Team | MéridaLabs

Dr. Walter Mérida

Walter leads MéridaLabs. He began his career in clean technology working with Ballard Power Systems, British Gas Investments Canada, and universities more than twenty years ago. He was a founder and Board member for General Hydrogen Corporation, and the Institute for Breakthrough Energy Technologies in Vancouver.

He leads the Natural Gas Futures research consortium, and the Transportation Futures Group at the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions. He serves on the Board of Directors for the Canadian Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association, the Academic Council for the Global Alliance on Powerfuels, and the Climate Change Advisory Board for Toronto Dominion Insurance.

At UBC, Walter has served as director for the Clean Energy Research Centre. He is currently the Associate Dean of Research and Industrial Partnerships in the Faculty of Applied Science, and a Senior Advisor to UBC's President and Vice-Chancellor.

Associates & Staff

Omar is the Senior Program Manager for MéridaLabs. He is a Production Engineering Manager with experience in clean energy/biotech, producing product solutions and taking ideas successfully to market (✉).

Dr. Omar Herrera

Programs

Nadia is the Project Coordinator for MéridaLabs. She has worked internationally in education, media, and the performing arts (London, Madrid), and as an executive with the Humboldt County Film Commission in California (✉).

Nadia Adame

Operations

Julián is working on Electric Vehicle-Grid Integration - from optimal charging strategies to minimize power quality impacts on the grid to machine learning techniques applied to the interaction Building-EV. (✉).

Dr. Julián Fernández

Research

Marco is the Technical Project Manager for MéridaLabs, working on UBC Testbed. He graduated from the Univesity Politecnico di Milano. He developed and managed Saudi Arabia, Libya and Iraq markets related to transmission lines from 33kv up to 800kV. (✉).

Marco Signifredi

Testbed

Kevin is managing the Natural Gas Futures consortium. He has ample experience with grant facilitation, project management, and industrial engagement (✉).

Kevin Wei

Consortia

Amir leads the research on liquefied natural gas as a fuel for heavy-duty and marine applications, as well as innovative technologies to produce blue and green hydrogen (✉).

Dr. Amir Sharafian

Natural gas

Researchers

Luyang is working on electric vehicle charging scheduling, demand response and operations for vehicle-grid structure, as well as operations research, mechanism design and machine learning with applications to smart infrastructures (✉).

Dr. Luyang Hou

Electrification

Tory is working with high temperature and pressure electrochemistry to innovate water electrolysis. He specializes in high-temperature kinetic and mechanistic electrochemical analysis. (✉).

Dr. Tory Borsboom

Hydrogen

Hujjatul is working on High Temperature High Pressure (HTHP) electrochemistry as a Postdoctoral Fellow. His areas of expertise are green hydrogen production and CO2 utilization. (✉).

Dr. Md Hujjatul Islam

Hydrogen

Graduate Students

Jing is a MASc. student in electrical engineering at UBC. She proposed a novel Power Demand Pattern Mining methodology to mine historical power sequences and day-ahead power demand forecasts, and additionally to identify normal and anomalous load patterns. (✉).

Jing Lin

Electrification

Zhihao is a Ph.D. candidate working on the liquefied natural gas project. He received a Bachelor of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering at Harbin Engineering University and a master of Mechanical Engineering at Tsinghua University, China (✉).

Zhihao Wang (PhD)

Natural gas

Alumni