Web Home of Nathan Parker

contact me: ncparker@ucdavis.edu

Welcome to my webpage. Here you can follow my progress on current projects related to biofuels, peruse results from previous projects and see what else I'm up to.

Short Biography

Nathan grew up in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. He followed in his father’s footsteps to Wake Forest University where he earned a Bachelor’s of Science in Physics in 2001. After many years working on a farm then in carpentry then landscaping through various levels of education, he gave a desk job a try working as the Demonstrations Manager for the Physics Department at NC Agricultural and Technical State University from 2001 to 2003.

Nathan was lured to California in 2003 to study fuel cell vehicle design at UC Davis. At Davis, he sampled a number of topics including hydrogen pipelines, battery performance, and transitional issues for hydrogen before settling on biomass-based hydrogen supply for his thesis work. He has focused on using optimization techniques from operations research along with real-world geographic information to understand logical configurations for biomass hydrogen supply chains. In March of 2007, Nathan received a Master’s of Science in Transportation Technology and Policy and began to pursue a Doctorate in the same field.

Research Interests

Broadly, my research interests revolve around finding alternatives to the current energy supply, including ways to reduce energy demand. Currently, I am most interested in fleshing out the role of biofuels in a future with serious carbon concerns. In addition, I am curious as to how the properties of biomass as a feedstock change the optimal fueling supply chain. My approach is to model biofuel supply chains with a high degree of spatial resolution within California. From this work, I will be able to check these “real-world” models of biofuels against the generic models currently used. I also hope to answer some questions about the spatial scale of biofuels.