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 29th semester in fall 2025.
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 2025): 65605 (graduate students) / 65310 (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
Date | Speaker | Talk Title |
|---|---|---|
| 10/28/2025 | Xi Chen | Associate Professor CUNY Advanced Science Research Center Department of Chemical Engineering, The City College of New York | Water-Responsive Materials for Evaporation Energy Harvesting |
| 11/4/2025 | Michael Howland | Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Assistant Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Powering Decarbonization With Modeling and Optimization of Renewables in the Changing Environment |
| 11/11/2025 | Chris Kennedy | Professor, Institute for Integrated Energy Systems, University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada | Energy and Economic Regimes |
| 11/18/2025 | Leah Ellis | CEO and Co-founder, Sublime Systems | Energy-Efficient Cement Manufacturing |
| 12/2/2025 | Andrew Fix | Assistant Professor, Maseeh Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin | TBD |
UT Energy Symposium Talks
April 25, 2013
United States Renewable Electricity Futures: Are High Penetrations Possible?
Ryan Wiser, Staff Scientist and Deputy Group Leader in the Electricity Markets and Policy Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
April 11, 2013
Unlocking Energy Innovation
Richard Lester, Japan Steel Industry Professor and Head of the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, MIT
April 4, 2013
Integrating Renewables and Efficiency in the Energy Mix at Chevron
Jim Davis, President, Chevron Energy Solutions
March 28, 2013
Investing in Energy Innovation
Bob Metcalfe, Professor of Innovation and Murchison Fellow of Free Enterprise, Cockrell School of Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin
March 21, 2013
Student Research Showcase
- Josh Rhodes, Webber Energy Group, “Data-Driven Results from the Pecan Street Smart Grid Demonstration Project”
- Robert Fares, Mechanical Engineering, “Towards a Distributed Grid: A Quantitative Assessment of Community Energy Storage for Islanding”
- Steve Bourne, Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering, “Thermal Storage and the Building Side of Smartgrid”
March 7, 2013
International Low-Carbon Technology Transfers: Do Intellectual Property Regimes Matter?
Varun Rai, Assistant Professor of Public Affairs and Mechanical Engineering, UT Austin
February 28, 2013
All You Ever Wanted to Know About Smart Grids
John McDonald, Director, Technical Strategy & Policy Development, GE Energy Management – Digital Energy
February 14, 2013
Recent Developments in Unconventional Gas Law and Regulation
John Hays, Adjunct Professor of Energy Law at the UT School of Law and Partner at Hays & Owens LLP
February 7, 2013
Emerging Supply-and Demand-Side Technologies are Pressuring Regulators to Change Course – But Do They Have the Political Will?
Sherman Elliott, Consultant and Former Commissioner at the Illinois Commerce Commission (Jan ’08 – Mar ’12)
January 31, 2013
Energy Conservation Behavior and the Behavioral Wedge
Thomas Dietz, Professor of Sociology and Environmental Science and Policy, Michigan State University
January 17, 2013
Alternatives for Mitigating the Natural Resources Curse
Scott Gaille, Adjunct Professor of Management at Rice University and Chief Compliance Officer for ZaZa Energy Corporation
November 29, 2012
The Road Forward for Nuclear in the U.S. and Internationally
Dale Klein, Associate Director of the Energy Institute, Associate Vice President for research at UT Austin and former chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
November 15, 2012
Building (and Maintaining) Competitive Advantage in Clean Manufacturing
Alan Goodrich, Senior Analyst, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
November 8, 2012
A Journalist’s Perspective on Covering Energy
Kate Galbraith, energy and environment reporter for the Texas Tribune
November 1, 2012
Climate Change and Climate Engineering
J. Eric Bickel, Professor, Cockrell School of Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin
October 25, 2012
CCS Speaker Panel
UT Senior Research Scientist Dr. Susan Hovorka, UT Professor of Chemical Engineering Gary Rochelle, and Douglas Heguy, Commercial Leader of Gasification at GE
October 18, 2012
Gas Power Nexus: A Closer Look at the Gas Value-Chain in Power Production
Eric Bradley, Vice President for Strategy at IPR-GDF Suez North America
October 11, 2012
Electric Vehicles and the EVGo Program
Arun Banskota, President of Electric Vehicle Services, NRG Energy
October 3, 2012
The Global Diffusion of Cleaner Energy Technologies
Kelly Sims Gallagher, Associate Professor of Energy and Environmental Policy at The Fletcher School, Tufts University
September 27, 2012
Powering San Antonio into the New Energy Economy
Doyle N. Beneby, CEO, CPS Energy
September 6, 2012
Student Research Showcase
- Ashlynn Stillwell, Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering: “Energy-Water Nexus: Water Impacts on Thermoelectric Power Generation”
- Yezhou Wang, Electrical Engineering: “Power Grid Safety and Security: How to Keep Your Lights On”
- Scott Robinson, Energy and Earth Resources and LBJ School of Public Affairs: “Behavioral Pathways in the Diffusion of Residential Solar PV”
- Steve Bryant, Petroleum Engineering: “Refracturing: Getting More out of Unconventional Resources”
August 30, 2012
Sustainable Architecture: Form, Function, and Energy
Matt Fajkus, Assistant Professor, University of Texas School of Architecture, Principal Architect of Matt Fajkus Architecture, LLC
May 3, 2012
Americans’ Vehicle and Travel Choices: Opportunities for Plug- In Vehicles in the Nation’s Fleet Evolution
Dr. Kara Kockelman, Professor & William J. Murray Jr. Fellow, Department of Civil, Architectural & Environmental Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin
April 26, 2012
The Future of Water in Texas, and What It Means for Energy
Thomas Mason, Former General Manager of the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) and currently with the law firm Graves, Dougherty, Hearon & Moody