Staff Spotlight: Ranal Tudawe, Research Engineer
Ranal Tudawe knew he wanted to work in the energy and environmental field since he was in middle school.
“That was when I first became interested in physics and engineering,” Tudawe said. “My original career goal was to work on clean energy and renewable power generation, which expanded to energy efficiency as the other side of that coin.”
Born and raised in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Tudawe moved 7,500 miles from home in 2016 to attend Georgia Tech. He began conducting research in the university’s public policy department, working on a project called Drawdown Georgia. A regional offshoot of the international Project Drawdown, Drawdown Georgia focuses on greenhouse gas emissions reduction across sectors.
“I learned about Drawdown Georgia through Dr. Marilyn Brown, who was my energy policy professor for one of my minor courses and an excellent mentor through the beginning of my career in this industry,” Tudawe said. “With her mentorship through that project and a few courses I took in HVAC and in clean energy, I found what I wanted to do.”
Tudawe graduated with a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering with a minor in energy systems. “As I was beginning the job search, I actually found CEE as a citation on a research paper,” he said. “I was like, ‘Center for Energy and Environment, that sounds like a cool name.’ So, I looked at the website and saw that there were some really interesting jobs."
After applying for a research analyst position, Tudawe joined CEE in 2021. Harnessing his experience with Drawdown Georgia, he quickly played a major role in an energy and emissions modeling project for an electric utility partner, marking the beginning of CEE’s partnership with the organization. The goal of the project was to evaluate the energy and emissions savings potential of electrification measures for residential, commercial, and industrial uses.
“I think that's probably the work I'm most proud of, because it established our relationship with all these great folks, and we've really taken off from there,” Tudawe said.
The initial research project expanded to a dedicated project focused on residential utility bill impacts, for which Tudawe took over as project lead and primary researcher. “With this project, we’re focusing on how electrification programs may impact customer utility bills, particularly for those who are most sensitive to changing home energy costs,” Tudawe said. “With so many moving pieces, it's a difficult environment to navigate, but I'm proud of the work we've done to prevent increasing energy burdens for these customers on the pathway to decarbonization.”
According to Tudawe, the opportunity to grow his knowledge base each day is one of his favorite parts about working at CEE. “It's also very easy to see the positive impact that we're making,” Tudawe added. “We quantify energy, emissions, and bill savings. That can be transformative for customers that wouldn’t be able to electrify if it didn't make economic sense.”
When he isn’t working alongside his colleagues to advance a carbon-neutral future, Tudawe finds his scientific brain at work even at home.
“I do a lot of cooking in my free time, and I'm trying to perfect my croissants at the moment,” he said. “It's very particular, like most baking is. As energy efficiency people, we keep our apartment quite warm in the summer, and croissants and laminating dough are very dependent on the temperature of the butter. So, I cool down the apartment a bunch, and I pre-cool our kitchen island with some ice packs so the butter doesn't melt as fast. Maybe this fall, if it's a nice cool day, I'll try it outside and see if that works.”
Ranal's recent work
- Report: Developing Electric Rates for Hybrid Air Source Heat Pumps in the Midwest
- Research project: Discovering Air-to-Water Heat Pumps
- Research project: Heat Pumps for ACs