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 |
| 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 | Leading the U.S. Energy Information Administration in a Time of Rapid Change |
| 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
November 13, 2014
Methane Emissions in the Natural Gas Supply Chain
David Allen, Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin
November 6, 2014
Technological and Commercial Innovations in Distributed Energy Generation:
- Charlie Upshaw, PhD student with the Webber Energy Group: “Modeling Peak Load Reduction and Energy Consumption Enabled by an Integrated Thermal Energy and Water Storage System for Residential Air Conditioning Systems in Austin, Texas”
- Erik Funkhouser, researcher with the Energy Systems Transformation group at UT: “Commercial Innovations in Community-scale Distributed Generation”
October 30, 2014
Effective Approaches for Funding Cleantech: Are We There Yet?
Mike Jackson, Partner, The Westly Group
October 23, 2014
Disrupting the Power Sector: Overpowering Inertia and Incrementalism
Paul Hudson, Managing Partner, Stratus Energy Group, LLC
October 9, 2014
Energy Research at the Intersection of Computer Science, Decision Sciences, and Complex Systems
Kiran Lakkaraju, Senior Member of Technical Staff, Sandia National Laboratories
October 2, 2014
China’s Role in Global Clean Energy Technology Development
Joanna Lewis, Associate Professor, Georgetown University
September 25, 2014
Feeding the Dragon: Energy in China
Fred Beach, Assistant Director, Energy Institute
September 18, 2014
Renewables in Texas: Costs, Project Development, and Policy Issues
Panel discussion with Clay Butler (The Butler Firm), Colin Meehan (First Solar), and Spivey Paup (E.ON Renewables)
September 11, 2014
Impacts of Adoption of a More Fuel Efficient Vehicle Fleet
Steve Puller, Associate Professor, Texas A&M University
September 4, 2014
The Importance of Fuel Diversity in the Energy Generation Mix
Cris Eugster, Executive Vice President, Chief Generation and Strategy Officer, CPS Energy
April 28, 2014
Energy and Urbanization
Arnulf Grubler, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and Yale University
April 24, 2014
Student Research Showcase
- Brent Bennett, PhD student, Materials Science and Engineering: “Redox Flow Batteries: How Cutting-Edge Chemistry Will Transform the Electric Grid”
- Sean Wood, PhD student, Chemical Engineering: “Improved Lithium-ion Batteries using Lead Telluride (PbTe)”
April 17, 2014
Trade-offs in Climate Mitigation Strategies: Assessing the Regional Variations in the Health, Environmental, and Climate Benefits of Wind and Solar Generation Across the United States
Inês Azevedo, Assistant Professor and Co-director, Climate and Energy Decision Making, Carnegie Mellon University
March 27, 2014
Carbon Neutral Design: An Architectural Primer
James Wasley, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Architecture, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
March 20, 2014
Electricity Scarcity Pricing and Resource Adequacy
William Hogan, Raymond Plank Professor of Global Energy Policy, Harvard University
March 6, 2014
Stanford’s ARPA-E Sensors and Energy Behavior Initiative
Carrie Armel, Research Associate, Stanford University
February 27, 2014
Human Nature & the Grid
Craig Boice, President Boice Dunham Group
February 13, 2014
Emerging Legal and Political Issues in Shale Gas Production
David Spence, Associate Professor, McCombs School of Business, UT Austin
February 6, 2014
A Status Report on the U.S. Nuclear Energy Program
William C. Ostendorff, Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner
January 30, 2014
A Ringside Seat: What I learned from 10 years reporting on, and living through, the fracking revolution
Russell Gold, Senior Energy Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
January 23, 2014
Transforming America’s Grid through Technology, Competition & Green Power
J. Calvin Crowder, President, Electric Transmission Texas
November 21, 2013
The impacts of shale gas development on surface water quality
Sheila Olmstead, Associate Professor at UT Austin’s LBJ School of Public Affairs
November 14, 2013
Valuation of plug-in vehicle life-cycle air emissions and oil displacement benefits
Paulina Jaramillo, Assistant Research Professor at Carnegie Mellon University
November 7, 2013
Leveraging large data sets: demand side models and control in low carbon power systems
Duncan Callaway, Assistant Professor at the University of California Berkeley