David S. Ortiz

Biography

David Ortiz is a senior engineer and policy analyst at the RAND Corporation and a professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. He has over 10 years of experience advising national and international decisionmakers in the areas of energy and the environment, transportation, advanced technology, space systems, and national security. As a senior engineer, he leads multidisciplinary teams engaged in technical-economic research and analysis, and builds relationships with research sponsors.

Ortiz has built a multi-million dollar program of research and analysis in support of the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL). Supporting over a dozen staff members and graduate student fellows, topics of inquiry have included: the effects of EPA regulations on coal-fired power; the industrial base for coal fired power; the economic costs of renewable energy mandates to the United States; life-cycle greenhouse gas assessments of biomass energy resources; cost and environmental assessments of biomass energy resources; and technological requirements for integrating biomass energy resources into the U.S. electricity supply. Other key energy policy research has included assessments of synthetic and other alternative liquid fuels. Most recently, Ortiz drafted the strategic plan for the Grid Technologies Collaborative, an industry-university-government collaboration developing advanced grid-scale power electronic systems. He is also leading the RAND team on a flood risk model in support of the 2012 Louisiana Master Plan for a Sustainable Coast. Ortiz received his B.S.E. in mechanical and aerospace engineering from Princeton University, and his M.S.E. in aerospace and mechanical engineering and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan.