MEET THE TEAM
Prof. Michael Davidson
I am an associate professor in the School of Global Policy and Strategy and the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at the University of California, San Diego. I study the engineering implications, institutional conflicts and global value chains inherent in deploying low-carbon energy at scale. See our research areas and papers for more details.
I am a faculty member with the 21st Century China Center (where I run a project on Chinese energy markets with the China Data Lab), the 21st Century India Center, the Center for Commerce and Diplomacy, the Japan Forum for Innovation and Technology, and the Computational Social Science program, all located at UC San Diego, and the UC-wide Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. I am a senior associate (non-resident) with the Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. I am a member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, and am an alum of the Penn Project on the Future of U.S.-China Relations and the Public Intellectuals Program at the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.
Previously, I was a post-doctoral research fellow in the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and received my Ph.D. in engineering systems and an S.M. in technology and policy from the MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society, where I was a researcher with the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change. Prior to MIT, I worked for the Natural Resources Defense Council and was a Fulbright fellow in the Tsinghua University Department of Energy and Power Engineering. I received bachelors degrees in Mathematics and Physics and in Japanese Studies from Case Western Reserve University.
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Dr. Ming Wei
Ming is a postdoctoral researcher in the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California San Diego. Ming’s research interests focus on electricity markets, low-carbon transitions, green finance, and financial econometrics. Ming is currently working on a project to investigate China’s grid resource adequacy and to support China’s low-carbon policies on crucial power sector reform decision-making.
Ming holds a Ph.D. in Actuarial Studies and Business Analytics at Macquarie University (Australia). Ming’s doctoral dissertation is an interdisciplinary study of the renewable transformation of electricity markets in changing environments. Prior to his Ph.D., Ming earned two Master’s degrees—M.Phil. in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Hong Kong (Hong Kong, China) and M.Sc. in Electrical Power Systems from Bath University (the United Kingdom). Ming obtained his bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Tianjin University (China).
Before joining Davidson’s lab, Ming previously worked as research fellow in the Fintech Center of Zhejiang Lab, where Ming developed models to analyze fintech’s impact on green finance and decarbonization. Apart from that, Ming worked as an analyst at the headquarters of China Light and Power Co., Ltd. Ming also has participated in the consulting and research projects with China Southern Power Grid, Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and the National Key Research and Development Program of China with the topics of electricity markets, smart grid, and energy internet.
Dr. Quan Zou
Dr. Quan Zou is an interdisciplinary legal scholar specializing in law and society, law and public policy, legal consciousness, and labor rights. Focusing on the rights and resistance of Chinese workers, her doctoral research aimed to unravel the complexities of labor dynamics in China from a socio-legal perspective. Currently, she investigates the impact of China’s energy transition on its workforce as the nation moves towards carbon neutrality. Additionally, she explores the intersection of climate and environmental policy within China’s evolving economic and political landscape.
Quan earned her LL.M. and a Master of Comparative Law from the University of Southern California, and she holds a Ph.D. in Law from the University of Hong Kong. Prior to joining the Power Transformation Lab, she served as an assistant professor at Wenzhou-Kean University’s College of Business and Public Management in China, where she taught Business Law.
Sandy Qian
Sandy is a research associate in the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California San Diego. Her research interests are clean energy and supply chains, with a focus on technology, investment, and trade. She currently leads the lab’s database design and project management, and supports a variety of research topics.
Prior to joining the lab, Sandy worked at a private equity market research firm in China, providing investment and management consulting services to various clients. She led national and provincial research projects on government investment funds, clean energy investment, and other topics.
Sandy graduated from Renmin University of China with a master’s degree in systems theory and a bachelor’s degree in information management.
Shiny Choudhury
Shiny is pursuing a Ph.D. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at UCSD. She is co-advised by George Tynan and Michael Davidson, with whom she explores decarbonization pathways under various technological and market contexts. Shiny has a background in power and energy system modeling, controls, and AI/ML. She holds an M.Sc from UC Irvine, working in the Advanced Power and Propulsion Lab (APEP), exploring hydrogen combustion for stationary burners. In her free time, Shiny enjoys yoga, kickboxing, running, or being in the waters at Scripps pier!
Manh (Tyson) Dao
Tyson is pursuing a Ph.D. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, with a focus on Energy Systems at UCSD. He has a keen interest in sustainable development, climate change and renewable energy. His current research involves combining engineering and political-economic principles to better understand global energy trends. In particular, he’s interested in Vietnam’s energy transition and its implication in the broader ASEAN context. In his free time, Tyson enjoys working out, playing his guitar and going on road trips.
Jenny Nicolas
Jenny is pursuing a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering at UCSD. She is interested in advancing renewable energy penetration by examining energy storage technologies at both device and system levels. Prior to joining the Davidson Lab, she worked as a project manager in commercial and utility-scale solar development. Jenny earned an integrated Master’s degree in Chemistry from the University of Edinburgh (Scotland), where the focus of her thesis was phase change materials for heat storage batteries. In her free time, Jenny enjoys running, eating desserts and watching documentaries.
Zhenhua Zhang
Zhenhua is a Ph.D. student in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at UC San Diego with a focus on policy questions relevant to electricity markets and energy systems. He combines engineering methods with the understanding of political economy to identify the transition strategies towards carbon neutrality. His previous research focuses on the operational details of renewable energy technologies and the economic and financial aspects of behind-the-meter renewable projects. Zhenhua has worked on battery storage at Tesla and startups for a couple of years, where he developed software apps for system-level simulations and real-time controls of commercial and industrial battery storage projects in California and China. Zhenhua holds an M.S. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Stanford University, a B.S. in Environmental Science, and a minor in Economics from Fudan University.
Kaarthi Gnapathy
Kaarthi is a Ph.D. student in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at UC San Diego, where he applies engineering tools to explore political economy questions. His current research focuses on how industrial power sector decarbonization, power market reforms, and cross-border electricity trade shape national clean energy transitions. He holds a master’s degree from UC San Diego and a bachelor’s degree from Purdue University, and brings professional experience in the Southeast Asian power sector. Outside of research, he enjoys cycling, cooking, and exploring new restaurants.
Ziying Song
Ziying is an incoming PhD student in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at UCSD in the Energy Systems track. Her research focuses on leveraging power system modeling tools and political-economic analysis to drive efficient, equitable, and forward-thinking energy transitions across China and its key counterparts. Ziying holds a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University and brings working experience from China and international NGOs. In her free time, Ziying enjoys swimming, sleeping, and doing all kinds of interesting things.
Tereza Petrovicova
Tereza is a Ph.D. student in Political Science at UC San Diego, focusing on the political economy of the energy transition. Her research examines how politics at the federal, state, and local levels shapes the siting and deployment of renewable energy, and how the spread of clean energy in turn influences political dynamics. She studies topics such as renewable energy investments, interconnection queues, and regional electricity market governance. Prior to UC San Diego, Tereza earned a B.A. in Economics from NYU Abu Dhabi. In her free time, she enjoys yoga, visiting national parks, and learning languages.
Vafa Behnam-roudsari
Vafa is pursuing a Ph.D. in economics, specializing in macroeconomics, trade, and economic history. His main focus is on trade and industrial policy, studying the micro and macro impacts of trade protection and industrial subsidies on growth, productivity and market power in India and the US. Prior to UCSD, he worked for a year as a research assistant at the National Bureau of Economic Research and holds a double B.A. in Computer Science and Mathematics-Economics from Brown University.
Licheng Hu
Licheng is a master’s student in Data Science. He is interested in machine learning, applying large language models as agents, and natural language processing. At Davidson Lab, he collaborates with Dr. Ming Wei on China Power Grid research, focusing on collecting and analyzing data related to power usage policy in China.
Zhipeng (Bill) Chen
Bill is a data scientist with a B.S. in Data Science from UC San Diego and an M.Eng. in Data Science from UCLA. Bill is passionate about building end-to-end web-scraping and ETL pipelines, extracting insights with machine learning, and developing RAG-based LLM applications for real-world use cases. At Davidson Lab, Bill works on projects spanning geodata, database pipelines, web development, and AI/LLM tooling. In free time, Bill enjoys playing basketball, watching TV, and mobile gaming.
Angelina Zhang
Angelina is a second-year UCSD student majoring in Data Science and Math-CS. She is interested in machine learning and data analysis. She has experience in data collecting and web scraping in projects. In her free time, Angelina enjoys playing badminton, playing video games, and hanging out with her friends.
Calvin Chen
Calvin Chen is a third-year undergraduate student majoring in Political Science and Data Science. He assists with research on critical minerals and clean energy policies and hopes to pursue a career in political economy research, particularly in the geopolitics of emerging technology. He is especially interested in applying natural language processing and large language models to better understand geopolitical dynamics. In his free time, he enjoys rock climbing and cooking.
Jack Kai Lim
I am a third year international student from Malaysia! Majoring in Data Science with a Minor in Math. At the Power Lab I am working with Jenny Nicolas on the Solar NIMBY Project, assisting her with visualizing spatial data, performing robustness checks and creating models to help with understanding the social effects on Solar Panel construction. In my free time I love to go swimming, running or Rock Climbing, but if I am in my room I am probably paying video games!
Lucien Chen
Lucien is a third year undergraduate student at UCSD majoring in Probability & Statistics with interests in utilizing statistics and data science for social good. At Davidson Lab, he works on helping to collect and analyze data for energy system development in Southeast Asia. In his free time, he enjoys working out and exploring the food scene in San Diego.
Alumni
- Nathan Mariano
- Hanyi Wang
- Eddie Yang
- Zhuohan Fang
- Yumeng Liu
- Chen (Pammy) Long
- Yuting (Christine) Wan
- Annabelle Min
- Connie Chang
- Jingting Liu
- Lu Tong
- Micah Gilbert
- Nan Huang
- Dr. Hongyu Zhang
- Ruibin (Ian) Deng
- Yiqun Meng
- Jiacong Li
- Nikki Emam
- Dr. Fikri Kucuksayacigil
- Zecheng (Justin) Li
- Dinah Shi
- Boyu Yao
- Shasank Bonthala
- Jiahe (Jeffrey) Feng
- Chi (Will) Gao
- Isac Lee
- Justin Lu
- Johnny Nguyen
- Yuanbo (Rambo) Shi
- Arjun Sawhney
- Huizhong (Sonia) Tan
- Ananya Thridandam
- Yunhan Zhang