April 2026 Speakers
Meet Our Inaugural Summit Speakers
Powering Decisions 2026 brought together 39 speakers from industry, academia, research institutions, and national laboratories, creating a unique mix of perspectives on the challenges and opportunities shaping the future of power and utilities. Attendees heard directly from utility practitioners, optimization experts, researchers, and academics applying mathematical optimization to real-world energy decisions.
Pascal Van Hentenryck
Head of AI Innovation
Dr. Pascal Van Hentenryck works at the intersection of AI and Optimization, with applications in energy, healthcare, logistics and supply chains, manufacturing, and transportation. He developed innovative optimization systems, including CHIP and OPL which have been in commercial use for several decades. Pascal pioneered what is now known as constraint programming, and has made seminal contributions to global, stochastic, and combinatorial optimization. His recent work focuses on AI for Optimization, to bring orders of magnitude speed-ups to solving optimization problems. Pascal is a AAAI and INFORMS fellow, and the recipient of two honorary degrees and numerous research and teaching awards. Pascal used to play soccer competitively, is an avid runner, and likes to travel the world with his family to discover new cultures and their history.
Owen Wu
Associate Professor
Owen Wu is an Associate Professor of Operations and Decision Technologies and Director of Research and Outreach for the Institute for Environmental and Social Sustainability at the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. His research is primarily centered around energy sustainability and socially responsible operations, including integrating renewable energy resources, investing and operating energy storage, improving energy efficiency and infrastructure, as well as managing assistance programs in humanitarian operations. His research received the INFORMS ENRE Society’s Best Publication Award in Environment and Sustainability, Paul Kleindorfer Award in Sustainability by POMS, an Honorable Mention for the MSOM Responsible Research Award, and a finalist for the M&SOM Journal’s Best Paper Award. He played significant roles in the professional societies, currently serving as the Chair for the MSOM Society’s Sustainable Operations Special Interest Group, previously serving as Vice President of the MSOM Society and Vice President of the POMS College of Sustainable Operations.
Kendra Williamson
Senior Principal Optimization Engineer
Kendra Williamson is the Senior Principal Optimization Engineer for the Market Operations team at Key Capture Energy, a leading developer/owner/operator of utility-scale battery energy storage systems. She is one of the technical leads developing Key Capture Energy’s autonomous energy storage bidding and reporting platform, MarketCapture™, and is responsible for driving algorithmic improvements that increase revenue for the company’s 500+ MW merchant operational fleet.
Kendra has worked in the clean energy analytics space for the past 10 years. She is a graduate of Vanderbilt University with a B.S. in Economics and Engineering Science and holds an M.S. in Natural Resource Economics from Texas A&M University.
Nidhi Santen
Strategic Lead, System Planning and Portfolio Readiness EPRI's Data Center Flexible Load Initiative (DCFlex)
Dr. Nidhi Santen is an Area Manager in the Energy Systems and Climate Analysis Group at EPRI, working at EPRI Canada. She leads EPRI's Integrated Energy Systems Planning research and modelling team and EPRI's Data Centre Flexible Load Initiative's Utility Portfolio Readiness program. Her research focuses on long-term electric sector resource planning; sustainable energy development; and decision-making under uncertainty and risk management.
Nidhi started her career in the energy field 25 years ago as a policy analyst in Washington, DC, and then as an environmental analyst at CPS Energy in San Antonio, Texas. Since then, and prior to joining EPRI and EPRI International, she has worked on electricity planning and environmental policy issues across academia, industry, consulting, and NGOs, including the MIT Energy Initiative, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and the National Academy of Sciences.
Nidhi holds a PhD in Engineering Systems from MIT, an MS and MPA in Atmospheric Science and Environmental Policy from Indiana University-Bloomington, and a BA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Richard O'Neill
Former Chief Economic Advisor at FERC
Dr. Richard O'Neill was Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E) where he directed the Grid Optimization Competition and several other optimization and power system programs. Prior to ARPA-E, he served as the Chief Economic Advisor at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and as the Director of FERC's Office of Pipeline and Producer Regulation. His work with governments and companies has included mathematical software, energy modeling, forecasting, open access, restructuring, competition, performance-based regulation, market power mitigation and market design. He has a B.S. in chemical engineering, an MBA and a Doctorate in operations research all from the University of Maryland.
