the US Gulf: Operational and Technical Innovations in Seismic Data Acquisition From the Laconia Sparse OBN Program
October 20Tom MurphyProfessor Emeritus of the departments of Physics and Astronomy & Astrophysics at the University of California, San DiegoQuestioning Modernity: What Does Energy Do?
October 27Erica BelmontAssociate Professor, Mechanical Engineering at the University of WyomingTBD
November 3Thomas J PierpointVP, Operations, Northern Virginia Electric CooperativeTBD
November 10Charlotte De CannièreAssistant Professor at the Toulouse School of EconomicsTwo Wrongs Can Sometimes Make a Right: The Environmental Benefits of Market Power in Oil
November 17Jamie NietoProfessor of Applied Economics at the Faculty of Economics and Business, Universidad de ValladolidExploring the Biophysical Limits of the Energy Transition: An Integrated Assessment Model Analysis Using MEDEAS
December 1Rich PowellCEO, Clean Energy Buyers AssociationTBD

 

UT Energy Symposium Talks

Displaying 26 - 50 of 363

April 8, 2025

Interregional Transmission Operational Coordination

Yonghong Chen 
Chief Scientist, Grid Planning and Analysis Center, National Renewable Energy Laboratory

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March 27, 2025

Electric grid dynamic simulation: open synthetic datasets and stability assessment frameworks

Adam Birchfield

Assistant Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Texas A&M University 

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March 11, 2025

Reimagining Battery Chemistries for Sustainable Energy Storage

Kent Zheng

Assistant Professor, McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering & Texas Materials Institute, The University of Texas at Austin

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March 4, 2025

A Country-Level Primary, Final, Useful Energy and Exergy Database to Improve Understanding of Energy and the Economy

Matthew Heun, Professor, Department of Engineering, Calvin University; Virtual Visiting Research Fellow, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds; Extraordinary Professor, School of Public Leadership, Stellenbosch University 

Paul Brockway, Associate Professor, Sustainability Research Institute (SRI), School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds 

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February 25, 2025

February 18, 2025

Cyberwarfare and Critical Infrastructure in the 21st Century

Chris Lamb
Cybersecurity Researcher, Energy Security, Sandia National Laboratory

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February 11, 2025

February 4, 2025

Reducing Methane Emissions from Oil and Gas Operations in the Permian Basin: A Common Sense Approach

Melinda Taylor, Senior Lecturer, School of Law, University of Texas at Austin

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January 21, 2025

Making Climate Policy Models More Decision-Relevant

Wei Peng, Assistant Professor School of Public and International Affairs & Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, Princeton University

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December 4, 2024

Influencing a Culture of Safety While Designing Energy Transition Solutions

Murtaza I. Gandhi, Manager of Qualitative Risk and Sustainability, BakerRisk

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November 19, 2024

November 12, 2024

Engineering and Social Justice: Using High-Resolution Residential Data To Identify Energy Poverty in Households

Destenie Nock, Assistant Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University; CEO, Peoples Energy Analytics

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November 5, 2024

The State of Energy in Mexico

Ariel Ramos, Ramos Marcín Abogados - Founding Partner; International Board of Advisors (IBA) - The University of Texas at Austin; Mexican Academy of Energy Law - Coordinator of the Oil & Gas and Clean Hydrogen Committee / Former President

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October 29, 2024

October 22, 2024

Sustainability and Autonomy - The Interconnected Future of Modern Flight

Dan Dalton, Vice President, Global Partnerships, Wisk Aero; LLC Volunteer Chairman of the Texas Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) Advisory Committee

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October 15, 2024

Reckoning with Social Policy in Utility Regulation

Alexandra Klass, James G. Degnan Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School

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October 8, 2024

Hydrogen in the Energy Transition, Emergence From Research Interest to National Priority

Frank Wolak, President and CEO, Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Energy Association

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October 1, 2024

Fusion on Earth: A Quintessentially Scientific Pursuit With an Important Commercial Goal

Swadesh Mitter Mahajan, Research Professor, Institute for Fusion Studies, Department of Physics, University of Texas at Austin; Chief Scientific Advisor of Exofusion

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September 24, 2024

Carbon Capture and Storage in the Global Climate Scene

Tim Dixon, Director and General Manager, IEAGHG

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September 17, 2024

Lowering the Risk of Commercialization of CO2 Capture With Amine Solvents

Fred Closmann, Research Associate, McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering 

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September 10, 2024

Book Talk: The Conservative Environmentalist

Founder and Executive Chairman, American Conservation Coalition; Author, The Conservative Environmentalist  

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September 3, 2024

Electric Paradigms

Beth Garza, Senior Fellow, R Street Institute

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April 16, 2024

The Politics of the Energy Transition

David Spence, Professor of Energy Law, The University of Texas at Austin

Joshua Busby, Professor of Public Affairs, The University of Texas at Austin

Sheila Olmstead, Professor of Public Affairs and Dean Rusk Chair, The University of Texas at Austin

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