[Inter]connect with
Our Experts

David began work on what would become SUGAR towards the end of his Ph.D. at Carnegie Mellon University. He developed the original prototype power flow solver based on equivalent circuit models and was the lead author on the group’s first publication on this work. Before starting Pearl Street he worked at Aurora Solar for two years, developing cloud simulation software for solar energy production modeling.

Larry is the Department Head of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, where he has pioneered the development of SUGAR. He has over thirty years of experience in developing software automation tools, and is well-known for his seminal work in circuit simulation algorithms in particular. He has formed and been involved with several successful startups in the electronic design automation and integrated circuit industries.

Hui has 15 years of R&D experience in the electronic design automation industry. A few highlights include leading the development of Finesim Spice, the industry’s first fully-parallelized circuit simulator, and Voltus, a massively-parallel IC power integrity solution with billion-node capacity. Hui’s expertise extends to numerical methods, high-performance computing, and software development.

Marko spearheaded the development of SUGAR’s optimization capabilities to support a variety of power system objective functions, from minimization of generation cost to optimal placement of new grid infrastructure. He has authored or co-authored 25 conference papers and 4 journal papers, including a best paper award-winning submission at the IEEE PES General Meeting in 2017. Marko was previously a nationally-ranked junior tennis player in Serbia, winning 12 major tournaments from 2008-2011.

Elias is a seasoned engineering leader with over 25 years of experience in the electronic design automation and embedded machine learning industries. Leading skilled engineers, he enjoys building collaborative and high-performance teams to deliver innovative products. Elias has helped build products achieving significant customer acceptance in diverse fields from automating placement and routing of custom/analog integrated circuits to automated machine learning platforms for embedded systems. He has a BS + MS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. Elias lives just north of Pittsburgh with his wife and two kids.

Alessandra completed her BS degree in Industrial Engineering at Texas A&M. While at A&M, Alessandra consulted with the GE Power RM&D team to reduce bottlenecks and optimize response time for servicing and repairing customers’ aeroderivative gas turbine generators. Prior to joining Pearl Street Technologies, Alessandra was a full-stack engineer at ReStream. There she developed software and visualizations to analyze and monitor fluid chemistry in real-time, in order to resolve potential problems associated with oilfield fluids.

John completed his MS degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh where he studied electric power systems with a focus on control and machine learning applications. Prior to graduate school he worked for Wilderness Trace Solar in Danville, KY where he designed residential and commercial PV systems. He received his BS in Physics and Mathematics from Centre College where he was also an All-American cross country runner.

David has 6 years of experience in the electronic design automation industry. During that time he contributed innovative software solutions to support scalable and efficient physical verification of cutting-edge, multi-billion transistor integrated circuit designs. His software development background includes high-performance distributed computing and concurrent programming. He has an MS degree in Computer Engineering and BS degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from North Carolina State University.

Richard has made a career of taking outdated processes and creating optimized solutions to drive business decisions. He was a major contributor to the development of a shop floor product tracking system for one of the world’s largest paper manufacturing and distribution companies. Richard earned his Eagle Scout and was proficient at designing and implementing both hardware and software systems before graduating with a B.S. degree in Computer Information Systems from Kennesaw State University.

Jean has over 10 years of full stack software development experience. Prior to working at Pearl Street, she led development on an event website that processed over 10 million tickets a year. Jean’s previous roles include work as a radar engineer and data analyst. She received her BS in Electrical Engineering at Stony Brook University with a concentration in digital signal processing. Jean lives outside of Philadelphia with her wife, two children, and two dachshunds.

Noel completed his MS degree in Applied Mathematics and BS degree in Computational Science at Stevens Institute of Technology. During his studies, Noel conducted research on stochastic optimization problems to determine the control policies of electrical microgrids. Prior to joining Pearl Street, Noel spent 3 years working on high frequency trading systems at a large investment bank.

Lucas has 9 years of software engineering experience across several industries. Initially focused on industrial process automation and control, he then helped build a large food delivery platform for restaurants. Through an interest in combating climate change and a fascination with the design of the electrical grid, he then furthered his education at Carnegie Mellon where he focused on power flow simulation of transmission and distribution grids. He has a BA in Physics from Goshen College and an MS in Energy, Science, Technology, and Policy from CMU.

Cara is a marketing leader with 10 years’ experience in the energy industry. First working in oil and gas midstream and then in solar development, Cara is skilled at launching complex brands and conducting financial and competitive analysis. As an expert brand storyteller, Cara merges her creative side with her quantitative background to grow businesses through customized marketing and development strategies. Cara has a B.S. in Finance from the University of Arizona and an MBA from Vanderbilt University. She currently resides in Nashville with her husband and Westie and loves to travel, go to concerts, and try new restaurants.

Nicholas is a renewable energy professional with experience in site selection, steady state and dynamic studies, and transmission planning. He began his engineering career as an interconnection consultant and then transitioned to a utility as a system stability planning engineer. Nicholas holds a B.S. in Agribusiness from Texas A&M University and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from The University of Texas at San Antonio. He currently lives in Austin where he likes to spend time outdoors with his wife and golden retriever.

Josh is a Software Engineer with 7 years of experience across AI Infrastructure and Grid Tech. He started his career with building training infrastructure for Amazon’s Alexa AI models and then worked on the modeling team at an automated data science startup. During COVID, he decided to pivot from the AI space into grid tech, working at a power retail startup working on real-time battery arbitrage algorithms. Josh holds his Bachelor’s in Computer Engineering from the University of Maryland.

Jeremy has an extensive background in infrastructures, analytics, and visualizations pertaining to high-velocity, high-volume, and high-value datasets. As a Staff Software Architect, Jeremy will help us build and enhance our interconnection software solutions, SUGAR™ and Interconnect™, to ultimately bring renewable energy online faster and more reliably. Jeremy lives south of Pittsburgh with his wife and three children and enjoys coaching basketball and baseball in his spare time.

Ahmed Muhsin, based in Austin, Texas, is a skilled Software Engineer with a diverse background in technology and programming languages. At Microsoft, he contributed to two main areas: the Microsoft build of OpenJDK, focusing on Java Virtual Machine enhancements and performance improvements, and Azure Functions, where he worked on developing and optimizing serverless computing solutions. Prior to his tenure at Microsoft, Ahmed was part of the team at General Motors, working on CAE Simulation Setup and Analysis. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Wayne State University. Ahmed’s experience reflects a robust blend of technical skills and project involvement, showcasing his ability to contribute to complex software solutions.

Matt started at Apple, building the software team for 10 generations of the iPod, was one of the first engineers on the original iPhone and was involved in the development of 5 iPhone generations, and the first iPad. As co-founder of Nest, Matt built the team that built the first machine learning thermostat and the leading connected home brand. Now, as co-founder of Incite.org, Matt looks for the first-movers that will cause positive, catalytic change in the venture capital, non-profit and political space.

Emily is an entrepreneur and investor whose purpose is to address the climate crisis with innovation. She is the Founder & Managing Partner of Powerhouse Ventures, which backs startups building digital infrastructure for rapid decarbonization. She is also the Founder & CEO of Powerhouse, an innovation firm that works with leading corporations and investors to help them find, partner with, invest in, and acquire the most innovative startups in climate tech. Emily is the Host of the podcast Watt It Takes, which has over 1 million downloads and has featured founders of some of climate tech’s most iconic companies like Nest, Sunrun, and Tesla.

Amritanshu (Amrit) Pandey is an Assistant Professor in the Electrical and Biomedical Engineering Department at the University of Vermont. He works on computation-focused technologies for electrical energy systems that help combat climate change. He develops these technologies using fundamentals from circuit theory, optimization, physics-constrained machine learning, and numerical methods. In the past, he and his colleagues pioneered the development of a novel circuit-theoretic simulation and optimization framework for power grids. This work has won several best paper awards, including two best-of-the-best paper awards at IEEE PES General Meetings.

Dr. Baldick is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. He has undergraduate degrees from the University of Sydney, Australia, and graduate degrees from the University of California, Berkeley. His current research involves optimization, economic theory, and statistical analysis applied to electric power systems, particularly in the context of increased renewables and transmission. Dr. Baldick is a Fellow of the IEEE and the recipient of the 2015 IEEE PES Outstanding Power Engineering Educator Award.

Jay Apt is a Professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business and in the CMU Department of Engineering and Public Policy. He is the Co-Director of the Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center and Director of the RenewElec (renewable electricity) project. Professor Apt received an A.B. in physics from Harvard College in 1971 and a Ph.D. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1976. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He received the NASA Distinguished Service Medal and the Metcalf Lifetime Achievement Award for significant contributions to engineering.

Granger Morgan is the Hamerschlag University Professor of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, where he is Co-Director of the Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center. He is a member of the National Academy of Science where he serves as the co-chair of the Report Review Committee. He is also a member of the Amereican Academy of Arts and Science. He serves on the Energy Advisory Committee of PNNL. He is previous chair of both EPA’s Science Advisory Committee and of the Advisory Council of the Electric Power Research Institute.

Tolga Kurtoglu is a technology executive with deep expertise in business and innovation strategy. He served in various roles as a chief executive & chief technology officer in leading organizations focusing on technology strategy, corporate innovation and incubation, and new business creation. He is the former Chief Technology Officer of HP, Inc. where he led HP Labs, one of the world’s most preeminent and seasoned industrial research laboratories. At HP, he developed and implemented a companywide technology strategy and future technology roadmaps, and managed a portfolio of innovation investments and incubations in strategic high-growth markets. Prior to HP, he was the Chief Executive Officer of Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), where he led the transformation of the renowned scientific research organization into a world-class open innovation business helping an ecosystem of clients navigate the complex, everchanging world of science and technology. As a compassionate innovation leader, he led the transition of numerous scientific visions and technology assets into new ventures, products and services with a track record of market deployed technologies in a variety of industries.

Altan has been a co-founder/architect/technical lead in 4 startups, all of which have been acquired by industry leaders in the electronic design automation (EDA) sector. In his last venture, he was the architect of RedhawkSC, a highly scalable on-chip power grid simulation and analytics platform, which is used in design flows for most of the world’s silicon chips by major semiconductor design companies. Before joining Pearl Street, he was an Ansys Fellow. He holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.