InSPIRE/Team
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InSPIRE Team
About the Team
The InSPIRE team comprises researchers with diverse backgrounds in renewable energy, agriculture, environmental science, modeling, and data analytics. We believe our multidisciplinary approach ensures comprehensive solutions to complex challenges that represent a wide variety of agrivoltaic stakeholder perspectives and needs.
Jordan Macknick
Principal Investigator: InSPIRE, Lead Energy-Water-Land Analyst
Jordan Macknick is a global leader in energy-water-food nexus research and has led agrivoltaics research at NREL since 2013. Jordan’s research focus spans examining the water and land impacts of the energy sector broadly, assessing opportunities to reduce the energy intensity of water infrastructure, and identifying synergies across energy, agriculture, and water sectors through agrivoltaics. Jordan leads the multi-disciplinary InSPIRE research team in its diverse set of approaches to studying agrivoltaics, including: fieldwork, techno-economic modeling, geospatial analyses, optimization modeling, social sciences, technical assistance, outreach and education, and global thought leadership. In the international arena, Jordan co-leads the Agrivoltaics Action Group as part of the International Energy Agency’s Photovoltaic Power Systems Programme (PVPS), which coordinates agrivoltaic research across continents.
Heidi Hartmann
Co-Principal Investigator: InSPIRE, Land Resources and Energy Policy Program Manager
During her career at Argonne National Laboratory Heidi has focused on the evaluation of impacts on human health and ecosystems, especially impacts associated with renewable and other sources of energy. Since 2015 Heidi has served as the manager of the Land Resources and Energy Policy Program in Argonne’s Environmental Science Division. Current program work includes measuring and increasing the ecosystem services provided by utility-scale solar facilities, particularly focused on supporting improved soil and pollinator habitat quality.
James McCall
Senior Energy and Environment Analyst
James is a senior analyst who specializes in modeling the economic and environmental tradeoffs of agrivoltaics and renewable energy projects and is one of the original InSPIRE team members since 2015. On the InSPIRE team, James leads the ecosystem services field work and economic modeling tasks and contributes to technical assistance and stakeholder outreach activities. Other projects include coordinating agrivoltaics and workforce development opportunities for the California Renewable Energy Laboratory and the Permian Energy Development Laboratory.
Alexis Pascaris
Agrivoltaics and Energy-Water-Land Nexus Researcher
Alexis Pascaris is a social scientist and subject matter expert in agrivoltaics. Her work aims to improve knowledge about the socio-political aspects of agrivoltaics by investigating issues around stakeholder adoption, community acceptance, policy effects, and implementation barriers. She engages farmers, solar developers, policy makers, Extension agents, and other key stakeholders to understand their interests and needs in agrivoltaics with the aim of facilitating cross-sector collaboration and supporting appropriate deployment. On the InSPIRE team, Alexis provides thought leadership in social sciences, conducts novel analyses, develops resources to inform implementation, and coordinates national research efforts.
Brittany Staie
Agrivoltaics and Food-Energy-Water Nexus Researcher
Brittany Staie is an agrivoltaics and food-energy-water nexus researcher in the Strategic Energy Analysis Center at the National Renewable Energy Lab. Within the InSPIRE portfolio, her research primarily evaluates crop production and farmer compatibility within diverse agrivoltaic systems. She also actively engages with community-based organizations, tribes, governments, and academic institutions through the Department of Energy’s Clean Energy to Communities program, offering technical expertise to support their community-specific agrivoltaic goals. Additionally, Brittany leads the Sustainable Agriculture Catalyzer at the Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis, where she assesses various agricultural decarbonization strategies and potential co-benefits and tradeoffs of implementation.
Kai Lepley
Agrivoltaics and Food-Energy-Water Nexus Researcher
Kai is a researcher in the Strategic Energy Analysis Center. He leverages ecology-driven systems thinking and data-driven science to imagine, model, and test climate-resilient land uses for food, energy, and water security. A background in ecology, natural resources management, climate science, and data-driven analysis complements industry experience to support his holistic approach to land use and renewable energy problem solving. His work with the InSPIRE team focuses on collaboratively developing modeling capabilities for agrivoltaic systems and performing targeted and broad-scale analyses to advance our understanding of agrivoltaics design and implementation in the U.S. and abroad.
Jordan Martin
Agrivoltaics and Energy-Water-Land Nexus Researcher
“J” (Jordan Martin’s preferred nickname) is a researcher at NREL who previously worked as an environmental consultant in the renewable energy field. J’s academic background is in botany, ecology, and biostatistics. During her master’s at The College of William and Mary she conducted research on the economic and ecological effects of pollinator-friendly landscaping at solar facilities across the Mid-Atlantic. J is continuing her research on the landscape-level effects of renewable energy development at the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL). On the InSPIRE team, J’s research focuses on the challenges surrounding the implementation of pollinator habitat at solar facilities and improving the overall environmental and biodiversity outcomes of solar sites.
Laura Fox
Natural Resource Specialist
Laura is a Natural Resource Specialist at Argonne National Laboratory’s Environmental Science Division. Laura’s research focuses on ecosystem services at renewable energy facilities. Since joining the InSPIRE Project in 2021, Laura has assisted the Argonne research team on the biodiversity responses of habitat-friendly vegetation management practices at utility scale solar energy facilities.
Lee Walston
Ecologist/Environmental Scientist
Lee is an ecologist at Argonne National Laboratory’s Environmental Science Division where he also serves as head of the Ecology, Natural Resources, and Managed Systems Department. Lee’s research focuses on the emerging field of renewable energy ecology where he evaluates strategies and land use options to optimize the ecological compatibility of renewable energy development. Since joining the InSPIRE Project in 2018, Lee has led Argonne’s research on the biodiversity responses of habitat-friendly vegetation management practices at solar energy facilities.
Andrew Bilich
Agrivoltaics and Energy-Water-Land Nexus Researcher
Andrew Bilich (Andy) is a project manager in the Accelerated Deployment and Decision Support Center at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) where he supports international energy, mini-grid and energy access projects in Latin America, Cameroon, Indonesia, and Haiti among others. For InSPIRE, he supports partnership development as well as research and technical assistance for integrating agrivoltaics internationally into mini-grids, including the recent collaboration with USAID in Haiti developing a feasibility analysis and stakeholder engagement report evaluating the potential for agrivoltaics in mini-grid contexts in Haiti.
Dana-Marie Thomas
Dana-Marie Thomas
Researcher
Dana-Marie Thomas is a researcher and biobehavioral scientist in the Strategic Energy Security Group within the NREL Energy Security and Resilience Center. Her interdisciplinary research portfolio spans across agrivoltaics, human dimensions of energy systems, cyber-resilience, community resilience, and social vulnerability; and the intersection of renewable energy, resilience, the built environment, and health; as well as metrics and return on investment for these topics. At NREL, Dana-Marie develops tools and research to enhance stakeholder participation and equity in the renewable energy transition and address community vulnerabilities in an evolving threat landscape. She is the agrivoltaics community lead for the U.S. DOE Clean Energy to Communities (C2C) Expert Match program, where she works with rural, urban, and tribal agricultural communities. As a member of the InSPIRE team, Dana-Marie’s work focuses on helping BIPOC farming communities accelerate the adoption and deployment of agrivoltaic systems by providing technical assistance and decision-making support to provide foundational insights and solutions to key barriers, including food security and sustainable agriculture.
Silvana Ovaitt
Bifacial PV Analyst at NREL Researcher
Dr. Silvana Ovaitt is a researcher at NREL working within the Field Performance and Reliability Group. Specializing in bifacial photovoltaic (PV) technology, Silvana's work primarily revolves around the optical and electrical performance and modeling of bifacial systems and agrivoltaic PV systems. As part of InSPIRE, she supports the development and validation of NREL’s modeling tools for their use in Agrivoltaics, and provides support in evaluating new project designs for irradiance and sensor requirements.
Brian Mirletz
Software Developer and Energy Analyst
Brian Mirletz is a researcher in the Accelerated Deployment and Decision Support Center. His work on the System Advisor Model and the Annual Technology Baseline contributes to agrivoltaics research including cost and performance modeling. This includes agrivoltaic tool development and economics research, such as the InSPIRE Financial Calculator.
Kate Doubleday
Model Engineer
Kate (she/her) is a Model Engineer in NREL’s Grid Planning and Analysis center and an analyst in the InSPIRE team. She contributes statistical analysis, modeling, data visualization, and policy analysis to the InSPIRE team, including a recent review of land-use regulations in Colorado. Kate also contributes to the agrivoltaics team’s work in South Asia through USAID. Kate has an undergraduate degree in biology and a master’s and Ph.D. in electrical engineering.
Thomas Hickey
Agrivoltaic Analyst
Thomas works at NREL as a graduate researcher on the InSPIRE team. Passionate about environmental stewardship and renewable energy integration, Thomas has worked in the solar industry for 8 years while earning a Bachelors of Science in Landscape Architecture and Masters of Science in agricultural sciences from Colorado State University. Bringing a creative systems thinking mindset to the team, his practice focuses on responsible and efficient integration of solar technologies through the agrivoltaic land use model.
Hanna Fields
Software Developer
Hanna is a web developer whose work centers on creating accessible websites to effectively communicate research findings and facilitate the analysis and distribution of NREL's data. She manages the InSPIRE website, in particular, the InSPIRE Map and Data Portal. The InSPIRE Map offers a comprehensive census of agrivoltaic installations across the United States, while the Data Portal serves as the largest reference library for agrivoltaic materials. She is passionate about the InSPIRE project as it advances agrivoltaic research and allows her to contribute to hands-on activities, such as planting and harvesting at the NREL BARN site.
Chong Seok Choi
Agrivoltaic Analysis Intern
Chong Seok is a geoscientist who studies food-energy-water nexus topics at NREL. During his PhD at Temple University, he studied the ecological trade-offs and physical interactions between solar PV arrays and the soil-vegetation complex within a re-vegetated PV system by leveraging his knowledge in field instrumentation, statistics, and data visualization. As part of the InSPIRE team, his main role has been to help other researchers who are new to studying agrivoltaics and eco-voltaics develop experimental designs to address a wide range of research questions or to further refine them. His recent research interests include modeling the long-term soil carbon and nitrogen consequences of different land uses and geospatial modeling of agrivoltaic influence on microclimates.
InSPIRE Team Alumni
Julia Chamberland
Agrivoltaic Analysis Intern
Julia Chamberland is an agrivoltaic analysis intern based in Minnesota. Her work on the InSPIRE team focuses on managing two NREL agrivoltaic research sites in Minnesota and coordinating data collection and analysis for the InSPIRE Map. Julia's previous experience and education centered around community-based food systems and social science research on farmer agency in urban agricultural systems. She holds a B.A. in Environmental Studies and Geography.
