Lab Partnering Service Discovery

He received his bachelor’s degree in physics and his master’s and doctorate degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Washington. His main areas of research are distribution system analysis and power system operations. He is currently a principal research engineer at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for PNNL’s resilient distribution and microgrid analysis team (part of the Lab’s Electricity Infrastructure team)r. He is an adjunct faculty member at Washington State University, an affiliate assistant professor at the University of Washington, and a licensed professional engineer in Washington. He is the past chair of the Distribution System Analysis Sub-Committee and the current secretary of the Analytics Methods for Power Systems Committee (AMPS); formerly known as the Power System Analysis, Computing, and Economics (PSACE) Committee.

Dr. David J. Heldebrant is a Chief Scientist and Team Lead of the Separations Materials team under the Advanced Energy Systems Group in the Energy Processes and Materials Division at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Dr. Heldebrant joined PNNL as a post-doctoral research scientist in 2005.

Dr. Heldebrant's current research focuses on applying the principles of Green Chemistry to improve atom and energy efficiency and reduce toxicity of chemical processes and to make energy-related process more environmentally benign. Focus areas are on developing materials that can perform multiple tasks to reduce waste and improve energy efficiency in the fields of chemical separations and chemical conversions, applying these principles in areas of industrial gas separations, liquid/liquid separations and catalysis. The work focuses on the development of organic gas-separating liquids that can chemical remove CO2, SOx, and H2S from combustion, gasification or natural gas streams through applied and fundamental studies of gas absorption kinetics, thermodynamics and mechanistic studies.

Dr. Robert Rallo is a scientist in the Advanced Computing, Mathematics, and Data Division at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

Prior to joining PNNL, he was an Associate Professor in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence and Director of the Advanced Technology Innovation Center (ATIC) at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Catalonia. Dr. Rallo served as chair for the Modeling WG in the EU NanoSafety Cluster (2013-2016) and as the EU co-chair of the US-EU Nano-Dialogue Community of Research on Predictive Modeling and Health (2013-2015). He served also as reviewer for research organizations such as the European Research Council, Horizon2020, COST and the NWO Research Council for Earth and Life Sciences (ALW). 

Dr. Rallo's research interests are in data-driven analysis and modelling of complex systems of industrial, environmental and social relevance.

Amy Sims, Ph.D. is a Senior Research Scientist in the Chemical and Biological Signatures Division of the National Security Directorate at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in Richland, WA. She earned her Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University Medical Center and worked with Professor Ralph Baric at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) during her postdoctoral studies. Dr. Sims spent an additional 15 years at UNC as faculty in a continued collaboration with Dr. Baric to understand the pathogenesis of highly pathogenic human coronaviruses and to identify novel vaccination strategies and therapeutic targets. Dr. Sims has published over 50 peer-reviewed publications on antivirals that are efficacious against human coronaviruses, using reverse genetic platforms to characterize coronavirus protein functions, and how coronaviruses prevent transcription factor nuclear translocation to regulate host gene expression, and recently joined PNNL to continue a decade long collaboration on the use of computational modeling and bioinformatics approaches in analyses of kinetic ‘omics data from studies of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2003 (SARS-CoV 2003) and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) infected samples. The overall goal of her research is to understand the detailed molecular mechanisms by which CoVs manipulate host pathways and processes to evade the innate immune response and to enhance viral replication and spread.

Rob is an expert in the field of marine energy technology, bringing broad knowledge from nearly a decade of experience across current and wave energy to the lab. His technical skills include applied experience in both mechanical and electrical engineering, having performed engineering design and prototyping in industrial and academic settings. Rob holds a joint appointment as a Senior Engineer in the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) at the University of Washington and serves as an Affiliate Assistant Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department. His work spans PNNL’s marine energy portfolio, from the Powering the Blue Economy initiative to developing environmental monitoring techniques.