Co-director, Sustainable Transportation Energy Pathways (STEPS) Program, Institute of Transportation Studies
Professor, Environmental Science and Policy Department
Full CV and Bibliography

jmogden@ucdavis.edu
(530) 752-2768

Summary

Dr. Joan Ogden is Professor of Environmental Science and Policy at the University of California, Davis and Co-Director of the Sustainable Transportation Energy Pathways (STEPS ) Program at the Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS-Davis).  Her primary research interest is technical and economic assessment of new energy technologies, especially in the areas of alternative fuels, fuel cells, renewable energy and energy conservation.  She has written extensively on energy topics, including one book, fourteen book chapters, and numerous peer-reviewed journal articles and conference presentations. 

Over the past 20 years, Ogden has conducted a series of technical and economic assessments of hydrogen and fuel cell systems.  Since 1994 she has studied alternative strategies for developing a hydrogen infrastructure for transportation applications.  Ogden and her colleagues and students have developed an extensive set of data on hydrogen and fuel cell technologies, and tools for modeling infrastructure performance and costs.  Her work has been supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, private foundations, and private sector companies, particularly from automotive and energy firms. 

Joan Ogden has served on a number of high-level committees and working groups convened by the U.S. Department of Energy on future energy technologies and strategies.  She participated in the U.S. DOE Hydrogen Vision and Roadmap process in 2001-2002, and headed the systems integration team for the National Hydrogen Roadmap.  She is active in the H2A, a group of hydrogen analysts convened by the Department of Energy to develop a consistent framework for analyzing hydrogen systems. In July 2008 she was appointed to the U.S. DOE’s Hydrogen Technical Advisory Committee.  

She has also served on a number of other national and state expert committees.  In 2004, she served on the Blueprint Advisory Panel for the California Hydrogen Highway Network.  She currently serves on the Environmental & Technology Assessment Advisory Committee (ETAAC) for the California Air Resources Board on the state’s climate change policy (AB 32).  At the Federal level, Joan Ogden has participated on several National Academy of Science (NAS) committees, including the recent, Transitions to Alternative Transportation Technologies: A Focus on Hydrogen.” (2008). (2008).

Ogden also advises  the European Union, as a member of HyLights Technical Advisory Board, on EU Hydrogen demonstration programs. 

Dr. Ogden received a Ph.D. in theoretical plasma physics from the University of Maryland in 1977, with a specialization in numerical simulation techniques. An interest in broader energy questions led her to Princeton University, where she was a research scientist at Princeton University’s Center for Energy and Environmental Studies, Princeton Environmental Institute from 1985-2003.  Her recent work centers on the use of hydrogen as an energy carrier, particularly hydrogen infrastructure strategies, and applications of fuel cell technology in transportation and stationary power production.  She joined the faculty of UC Davis in September 2003. 

Current Research Interests 

Dr. Ogden's interests are focused on understanding and modeling hydrogen infrastructure development, the dynamics of a transition to a hydrogen economy, and the environmental and societal impacts of large-scale use of hydrogen as a transportation fuel. She is conducting comparative analyses of hydrogen, biofuels, and electricity with respect to cost, GHG emissions and transition issues.

Infrastructure Modeling Projects (click here) 

• Hydrogen Infrastructure Analysis: Case Study Investigating Coal-Based H2 Production with Carbon Sequestration in the United States (with Nils Johnson, Chris Yang)
• Assessing Interactions Between Advanced Vehicles  and the Electricity Grid (with Ryan McCarthy, Chris Yang)
• Renewable Fuels Pathways Analysis (with Nathan Parker, Prof. Yueyue Fan, Jessie Zheng)
• Assessment of home and neighborhood refueling strategies for alternative fueled vehicles (with Xuping Li)
• Hydrogen Transition Analysis: Comparison of Hydrogen and Alternatives (with Dr. Chris Yang, Dr. Marc Melaina)
• Modeling Transitions to Alternative Fuels (with Dr. Chris Yang, Dr. Sonia Yeh)

Environmental Analysis Projects (click here)

•  Air Quality Impacts of Alternative Fueled Vehicles (with Dr. Guihua Wang)
• Societal Cost Comparison of Alternative Fuel Vehicles. (with Yongling Sun, Dr. Mark Delucchi)

Education

 B.S. with high honors in Mathematics, June 1970 (minors: physics, philosophy), University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana

 Ph.D. in Physics, June 1977, University of Maryland, College Park  (Thesis: Plasma physics theory and numerical simulation)

Awards:

• “Excellence in Education” award by Associated Students of UC Davis  (2005)
• R&D Excellence awards from the US Department of Energy for work with H2A (2005, 2006).
• Robert M. Zweig Public Education Award of the National Hydrogen Association (on behalf of Hydrogen Pathways Program, ITS-Davis), 2006
• Distinguished Scholarly Public Service Award, University of California, Davis, 2007.
• Transportation Research Board. Barry McNutt award for co-authoring the best paper on Energy and Transportation (2007).

Selected Publications:

1. J.M. Ogden and R.H. Williams, Solar Hydrogen : Moving Beyond Fossil Fuels, World Resources Institute, Washington DC, October 1989.
2. J.M. Ogden and J. Nitsch, “Solar Hydrogen,” Chapter 22 in T. Johansson, H. Kelly, A.K.N. Reddy and R.H. Williams, Renewable Energy: Fuels and Electricity from Renewable Sources, Island Press, Washington, DC, 1993.
3. J. M. Ogden, "Developing a Refueling Infrastructure for Hydrogen Vehicles: A Southern California Case Study," International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, vol. 24, pp. 709-730, 1999.
4. J. M. Ogden, M. Steinbugler and T. Kreutz, "A Comparison of Hydrogen, Methanol and Gasoline as Fuels for Fuel Cell Vehicles," Journal of Power Sources, vol. 79, pp. 143-168, 1999.
5. J. M. Ogden, “Prospects for Building a Hydrogen Energy Infrastructure,” chapter in Annual Review of Energy and the Environment, vol. 24, pp. 227-79, 1999.
6. Joan M. Ogden, “Alternative Fuels and Prospects – Overview”, Handbook of Fuel Cell Technology, vol. 3, John Wiley and Sons, 2003.
7. J. Ogden, R.H. Williams and E.D. Larson, “A Societal Lifecycle Cost Comparison of Cars with Alternative Fuels/Engines,” Energy Policy, January 2004, pp. 7-27.
8. D. Sperling and J. Ogden. “The Hope for Hydrogen,” Issues in Science and Technology, pp.82-86, April 2004. UCD-ITS-RP-04-19.
9. J. Ogden and C Yang, “Implementing a Hydrogen Energy Infrastructure: Storage Options and System Design  “, in Life-Cycle Analysis Tools for "Green" Materials and Process Selection, edited by Stella Papasavva, Vasilis Fthenakis (Mater. Res. Soc. Symp. Proc. 895, Warrendale, PA, 2006), 0895-G02-01.
10. Joan Ogden, High Hopes for Hydrogen, Scientific American, vol. 295, September 2006, pp. 94-101.
11. Christopher Yang and Joan Ogden. (2007). "Determining the lowest-cost hydrogen delivery mode." International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 32(2), 268-286
12. Jonathan Weinert, Joan Ogden, Dan Sperling and Andrew Burke, “The Future of Electric Two-Wheelers and Electric Vehicles In China,” Energy Policy, Volume 36, Issue 7, July 2008, Pages 2544-2555
13. Nathan Parker, Joan Ogden and Yueyue Fan, “The role of biomass in California's hydrogen economy,” Energy Policy, Volume 36, Issue 10, October 2008, Pages 3925-3939
14. Johnson, Nils, Christopher Yang, and Joan Ogden. (2008). A GIS-Based Assessment Of Coal-Based Hydrogen Infrastructure Deployment In The State Of Ohio. International Journal of Hydrogen Energy. 2008. 33, 20, 5287-5303. 
15. National Research Council, National Academies of Engineering, Transitions to Alternative Transportation Technologies: A Focus on Hydrogen, Pre-publication version available from National Academies website http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12222
16. Joan Ogden was a member of the NRC committee and primary author of Chapter 6, October 2008.

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