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

DateSpeakerTalk Title
3/3/2026Kelly Sims Gallagher | Dean of The Fletcher School at Tufts UniversityShifting Priorities in U.S. Energy Innovation Policy
3/10/2026Joe DeCarolis | Head and Professor, Department of Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon UniversityLeading the U.S. Energy Information Administration in a Time of Rapid Change
3/24/2026Sara Eftekharnejad | Associate Professor, SyracuseCoE Faculty Fellow, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Syracuse UniversityTBD
3/31/2026Kyle Chan | Fellow – Foreign Policy, John L. Thornton China Center, Brookings InstitutionChina’s Clean Tech Industrial Strategy
4/7/2026Michael Baldea | Professor, Chemical Engineering, UT AustinElectrification of Industry for lower-carbon emissions, the EPIX project
4/14/2026Sindhu Nathan | U.S. House Committee on Science and TechnologyTBD
4/21/2026Erica Belmont | Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering, University of WyomingTBD

UT Energy Symposium Talks

Displaying 301 - 325 of 356

October 31, 2013

Telling the U.S. Energy Story

Jim Malewitz, Energy Reporter at The Texas Tribune

October 24, 2013

The Future of Coal

Andrew Maxson, Program Manager at Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI)

October 17, 2013

October 3, 2013

September 26, 2013

September 19, 2013

Modelling energy technology policy alternatives using expert elicitations

Greg Nemet, Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison

September 12, 2013

Student Research Showcase

  • Craig Andrew Milroy, PhD student, Chemical Engineering: “Lithium-sulfur batteries”
  • Daniel Urieli, PhD student, Computer Science: “A Learning Agent for Heat-Pump Thermostat Control”
  • Krystian Perez, PhD student, Chemical Engineering: “Smart Use of Smart Meters: Disaggregation of A/C Loads from Residential Homes”

September 5, 2013

Framing Energy Innovation Policy: Why We Fail to Learn from Experience

Jeffrey Alexander, Associate Director for Research & Analytics, SRI International

April 30, 2013

Energy with the CEO: "Energy Innovation and Entrepreneurship”

Randy Foutch, Chairman and CEO, Laredo Petroleum

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