About Us

Dr. Richard Richels directs global climate change research at EPRI. In previous assignments, he directed EPRI's energy analysis, environmental risk, and utility planning research activities

He has served on a number of national and international advisory panels, including committees of the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Research Council. He served as an expert witness at the Department of Energy's hearings on the National Energy Strategy and testified at Congressional hearings on priorities in global climate change research.

Dr. Richels was a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Second and Third Scientific Assessments and served on the Synthesis Team for the US National Assessment of Climate Change Impacts on the United States. He currently serves on the Scientific Steering Committee for the US Carbon Cycle Program and the Advisory Committee for Princeton University Carbon Mitigation Initiative.

Dr. Richels received a BS degree in physics from the College of William and Mary. He was awarded MS and PhD degrees in decision science from Harvard University's Division of Applied Sciences. While at Harvard he was a member of the Energy and Environmental Policy Center.

Dr. Richels is a coauthor of Buying Greenhouse Insurance - the Economic Costs of CO₂ Emission Limits (with A. Manne). He has served as Editor of the Energy, Environment and National Resources area of the Operations Research Journal. He has also served on the Board of Editors of The Energy Journal and the Journal of Applied Stochastic Models and Data Analysis.

Dr. Thomas Wilson is the Senior Program Manager for EPRI’s Global Climate Change business area. His current research activities focus on a variety of climate-related issues: costs of alternative policies and the role of technology R&D in potentially reducing these costs, exploring mechanisms for allowing flexibility in domestic and international climate policies (e.g., emissions trading, Joint Implementation and the Clean Development Mechanism) and their interactions with regulatory approaches, and providing information and methods to help electric utilities make decisions in the face of climate policy uncertainty.

Dr. Wilson joined EPRI in 1985 as a Project Manager in the Risk Analysis program in the Environment division. There, his activities focused on risk management for a variety of environmental issues (e.g., global climate change, acidic deposition, electromagnetic fields, air toxics and non-combustion wastes) and decision support methodologies (e.g., technology choice, siting, making decisions involving multiple objectives and multiple stakeholders).

Before joining EPRI, Dr. Wilson worked at ICF Incorporated, Stanford's Energy Modeling Forum and International Energy Program, and Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Dr. Wilson received a BS degree in statistics from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He received his MS and PhD degrees in operations research from Stanford University.

Dr. Geoffrey Blanford is a Project Manager in the Global Climate Change program area of the Environment Sector. He currently holds a joint position in EPRI's Office of Innovation. His research activities include innovation strategy for environmental technology development and economic modeling of carbon mitigation policy.

Before joining EPRI, Dr. Blanford worked for the Global Climate and Energy Project (GCEP) and the Energy Modeling Forum at Stanford University, and at the Joint Global Change Research Institute in College Park, MD. He has served as an expert reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group III.

Dr. Blanford earned a BA degree in mathematics from Yale University and an MS degree in operations research from Columbia University. He received a PhD degree in management science and engineering from Stanford University.

Victor Niemeyer is Program Manager for the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Options Program at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). The Program helps energy companies investigate market mechanisms and offsets in climate policy design, assess the market impacts of climate policy on business and compliance strategies, understand the benefits and risks of new technologies, and assess the impacts of climate policy at state and regional levels. The overall goal of this work is to help electric manage the costs and risks to customers and investors in a carbon-constrained environment.

Before joining the Global Climate Change program, Niemeyer managed the Power Markets and Risk program area in EPRI's Power Delivery and Markets (PDM) Sector where he worked on methods of forecasting electric power price, estimating power and fuel market volatilities for option valuation, value generating and other assets, and managing financial risks from market volatility for competitive energy companies. He was also responsible for managing PDM's grid reliability and security programs

Earlier, as a Project Manager in the Environment Sector, he helped develop the art and science of applying risk management to environmental problems, applying short lead-time case study driven software products to solve specific utility environmental business risks. He also developed tools to help utilities understand the implications of the emerging market for SO2 emissions allowances and plan their long-term environmental compliance.

Niemeyer holds a Bachelor of Arts in economics from the University of California and a doctorate in economics from the University of Texas at Austin. His fields of emphasis are energy economics, power market simulation, and environmental economics.

Dr. Naresh Kumar is Senior Program Manager of the Air Quality Business Area of the Environment Sector. He has 14 years of experience in air quality studies and directs research activities related to modeling and monitoring of ozone, particulate matter, atmospheric deposition, regional haze, and interactions between air quality and global climate change.

Prior to joining EPRI, Dr. Kumar was employed by Sonoma Technologies, Inc. where he played a leading role in development and application of state-of-the-art tools for managing air quality. He worked on various photochemical and aerosol model development programs, emissions processing and evaluation, and air quality and meteorological data analysis. He was one of the developers of an Urban and Regional Multiscale (URM) air quality grid model that was recently used by Southern Appalachian Mountains Initiative (SAMI) for a visibility study.

Dr. Kumar received a BTech degree in mechanical engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, India. He received an MS degree in mechanical engineering from University of California, Santa Barbara and a PhD degree in mechanical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. He holds an MBA degree from University of California Haas School of Business, Berkeley. Dr. Kumar is the co-author of more than twenty peer-reviewed papers published in scientific journals. He also serves on the Editorial Review Board of the Journal of the Air and Waste Management Association.

Adam Diamant is a Senior Project Manager in the Global Climate Change Program. Mr. Diamant's current research activities focus on a variety of climate-related issues, including the development of international greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions trading, corporate GHG risk analysis and risk management, GHG abatement portfolio management, terrestrial carbon sequestration, and developing information and methods to help electric companies make decisions in the face of climate policy uncertainty.

Prior to joining EPRI, Mr. Diamant was a project manager at EPRI Solutions, Inc.-EPRI's application consulting subsidiary-where he managed ecological asset management projects. Mr. Diamant has more than a decade of private consulting experience. He has prepared quantitative economic analyses, developed sophisticated computer simulation models, and provided strategic advice to a wide range of public, private and non-profit clients. Previously, Mr. Diamant worked in the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB), where he was responsible for oversight of the regulatory programs of the U.S. Department of the Interior and the U.S. Forest Service.

Mr. Diamant holds a Master in Public Policy degree from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, and a BA degree in political science from the University of California, Berkeley.

As a Policy Analyst at OMB, Mr. Diamant received several awards recognizing his outstanding performance, including a "Professional Achievement" award and a "Division" award. Mr. Diamant also is a past recipient of a prestigious Presidential Management Internship (PMI).

Delavane Diaz is a Scientist at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). Her current research focuses on various climate issues including climate policy proposals and corporate greenhouse gas inventories and risk assessment.

Before joining EPRI in February 2008, Diaz served as an acquisitions officer in the U.S. Air Force, where she directed the test and evaluation effort for the Space Fence radar program at the Electronic Systems Center. Diaz was recognized by the Air Force Chief of Staff in 2005 as the Cadet of the Year. At the U.S. Air Force Academy, she held the highest rank as the Wing Commander, and worked in the Space Systems Research program as the mission analyst for the FalconSAT-3 small satellite program.

Diaz is a distinguished graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy with a Bachelor of Science degree in astronautical engineering. She earned Master of Science degrees in environmental change and management and in economic and social history from the University of Oxford, U.K., as a Rhodes Scholar.