This fall, ten UChicago master’s students are beginning new adventures into the research field through EPIC’s graduate student research fellowships. The two programs, the James Bartlett Fellowship Program in Energy and Environmental Policy and the DRW Graduate Fellowship in Economics and Policy, pair students with faculty mentors conducting research in energy, environment or climate. Over the course of the academic year, participants will gain first-hand research experience, mentorship from esteemed faculty, and connections with fellow young researchers.
Continue reading to meet our ten new EPIC graduate student research fellows.
Ethan Caspi
DRW Fellow; Mentor: Mark Templeton
Ethan is a Master of Science in Computational Analysis and Public Policy (MSCAPP) student at the Harris School for Public Policy. Before graduate school, he worked for three years as an analyst at NERA Economic Consulting, where he researched a wide array of topics in energy and environmental economics, such as pollution regulation, electricity market design, oil and renewable energy market forecasts, and commercial freight competition. His main interests lie at the intersection of applied artificial intelligence and the social sciences.
Chris Dunlap
Bartlett Fellow; Mentor: Robert Rosner
Chris Dunlap is a second-year joint MBA/MPP student at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and Harris School of Public Policy. As a Bartlett Fellow, he is working with Professor Robert Rosner to evaluate the economic and regulatory feasibility of advanced nuclear microgrids and their potential role in enhancing energy security and grid resilience. Prior to graduate school, Chris served for nearly a decade as a U.S. Navy F/A-18 Weapons Systems Officer, leading operational missions in the Middle East and Europe. He recently worked in clean energy project development and finance with Bechtel Enterprises and in municipal credit research with T. Rowe Price. His broader interests lie at the intersection of energy finance, infrastructure development, and public policy.
Lukman Edwidra Syafwardi
DRW Fellow; Mentor: Shaoda Wang
Lukman is a second year Master of Public Policy student at the University of Chicago. His research interests include environmental policies, primarily air pollution. Lukman is working with Professor Shaoda Wang on the effect of war on pollution in China at EPIC as a 2025-2026 Academic Year DRW Fellow.
Asad Javed
Bartlett Fellow; Mentor: Michael Greenstone
Asad Javed is a Master of Public Policy candidate at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy, where he specializes in finance, econometrics, and energy policy. He brings over a decade of experience in policy analysis and financial operations spanning central banking, commercial banking, and U.S. state government. At the central bank of Pakistan (SBP), where he served for nearly six years, he led sovereign debt auctions and played a key role in monetary policy implementation and financial stability through open market operations, repo transactions, and liquidity management. He also directed national financial inclusion initiatives that reached over 200,000 underserved individuals. He recently served as a Summer Policy Analytics Fellow at the Illinois Governor’s Office of Equity, where he helped build statewide digital inclusion metrics and cross-agency performance dashboards.
As a Bartlett Fellow at EPIC, Asad is working under the mentorship of Professor Michael Greenstone to contribute to the Institute’s energy and climate research agenda. His role will evolve over the academic year, and he aims to apply rigorous empirical methods and reproducible data pipelines to support decision-ready policy research on global energy transitions. He is particularly interested in advancing equitable access to affordable, reliable, and cleaner energy in regions facing the twin challenges of growth and climate vulnerability.
Emma Mares
Bartlett Fellow; Mentor: Hajin Kim
Emma Mares is a Master of Public Policy (MPP) student at the University of Chicago’s Harris School. At Harris, she is interested in leveraging environmental data to bridge community-centered action, policy goals, and corporate governance objectives. Passionate about the intersection of sustainable development and environmental justice, she is thrilled to join Professor Hajin Kim’s team to support analysis on wetland regulation and corporate sustainability compliance. Emma has experience working at World Wildlife Fund’s Private Sector Engagement Team where she works on a variety of conservation projects. Although she has called Chicago home for the last 8 years, she grew up in Queens, New York in a Romanian-American household. In her spare time, she enjoys cooking, crafting, and spending time with her niece.
Riley Morrison
DRW Fellow; Mentor: Eyal Frank
Riley Morrison, an M.S. in Computational Analysis and Public Policy (MSCAPP) student, is collaborating with Harris Professor Eyal Frank on projects at the intersection of biodiversity, conservation, and market dynamics.
Prior to graduate school, Riley studied political science at the University of Pennsylvania. He worked at the United Nations Population Fund on international reproductive health issues, then transitioned into public affairs consulting. At Quadrant Strategies, he led qualitative, quantitative and digital research projects for Fortune 500 companies and industry associations. Outside of research, Riley is an avid backpacker, skier and board game enthusiast (his favorites are Dune Imperium and 7 Wonders).
Firouz Niazi
Bartlett Fellow. Mentor: Kiran Chawla
Firouz Niazi is a first year Master of Public Program candidate at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. Before joining the program, he worked at Hagerty Consulting, Inc. and supported local and state government clients with identifying and planning approaches to new federal infrastructure, energy, and climate mitigation grant and loan programs. Firouz completed his undergraduate degree in political science at the University of Chicago, where he focused on comparative government policy and researched pandemic-era subnational government interventions in the United States and Italy.
Ayan Sarkar
Bartlett Fellow; Mentor: Elisabeth Moyer
Ayan Sarkar is a Master of Public Policy (MPP) student at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy. He works with Professor Elisabeth Moyer on the Mapping Energy History project, contributing to the development of historical datasets and visualizations that trace the evolution of the U.S. electricity industry, oil pipelines, and other energy infrastructure worldwide. Before graduate school, Ayan studied Environmental Economics and Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and worked across research and industry roles at the International Institute for Rural Reconstruction, Voltus, and Quantica Infrastructure. Ayan brings a strong quantitative and geospatial perspective to his work, combining data analysis, econometric methods, and spatial modeling to understand how infrastructure, markets, and policy interact to shape the pace and equity of energy transitions.
Outside of research, Ayan enjoys photography, cooking, and exploring cities through their food and architecture. He’s also an avid board game enthusiast and a fan of science fiction and sitcoms.
Alfred Yuan
Bartlett Fellow; Mentor: Hyuk-Soo Kwon
Dengjie (Alfred) Yuan is a second-year Master of Public Policy student at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy. His previous research covers multiple domains such as environmental policy and technological innovation. At present, he works as a research assistant for Professor Kwon at EPIC, where he applies his programming and econometric expertise to assist in analyzing the relationship between electric vehicles and dynamics of automotive infrastructure.
Zhiyuan Zhou
DRW Fellow; Mentor: Olga Rostapshova
Zhiyuan Zhou is a first-year Master of Public Policy student at the Harris School of Public Policy. His work focuses on applying data-driven and empirical methods to inform policy design and evaluation. With a background in economics and data science, he applies quantitative tools to analyze energy systems, environmental challenges, and their policy implications. As a 2025–2026 DRW Research Fellow, he will support large-scale environmental policy research under Professor Olga Rostapshova.