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
| Date | Speaker | Job Title | Talk Title |
| September 22 | Zhaomiao Guo | Assistant Professor, Fariborz Maseeh Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering, University of Texas at Austin | The Future of Grid Storage Can Be Mobile: From EV Charging Flexibility to Market-Based V2G |
| September 29 | Martín Esteban González López | Professor, Chemical Engineering, School of Engineering and Sciences, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Guadalajara | From Waste to Energy in Mexico: Technical and Policy Challenges for Resource Recovery in the Water–Energy Nexus |
| October 6 | Yicheng Zhu | Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin | Powering the AI Revolution: A New Voltage Regulator Enabling Vertical Power Delivery for Next-Generation AI Processors |
| October 13 | Shuo Ji & Zhiping Yang | Shuo Ji is the Director of Acquisition Processing and Geology, Viridien Group and Zhiping Yang is a Technical Project Manager, Viridien Group | Advancing Subsalt Imaging in the US Gulf: Operational and Technical Innovations in Seismic Data Acquisition From the Laconia Sparse OBN Program |
| October 20 | Tom Murphy | Professor Emeritus of the departments of Physics and Astronomy & Astrophysics at the University of California, San Diego | Questioning Modernity: What Does Energy Do? |
| October 27 | Erica Belmont | Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering at the University of Wyoming | TBD |
| November 3 | Thomas J Pierpoint | VP, Operations, Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative | TBD |
| November 10 | Charlotte De Cannière | Assistant Professor at the Toulouse School of Economics | Two Wrongs Can Sometimes Make a Right: The Environmental Benefits of Market Power in Oil |
| November 17 | Jamie Nieto | Professor of Applied Economics at the Faculty of Economics and Business, Universidad de Valladolid | Exploring the Biophysical Limits of the Energy Transition: An Integrated Assessment Model Analysis Using MEDEAS |
| December 1 | Rich Powell | CEO, Clean Energy Buyers Association | TBD |
UT Energy Symposium Talks
October 12, 2021
Sustainability Trends for the Real Estate Industry
Akshai Rao, Sr Vice President, Ancillary Services, Yardi Systems
October 5, 2021
September 28, 2021
Panel discussion: Perpetual Transition and Emerging Opportunities on the Energy Landscape
Distinguished Lecture Series of the Kay Bailey Hutchison Center for Energy, Law, and Business:
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Shawn Cumberland, Managing Partner, Energy Transition, Encap Investments L.P.
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Deniz Dindoruk, Senior Development Manager, Shell
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Will Glazener, Solution Leader, McKinsey & Company
September 21, 2021
Navigating the Energy Transition Through a New Decision Framework SESAME
Emre Gencer, Research Scientist, MIT Energy Initiative
September 14, 2021
Changing World Oil Markets and the Texas Economy
Brett Perlman, CEO, Center for Houston’s Future
September 7, 2021
BaSKET: Building a Strategy for Key Energy Transitions
Mik Carbajales-Dale, Associate Professor in Environmental Engineering & Earth Sciences, Clemson University
May 4, 2021
Accelerating the Energy Transition
Robert Kleinbaum, Technical Fellow, General Motors
April 27, 2021
Energy and Economic Development: Understanding the Role of Hierarchy
Blair Fix, Political Economist, University of Toronto
April 20, 2021
An Oxford-style Debate on the Role of Carbon Pricing to Foster a Low-Carbon Transition
Suzi Kerr, Chief Economist, Environmental Defense Fund
Marc Hafstead, Fellow and Director, Resources for the Future
Matto Mildenberger, Assistant Professor, UC Santa Barbara
William Boyd, Professor, UCLA
April 6, 2021
Pathways to a Net-Zero Economy
Lesley Jantarasami, Associate Director for Energy and Climate, Bipartisan Policy Center
March 30, 2021
March 23, 2021
Land/Energy Nexus in Texas
Michael Young, Senior Research Scientist, Bureau of Economic Geology, The University of Texas at Austin
March 9, 2021
Energy: The Key to Understanding Economic Growth
Tiago Domingos, Associate Professor in Environment and Energy, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa
March 2, 2021
China's Decarbonization Challenge
Michael Davidson, Assistant Professor, School of Global Policy and Strategy and the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department of the Jacobs School of Engineering, University of California San Diego
February 9, 2021
Spatio-Temporal Learning for Enhancing the Situational Awareness of Power Grids
Hao Zhu, Assistant Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin
February 2, 2021
Our Illusory Faith in Efficiency to Decouple Energy-GDP
Dr. Paul Brockway, University Academic Fellow, Sustainability Research Institute (SRI), University of Leeds, UK
January 26, 2021
Electricity and the Wealth of Nations
Robert Bryce, Journalist, Podcaster, and Documentary Producer
December 1, 2020
Congressional Priorities for U.S. Energy Policy
The Honorable Lizzie Pannill Fletcher, U.S. House of Representatives (TX-7), Chair of the House Subcommittee on Energy & Member of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
November 24, 2020
U.S. Climate Policy in the Biden Administration
Noah Kaufman, Research Scholar, SIPA Center on Global Energy Policy, Columbia University
November 17, 2020
How to Make Power Converters Small and Efficient - and Why
Alex Hanson, Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Texas at Austin
November 10, 2020
Climate, Complexity and the Politics of Major Regulatory Legislation
David Spence, Professor of Law, School of Law and McCombs School of Business, The University of Texas at Austin
October 27, 2020
The Green New Deal & The Role of Public Investment in an Energy Transition: A Conversation with Demond Drummer of New Consensus
Demond Drummer, Co-Founder and Executive Director, New Consensus
October 20, 2020
The Impact of the Global Pandemic on the Energy Industry
Vincent Kaminski, Professor in the Practice of Energy Management, The Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business, Rice University
October 13, 2020
Designing Intelligent Environments Using Reinforcement Learning
Zoltan Nagy, Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Architectural and Environmental Engineering and Director, Intelligent Environments Lab, The University of Texas at Austin
October 6, 2020
CO2CRC’s Otway Facility: An Enabler for Effective CO2 Storage
Matthias Raab, Chief Operating Officer, CO2CRC Ltd.; Max Watson, Senior Manager - Technology Development, CO2CRC Ltd.