Gonçalo Mendes

It has been great to spend some months at Berkeley Lab. The team is friendly, the atmosphere is stress-free and still there are a lot of projects going on in which you are free to give your contribution. The Lab has non-stop activity, in a very rich and multicultural environment. I came here with the purpose of collaborating with the DER group of the EETD in developing additional environmental objectives and technologies for DER-CAM and to use these capabilities as part of my studies at Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisbon, where I am a researcher and PhD candidate of MIT Portugal Program. The opportunity of spending a research period in a worldwide reputed laboratory on DER planning has revealed from the beginning to be highly valuable for my work on Integrated Community Energy Systems planning and analysis but also a personal unforgettable experience. Berkeley is a wonderful place to live, surrounded by a privileged natural setting and where you can find the peace of mind for highly focused research and still have one or two places to spend a good time with friends.Before I started my PhD adventure, I've worked mainly on energy management consulting and have past experience as a field engineer in a wide variety of large-scale construction projects, mainly in the Industry sector. I had previously graduated in Environmental Engineering at Universidade Nova de Lisboa and did Advanced Studies in Sustainable Energy Systems at IST, also under the framework of MIT Portugal Program.