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 |
| 1/27/2026 | Tom Murphy | Emeritus Professor of Physics, Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California at San Diego | Questioning Modernity: What does Energy Do? |
| 2/3/2026 | Hugh Daigle | Professor, Hildebrand Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering James Dyer | Professor, Department of Information, Risk, and Operations Management, McCombs School of Business Carey King | Research Scientist and Assistant Director, Energy Institute Kara Kockelman | Professor, Fariborz Maseeh Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Diana Marculescu | Department Chair, Professor and Motorola Regents Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering #2 Alexandros Savvaidis | Professor, Jackson School of Geoscience, Manager and PI of Texas Seismological Network and Seismology Research (TexNet) Hao Zhu | Associate Professor, Texas Atomic Energy Research Foundation Centennial Fellowship in Electrical Engineering | Ask UT Austin Anything about Energy |
| 2/10/2026 | Jake Jordan | Chief Science Officer, Mati Carbon | TBD |
| 2/17/2026 | Michael Craig | Associate Professor, School for Environment and Sustainability and the Department of Industrial and Operations Engineering, University of Michigan | Decarbonizing the Electric Power Sector in a Warming World |
| 2/24/2026 | Aditya Ramji | Director, Global South Centre on Clean Transportation, University of California, Davis | Shaping Industrial Policy with Vehicle Electrification - Analysing Global EV supply chains and implications |
| 3/3/2026 | Kelly Sims Gallagher | Dean of The Fletcher School at Tufts University | Shifting Priorities in U.S. Energy Innovation Policy |
| 3/10/2026 | Joe DeCarolis | Head and Professor, Department of Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University | Leveraging Energy Data and Analysis to Navigate a Rapidly Changing Energy Landscape |
| 3/24/2026 | Sara Eftekharnejad | Associate Professor, SyracuseCoE Faculty Fellow, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Syracuse University | TBD |
| 3/31/2026 | Kyle Chan | Fellow – Foreign Policy, John L. Thornton China Center, Brookings Institution | China’s Clean Tech Industrial Strategy |
| 4/7/2026 | Michael Baldea | Professor, Chemical Engineering, UT Austin | Electrification of Industry for lower-carbon emissions, the EPIX project |
| 4/14/2026 | Sindhu Nathan | U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology | TBD |
| 4/21/2026 | Erica Belmont | Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering, University of Wyoming | TBD |
UT Energy Symposium Talks
September 8, 2011
Regulatory Mechanisms to Foster Investments in Energy Efficiency
Jay Zarnikau, Adjunct Professor, LBJ School of Public Affairs and President, Frontier Associates
September 1, 2011
Historical Energy Overview & Why There is No Consensus for the Future
Dr. Carey King, Research Fellow, CIEEP, UT Austin