Chris Davis
Chris is a Postdoc in the Energy and Industry Section at the Faculty of Technology, Policy, and Management at TU Delft. Much of his work revolves around the use of tools to enable better understanding of complex systems. One of these tools is agent based modeling, where we try to study emergent behavior in systems that occurs as a result of actors in the system interacting with each other. With these types of tools, people study how flocks of birds emerge, and how economic systems self-organize. Currently Chris is investigating the use of other tools, such as the Semantic Web, to facilitate both the modeling process and the collection of knowledge from different sources. This involves exploring the implications of the Linking Open Data project, where people are trying to create a web of data than can be useful for trying to understand complex systems from multiple perspectives. One of his side projects was a visualization of the WikiGrowthOverTime of the wiki that you are reading now. As seen in the movie on the right, the wiki started several years ago and has since grown to nearly 10,000 pages, and is in use by several organizations around the university. My Master’s thesis in Industrial Ecology examined the combination of Agent Based Modeling and Life Cycle Assessment as a means to evaluate the environmental impacts of an evolving socio-technical system.
Denise Recheis
Denise has always had an interest in environmental and social issues. After a short stint in the media industry and extensive traveling in Asia she studied to become an engineer with a focus on sustainable systems and renewable energy. Denise currently works in Knowledge Management for the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership in Vienna.REEEP is a global public-private partnership creating the right market conditions for clean energy in developing countries. Her primary area of work is the organization’s Linked Open Data portal reegle.info. Her daily work includes clearing clean energy data and developing controlled vocabularies. Her background in renewable energy technology as well as her commitment to increase the share of clean energy solutions has been useful in shaping her current work. Denise sees great potential in (Linked) Open Energy Data as an accelerator for low-carbon development.