Meet our researchers
Principal Investigator
Dr. Joule Bergerson
Associate Professor,
Canada Research Chair in Energy Technology Assessment
Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering
Centre for Env. Engineering Research and Education
Schulich School of Engineering
University of Calgary
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Dr. Bergerson received her Ph.D. in a joint program of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. The title of her dissertation was “Future Electricity Generation: An Economic and Environmental Life Cycle Perspective on Technology Options and Policy Implications”. She has a Master of Engineering Degree in Chemical Engineering with a collaborative program in Environmental Engineering from the University of Toronto and an undergraduate degree in chemistry and environmental science from the University of Western Ontario.
Prior to this, Dr. Bergerson was a project manager and senior technical systems analyst at the Royal Bank of Canada between 1998 and 2001. Dr. Bergerson has been an assistant professor at the University of Calgary since September 2008 and was a team leader at the Secretariat for the Canadian ecoEnergy Carbon Capture and Storage Task Force, Institute for Sustainable Energy, Environmental and Economy in 2007-2008. She has served as an expert panel member on the Canadian Council of Academies study titled “Potential for New and Emerging Technologies to Reduce the Environmental Impacts of Oil Sands Development” and an Environment Canada and Natural Resources Canada’s project titled “Development of a Framework for Evaluation of Environmental Performance from all Electricity Sources”.
Research Associates
Dr. Liang (Liam) Jing
Dr. Jing completed his Ph. D. in Environmental Engineering at Memorial University in 2015 and joined the research group in February 2018. His research interests revolve around techno-economic and environmental assessment of conventional and emerging energy technologies through quantitative modeling. Dr. Jing’s projects include carbon intensity of global crude refining and mitigation potential; The refinery of the future.
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Dr. Parissa Mirjafari
Dr. Mirjafari obtained her Ph. D. in Chemical and Biological Engineering from the University of British Columbia, Canada and joined the group in 2018. She has research background in biological systems for treatment of water and wastewater. Dr. Mirjafari also has experience with metagenomics and using the tool in remediation of acid mine drainage. In general, she is interested in research related to environmental pollution remediation. Currently, she is working on a project that estimates the upstream GHG emissions of natural gas operations in Western Canada.
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Dr. Tinu Abraham
Dr. Tinu Abraham completed her PhD from the Department of Chemical & Material’s Engineering at the University of Alberta in 2016 and joined the group in May 2021. She has research interests and experience in the field of sustainable energy development and environmental remediation with goals of reducing GHG emissions. Dr. Abraham’s current research involves investigating life cycle assessment of GHG emissions of existing and emerging technologies for oil sands facilities, with a focus on informing mitigation measures for improving emissions from Canadian refineries.
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Postdoctoral Associates
Dr. JingJing Cai
Dr. Cai joined the group in 2010 with a focus on the assessment of emerging technology. Her research focuses on the historical assessment of emerging technology with a focus on carbon capture and utilization.
Dr. Mayank Kumar
Dr. Kumar has an interdisciplinary background in Chemical and Environmental Engineering with broad research skill sets in the area of energy and environmental modeling, techno-economic, and life-cycle assessments. His current work focuses on investigating the systems-level analysis of energy technologies in petroleum refining operations.
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Dr. Oyeniyi Oyewunmi
Dr. Oyewunmi’s research interests reflect the application of the principles of thermodynamics, heat transfer, economics, and process systems engineering to the design and operations of renewable and non-conventional energy and power systems. His current research is directed towards the process design of carbon-neutral and negative emissions technology platforms for the production of alternative transportation fuels.
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Dr. Sylvia Sleep
Dr. Sylvia Sleep joined the team in January 2019. Her research interests are centered around the development of new methods to assess the life cycle environmental and economic implications of new technologies to aid in decision-making under uncertainty. Dr. Sleep’s current projects focus on assessing the greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation potential of emerging carbon capture and utilization technologies through the application of prospective life cycle and techno-economic assessment.
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Graduate Students
MuhammadYousuf Jabbar
Muhammad is a PhD student who joined the research group in May 2019. His research interests and current projects include life cycle analysis of carbon capture and the transportation and utilization of carbon dioxide-enhanced oil recovery.
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Emily Nishikawa
Emily joined the group in Spring 2019 in the PhD program of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, specialization in Energy and Environment. She is interested in sustainability topics, with emphasis in life cycle assessment (LCA) applied to energy sector. Her current project is in LCA of electrochemical conversion of carbon dioxide, and she is also exploring the integration of LCA with techno-economic analysis (TEA).
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Thomas Park
Thomas joined the group in September 2020 as a chemical engineer specializing in energy and environment. Some of his research interests include energy transitions, consequential LCAs, and carbon capture. Thomas’ current projects include Alberta energy transition forecasting, integrating pre-market development with post-deployment learning for LCAs of emerging technologies, and implications of generation 3 PV on future PV-reliant energy systems.
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Vaidehi Pitre
Vaidehi is a PhD student who joined the research group in Fall 2018. Her current project involves assessing potential emission reduction techniques and associated challenges in the construction industry. A few of Vaidehi’s research interests include energy systems analysis, life cycle assessment, and sustainable infrastructure, and solid waste management.
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Ahasa Yousuf
Ahasa is a PhD student who joined the research group in January 2020. His research interests and current projects included sustainability analysis of algal technology-carbon capture and bio-refinery systems through computational tools.
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Julia Yuan
Julia is completing her master’s in chemical engineering with a Specialization in Environmental Engineering at the University of Calgary. Her research involves the economics of Canadian Tight Oil and Gas, and optimization technologies for tight oil and gas.
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Fang Li
Fang is a PhD student and joined the research group in January 2021. His research interests include the role of carbon capture & storage (CCS) in future refinery/power generation systems. Fang is currently working on PRELIM development (CCS units).
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Diego Lovato
Diego joined the group in January 2021 and is currently completing his MSc. Chemical Engineering with a specialization in Engineering, Energy and Environment. His research interests include energy systems, transportation, and energy storage. Diego’s current project is assessing decarbonization pathways of Alberta’s passenger transportation sector
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Hyunsoo Kim
Hyunsoo is a Msc Student who joined the group in January 2021. His research interests and currents projects include Life Cycle Assessment of petroleum refining.
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Lia Newitt
Lia joined the team in May 2021. She is a Ph.D. student in Chemical and Petroleum Engineering with a specialization in energy and environment. Lia is interested in clean energy, petrochemicals, the oil and gas industry, life cycle assessment, and economics. Her current projects are petrochemicals in a low carbon future, the refinery of the future, and hydrogen in refineries.
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