Our Team

David Wooley is the Executive Director of Environmental Center a lecturer at the UC Berkeley, Goldman School of Public Policy. He has over 30 years’ experience with electric power regulation, climate policy and Clean Air Act implementation.   David is a co-author of the 2035Report.com, a series of studies that model how to decarbonize the electric power and transportation sectors.  He manages a research center focused on maritime port and freight decarbonization, microplastic pollution, air pollution hot-spot remediation in environmental justice communities, India climate and energy policy, climate risk assessment and disclosure in municipal bond markets, and offshore wind energy.  He has served as an Assistant Attorney General in NY, taught energy and environmental law at Pace University Law School and was the Executive Director of the Pace Energy Project. Later he directed the American Wind Energy Association’s Northeast Policy Project, represented distributed solar industry in state regulatory proceedings, served as Counsel to the Clean Air Task Force and as Vice President for Domestic Policy Initiatives at the Energy Foundation in San Francisco. David is co-author of Thompson-Reuters' Clean Air Act Handbook (2022).

Daniel M. Kammen is the Class of 1935 Distinguished Professor of Energy at the University of California, Berkeley, where he holds appointments in the Energy and Resources Group, the Goldman School of Public Policy, and the department of Nuclear Engineering. Kammen is the founding director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory (RAEL) and the co-Director of the Berkeley Institute of the Environment.  Kammen is the Director of the Transportation Sustainability Research Center.  Kammen received his undergraduate (Cornell A., B. ’84) and graduate (Harvard M. A. ’86, Ph.D. ’88) training is in physics After postdoctoral work at Caltech and Harvard, Kammen was professor and Chair of the Science, Technology and Environmental Policy at Princeton University in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs from 1993 – 1998.  He then moved to the University of California, Berkeley.  Daniel Kammen is a coordinating lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.  He hosted the Discovery Channel series ‘Ecopolis, and had appeared on NOVA, and on ’60 Minutes’ twice. Read more about Daniel Kammen

Simone Cobb is the Senior Program Manager at the Center for Environmental Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy. Simone supports the Center's Port Decarbonization and Green Bonds projects. Prior to working at GSPP she was an analyst at the political consulting firm Lake Research Partners in Washington, DC. Simone received her BA from UCLA.

Barbara Haya leads the Berkeley Carbon Trading Project, which studies the outcomes of carbon offset programs and performs outreach on offset program design. Barbara is also helping the University of California system develop its strategy for procuring carbon offsets for use towards meeting the system’s carbon reduction and neutrality goals.

Barbara holds a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley’s Energy and Resources Group, where she studied the outcomes of the Kyoto Protocol’s offset program, the Clean Development Mechanism, and worked closely with NGOs at the international climate change negotiations in support of offset program reform. Prior to returning to UC Berkeley, she worked with the Union of Concerned Scientists and then Stanford Law School contributing analysis on the design and implementation of California’s global warming law.

Dr. Nikit Abhyankar, Senior Scientist, has conducted extensive research and policy analysis over 15 years on a range of key energy issues such as renewable energy, transport, energy efficiency, and power sector reforms and regulation in multiple countries including India, U.S., China, Indonesia, and Vietnam. In particular, he analyzes the key technical, market design, and policy issues in renewable energy grid integration, energy efficiency programs, and transport electrification. Dr. Abhyankar has published over 50 peer reviewed journal papers, research reports, and conference papers and his research has been widely covered in the professional and popular media, for example - The Los Angeles Times, Forbes, The Verge, The Hindu, Live Mint , Down to Earth, Listening Brief etc.  

Dr. Abhyankar has a Ph.D. from Stanford University in Environment and Resources. He also has a master’s degree in economics and a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. 

Dr. Amol Phadke, Senior Scientist, research broadly focuses on energy technology, economics, markets, and regulation. Currently, his work is focused on, grid scale battery storage, heavy-duty electric vehicles, deep RE penetration in the India power sector, and appliance and equipment efficiency in several emerging economies.

Amol has published over 80 journal articles, research reports, and conference papers. His work has been featured in the Times of India, Economic Times, The Hindu, Nature Magazine, India and numerous other publications. Amol regularly advises the national government, utilities, and regulators in India on energy policies and programs. Amol has a Bachelor of Engineering degree from Government College of Engineering, Pune, India, and a M.S. and Ph.D. from the Energy and Resources Group, from UC Berkeley.

Umed Paliwal, Senior Scientist, conducts research on ways to integrate high share of renewables on the grid and its impact on reliability and electricity prices.  He holds a Master of Public Policy from UC Berkeley where he focused on energy markets, regulation, power systems modeling and data analytics. Prior to coming to Berkeley, he was an Analytics Consultant at a financial services firm.  Umed did his undergraduate studies in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (India) where he worked for two years on a project to develop emission inventory of Black Carbon and modeling its concentration in India.

Shruti Deorah is a Sr. Energy Policy Analyst at the UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy (GSPP) and an Affiliate at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). She conducts research on regulatory & policy issues in grid integration of renewable energy plants in India, along with deep decarbonization of the Indian economy. Her focus areas include regulatory aspects of transition to renewables, storage and its impact on capacity planning, and market design for the evolving sector. At GSPP, she also designs and coordinates the curriculum for executive education programs on Energy & Environment for foreign government officials.

Prior to this, Shruti worked as Advisor- Renewable Energy (RE) at Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC), India's apex power sector regulator. At CERC, her areas of work included tariff setting for RE plants, Renewable Energy Certificate market & mechanism, technical frameworks for grid integration & balancing of infirm RE power on the grid, and working with State Regulators on all RE related issues. 

In 2014, Shruti was a visiting scholar at GSPP in the Independent Leaders Scholar Program. Her research focused on renewable energy & energy-efficiency policy, specifically for addressing the challenge of rural electrification in India. Her prior work at the Observer Research Foundation in India focused on improving energy access through solar mini-grids. Previously, she led energy-efficient Lighting and Transport programs for the Clinton Climate Initiative in India. In early years of her career, she did account management and business development for digital advertising companies. She holds a B.Tech, M.Tech in Electrical Engineering from IIT Bombay.

Priyanka Mohanty works jointly as a Research Analyst at the Goldman School of Public Policy and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab's International Energy Division, analyzing policy and regulatory issues related to different countries' energy transitions across the power, transport, and industrial sectors. She earned her Masters of Science with UC Berkeley's Energy and Resources Group (ERG), where she worked on a variety of issues through work at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, The California Governor's Office of PLanning and Research, and the Socio-Spatial Climate Collaborative. This included analysis of the economic benefits of just transition policies, the techno-economics of energy transitions, transport decarbonization, and governance models for climate adaptation and mitigation.

Prior to coming to ERG, she worked with the New Climate Economy (NCE), a major international initiative housed within the World Resource Institute and governed by the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate. At NCE, she provided research support for their flagship 2018 global report “Unlocking the Inclusive Growth Story of the 21st Century: Accelerating Climate Action in Urgent Times”, authored briefings on climate finance for the 2018 G7 meetings, and managed the project’s country portfolios in China, India and Indonesia, working with stakeholders to support a low-carbon development policy agenda.

Jamie Matos holds an MPP from GSPP with a focus on environmental and energy policy. Recognizing that solving complex environmental challenges relies not only on science, economics and policy but also on public understanding, Jamie has spent over 7 years in environmental communications and public affairs roles across the public, non-profit and private sectors. With an academic background in environmental science and decision-making, Jamie is dedicated to advancing climate policies and programs that support an equitable, healthy and resilient future.

Neil Tangri is a Senior Fellow at the Goldman School of Public Policy, where he works on international governance of environmental issues, particularly climate change and plastics. He has more than 20 years’ experience working on issues of waste, plastic, climate change, toxics, and environmental justice. He also has experience with carbon markets and international development finance. Neil is the Science and Policy Director at the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, a network of more than 1000 organizations in over 90 countries working toward zero waste and environmental justice.

Neil received his Ph.D. in Earth System Science from Stanford University, his B.A. in Mathematics from Oberlin College, and also holds a 200 ton master’s license from the U.S. Coast Guard.

Annelise Gill-Wiehl is a Phd Candidate at the Energy & Resources Group and a graduate student researcher at CEPP's Berkeley Carbon Trading Project. Annelise is leading Berkeley Carbon Trading Project's research on the quality and effectiveness of cookstoves offset methodologies

Jeffery Moridani is a Masters of Development Practice student and a graduate student researcher at CEPP's Berkeley Carbon Trading Project where his research focuses on the assessment of additionality of carbon offset projects, and household energy projects in particular.