Nina Hebel

Hi! I am a third year PhD student in the Operations Research and Industrial Engineering department at the University of Texas at Austin. My research interests include macro-energy systems, energy and climate policy, and electric resource planning and adequacy. More broadly, I am interested in supporting decision-makers with the aim of combating climate change and enabling sustainable development. The methods I am interested in include optimization, systems analysis, and economic modeling. I am supervised by Dr. Benjamin Leibowicz. I spent the summer of 2024 as an intern with the Electric Power Research Institute, developing and refining models for use in research on electricity market design. This past summer (2025), I worked as an intern at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, looking at large-scale stochastic optimization problems and decomposition algorithms.

Before beginning my PhD, I worked as an Energy Systems Planning Sr. Analyst at Strategen Consulting, where I worked on projects related to decarbonization, integrated resource planning and utility regulation. I have a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Villanova University, and a Masters in Energy and Earth Resources from the University of Texas at Austin. My thesis was on the economic impacts of sedimentary fracture patterns in the context of geothermal power production. While earning my masters, I spent the summer of 2021 working at Jupiter Power as a Corporate Strategy Intern, conducting market research and identifying battery deployment trends across different RTOs and ISOs. I also served as the President of the Longhorn Energy Club from 2021-2022.

When I have spare time, I enjoy traveling, watching Formula 1, being active outdoors, reading, and knitting.