Baker, Student Speak at Energy Resources Workshop in New Zealand

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Participants in the Distributed Energy Resources Workshop
Participants in the Distributed Energy Resources Workshop

Industrial engineering professor Erin Baker and doctoral student Destenie Nock both gave presentations at the Distributed Energy Resources Workshop held at the University of Auckland in New Zealand Jan. 11-14.

The workshop was sponsored by engineering professor Golbon Zakeri through the New Zealand National Science Challenge on Agile and Resilient Manufacturing. Nock and Baker presented two of the 14 talks highlighting the challenge and promise of renewable energy, energy storage and demand response.

Nock’s talk focused on evaluating the sustainability of the New England power grid. Baker spoke about decision making under deep uncertainty.

Baker, the John A. and Elizabeth S. Armstrong Professional Development Professor, is an internationally recognized expert in energy and economics. She studies the application of operations research methods and economics to decision-making under conditions of uncertainty, as well as its applications to energy and the environment.

She is director and principal investigator of the UMass Offshore Wind Energy Program, created in 2011 through a $3.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT). The program is meant to create a community of researchers who understand the technological challenges, environmental implications and socioeconomic and regulatory hurdles of offshore wind farms.

Baker is also director of the Energy, Environment and Economic Decision-Making Lab.

Nock is a Wind Energy IGERT fellow.