Area
Sustainability & energy systems
Energy-systems modeling, renewable-transition analysis, sustainability strategy grounded in real data — this is the research area my doctoral and post-doctoral work grew out of: treating sustainability and energy not as separate goals but as a coupled system, where a move on one dimension ripples into the others. Much of my published work here models the interactions among the Sustainable Development Goals and the water-energy-food nexus. I'm keeping this page short and honest — there is more work in this area than I've featured here, and I'd rather point you to the real record than pad it.
Evidence
The work here
My work in this area is mostly on the research side, from time at CU Boulder's Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute (RASEI) and related sustainability-systems research. The clearest public record is the peer-reviewed publications rather than a single named client project:
- SDG-interaction modeling. A two-part systems approach to modeling interactions among the Sustainable Development Goals — cross-impact network analysis and system dynamics (Zelinka & Amadei, 2019).
- Water-energy-food nexus. Methods and modeling for the sustainable-development nexus as a coupled system, including an encyclopedia chapter on water-energy-food interconnections (Zelinka & Daher, 2021; Daher & Zelinka, 2021).
The full list, with co-authors and venues, is on the publications page. Related climate-and-energy applied work — plant-level emissions analysis — lives under Climate & GHG accounting.
This area has more behind it than the two lines above — dissertation work, conference papers, and collaborations that aren't written up as standalone case studies yet. Rather than invent named projects, I've linked the published record. If a specific piece is relevant to you, ask and I'll point you to it.
Method
The method here
What this area draws on: systems thinking and system-dynamics modeling to represent coupled sustainability and energy systems; cross-impact and network methods to map how goals interact; and a habit of naming assumptions and showing uncertainty, because nexus models are only as good as the boundaries you draw around them.
Where this area leads
If your sustainability or energy question sits next to a reporting or compliance need, the compliance lane is the closest fit. If it's research or modeling, tell me the boundaries you care about and I'll be honest about what a systems model can and can't answer.