Stewart Isaacs

Stewart Isaacs is an assistant research professor at Carnegie Mellon University Africa, where he directs the Decentralized Energy and Atmosphere Lab (DEAL).

His research seeks to improve the performance of decentralized energy systems by studying interactions between energy systems and the atmosphere. To do this, his group takes a “full stack” approach: developing data and sensing systems to characterize energy-atmosphere interactions, feeding this data into computational models to capture the reciprocal effects between energy and atmospheric aerosols and emissions, and using these models to design energy technologies suited to local contexts. This work draws on techniques from remote sensing, atmospheric science, and energy systems engineering to generate the insights and tools needed for establishing reliable and context-appropriate systems.

Isaacs earned his B.S. in mechanical engineering from Stanford University and his M.S. and Ph.D. from MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He previously served as an inaugural Archer Cornfield Teaching Fellow at Ashesi University, an instructor at MIT’s D-Lab, and an Engineering Excellence Postdoctoral Fellow at MIT.