ISE PhD Student is IISE 2024 Conference Energy Systems Division Best Student Paper Winner 

Michael Beacher, a doctoral student in the School of Engineering Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, took first place in the Energy Systems Division Best Student Paper competition at the recent Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE) annual conference. 

Beacher presented his paper, “Quantification of Human Health Externalities Associated with Power Grid Expansion Plans” at the May 18- 21 conference -- the world’s largest industrial and systems engineering conference – in Montreal, Canada. 

“Policies pertaining to energy expansion and transition need to consider the cost of plan adoption and implementation. Many models endeavoring to aid policy decision through cost approximation ignore externalities related to decision-making,” Beacher explains.  

“My paper looked into quantifying the health damages associated with various potential energy expansion policies and investigated their impacts on total policy costs.” 

According to Beacher, while his research supported the thesis that consideration of health damages is crucial to policy evaluation, it more importantly “helped to show that green policy adoption can have legitimate financial benefits.” 

The paper presented its own unique challenges to Beacher, the biggest of which was familiarizing himself with energy expansion planning. “My background is in math and optimization, so there has been so much to learn,” he says. He has been addressing these challenges with guidance by his multi-disciplinary PhD advisors: ISE Professor David Coit, and Mark Rodgers, an assistant professor in Rutgers Business School. 

In addition to finishing his dissertation, Beacher is also currently a graduate research intern at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, which he hopes to join as a research scientist after receiving his degree in spring 2025. He reports that he is including the work from this paper in his dissertation.  

Coit notes, “The energy sector has a wide range of important and socially relevant problems where ISE graduate students like Michael can make meaningful contributions.” 

Coit adds, “To be recognized by the energy systems division of international society IISE for such an outstanding paper is a reflection not only of Michael’s impressive work, but also an acknowledgment of how Rutgers ISE is taking the lead in some of the most important issues in both engineering as well as society as a whole.”