Bioenergy:

Hanna Breunig, Senior Scientific Engineering Associate, LBNL

Hanna Breunig, PhD is a Senior Scientific Engineering Associate in the Sustainable Energy Systems Group at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). Her current research focuses on developing a roadmap for sustainable, cost-effective utilization of waste biomass for distributed energy generation in California. Dr. Breunig received her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley and her B.S. degree in Environmental Engineering from Cornell University. She subsequently worked as a postdoctoral fellow at LBNL. For her Ph.D., Hanna created new methods for quantifying the environmental and human health impacts of early-stage energy systems like proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell systems and carbon dioxide sequestration. Prior to graduate school, Dr. Breunig worked in the Cornell Biofuel Research Laboratory studying cellulase enzymes for switchgrass biofuel development. She is an EPA STAR fellow and a Schmidt-MacArthur fellow. Dr. Breunig is passionate about engineering systems that provide energy, water, comfort, and nutrition while protecting marginalized populations and ecosystems.

Xinguang Cui, Research Associate, UCB

Binod Neupane, Postdoctoral Scholar, UCB

Former Group Members:

Murthy Konda, Project Scientist, LBNL

Thomas Hendrickson, Postdoctoral Scholar

Bio: Currently a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at UC Berkeley. Research interests include life-cycle sustainability assessments and multiobjective analysis of complex systems. Ph.D. in CEE obtained from UCB in May 2013.

Olga Kavvada, PhD Student

Bio: I am passionate about understanding and analyzing complex environmental problems from an engineering perspective. Particularly, I am interested in applying systems engineering to improve our usage of energy and water resources under the constraints of climate change. Outside of work, I enjoy nature exploration and can often be found snowboarding in Tahoe.

Currently, I am a graduate student in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at UC Berkeley. Previously, I studied at the National Technical University of Athens, where I focused on geomatics engineering, water resources management and sustainable transportation.  Before coming to Berkeley, I worked at an engineering company designing water infrastructure projects using Geographic Information Systems (GIS).