Eric Ingersoll
Managing Director
Eric Ingersoll is a strategic advisor and entrepreneur with deep experience in the commercialization of new energy technologies. He has extensive project and policy experience in renewables, energy storage, oil & gas, and nuclear, with a special emphasis on advanced nuclear technologies. At LucidCatalyst, Eric works with clients to develop commercialization and market entry strategies for advanced energy technologies such as advanced nuclear power generation, carbon capture, and zero-carbon liquid fuels.
Eric has led the LucidCatalyst team in completing an array of projects related to regulatory, financing, and project delivery barriers, and techno-economic studies in the nuclear sector for a variety of clients, including government agencies in the U.S. and abroad. These include studies for EPRI, ARPA-E, Urenco/Aurora, CATF, the Energy Innovation Reform Project, and UK Energy Technologies Institute. He was on the study team for MIT's Study: The Future of Nuclear Energy in a Carbon-Constrained World. Eric recently co-authored Missing Link to a Livable Climate: How Hydrogen-Enabled Synthetic Fuels Can Help Deliver the Paris Goals. In addition to this extensive experience specifically on nuclear power, Eric has led dozens of in-depth studies on power market mechanisms, system modeling with specialized software, environmental policy impacts, and long-term market dynamics with expansion of solar, wind, energy storage, and other innovative energy resources. LucidCatalyst conducted a definitive cost study on advanced nuclear technology and maintains one of the industry's most comprehensive advanced nuclear cost models. Eric leads multiple decarbonization modeling efforts, and advises governments and private sector on electricity and fuels applications of advanced nuclear and fusion energy systems.
Eric is also co-founder of Terra Praxis, a non-profit organization focused on action for climate and prosperity. Its focus is on enabling high-impact rapid transitions for neglected parts of the decarbonization challenge. The Terra Praxis team works with an extensive global network to define, incubate, and initiate scalable strategies that fulfill the twin missions of prosperity and decarbonization. Through a combination of rigorous, credible analysis, relationships of trust, and values alignment with key influencers, Terra Praxis maps transformative solutions into the uncharted territory of decarbonization that are otherwise absent from the discourse.
Before LucidCatalyst, Eric was an interim leader or paid strategic advisor to over 30 startups. He raised over $100 million of private equity for General Compression, of which he was a founder and the lead inventor of the technology. Because of his unique strategic vision, focus on addressing climate change, and experience developing and commercializing new technologies, Eric was a member of the renewable energy advisory group of the National Commission on Energy Policy (NCEP), and was honored at the White House as a Champion of Change in Renewable Energy.
Listen to Eric talk about his work as one of the world’s leading climate change analysts and advisors on the Titans of Nuclear podcast, and what inspired him to work on climate change and clean energy.
Kirsty Gogan
Managing Director
Kirsty Gogan is an internationally sought-after advisor to governments, industry, academic networks and NGOs. Kirsty is regularly invited as an expert speaker on science communication, climate change, competitiveness and innovation to high profile events around the world. She has more than 15 years’ experience as a senior advisor to Government on climate and energy policy, including 10 Downing St, and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.
Kirsty chairs the UK Government’s Nuclear Innovation Research and Advisory Board (NIRAB) Cost Reduction Working Group. In 2019, NIRAB recommended investment of US$1.3 billion between 2021 and 2025 to boost the progress of innovation, leading to a package of measures designed to support the UK’s Net Zero goals in 2020.
Kirsty is also co-founder of Terra Praxis, a non-profit organization focused on action for climate and prosperity. Its focus is on enabling high-impact rapid transitions for neglected parts of the decarbonization challenge. The Terra Praxis team works with an extensive global network to define, incubate, and initiate scalable strategies that fulfill the twin missions of prosperity and decarbonization. Through a combination of rigorous, credible analysis, relationships of trust, and values alignment with key influencers, Terra Praxis maps transformative solutions into the uncharted territory of decarbonization that are otherwise absent from the discourse.
Kirsty’s voluntary work includes having co-founded Energy for Humanity (EFH), which under her leadership, was shortlisted for the Business Green Leaders “Green NGO of the Year” Award in 2016. She serves on the Board of Nuclear Innovation Alliance, as well as Voices for Nuclear. The US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has appointed her to serve on a new committee to identify opportunities and barriers to the commercialization of new and advanced nuclear energy technologies over the next 30 years.
Previously, Kirsty led the UK Government’s national public consultation into the UK’s Energy Policy Statements, evaluated the national response to the accident at Fukushima Dai-Chi, and revised the Civil Nuclear Emergency Planning and Response guidance. As Head of Communication for the Nuclear Industry Association, she established strong, long-standing relationships within the UK energy sector. In this role, Kirsty established an academic-led expert network and forged new relationships widely recognized as transformational for representation of nuclear in the UK, including the Low Carbon Alliance between the nuclear, carbon capture and renewables industries, representing more than 1,000 businesses.
Publications Kirsty has recently contributed to include “Advancing Nuclear Innovation: Responding to Climate Change and Strengthening Global Security” (2019) as a Board member of the Global Nexus Initiative. She is a regular contributor to climate-related efforts at the IAEA, OECD-NEA and the Clean Energy Ministerial (NICE Future Initiative). She has peer-reviewed and provided expert input to the International Energy Agency “Nuclear Power in a Clean Energy System (2019)” and IEA Energy Technology Perspectives (2020) as well as CleanTech Group’s investor report on advanced reactors in the clean energy transition (2020) and the Royal Society report on Nuclear Cogeneration: civil nuclear energy in a low carbon future (2020).
Watch Bloomberg New Energy Finance founder, Michael Liebreich interview Kirsty at Cleaning Up – Leadership in an age of climate change.
John Herter
Vice President
John Herter has spent the past twelve years working for economic and corporate strategy consultancies as well as clean energy start-ups. As Vice President and Senior Consultant at LucidCatalyst, John advises corporations and NGOs on energy storage policy and deployment and manages an array of projects related to regulatory, financing, and project delivery barriers in the nuclear sector. John led the development of a report on advanced nuclear costs and has been involved in developing several capitalization strategies to take different types of nuclear technologies through to commercial demonstration.
John’s professional experience spans advancing energy storage policy in California (promoting incentive programs and new market mechanisms to compensate energy storage for its value to the grid) and leading project development efforts for large-scale, first-of-a-kind energy projects. With 15 years of GIS experience, John has led detailed site selection analyses for solar and utility-scale energy storage projects and has created GIS-based decision support tools for the EPA’s Climate Change Division and other federal agencies.
Justin Aborn
Chief Scientist
Justin Aborn joined LucidCatalyst in 2020 as Chief Scientist and Senior Consultant. Justin has performed wide-ranging technology work that spans circuit board design to data network architecture to energy machinery design to information system cybersecurity to public policy advocacy and analysis.
Justin has performed complex technical system analyses and led projects that shepherded new technologies from ambiguity to functioning fielded systems. In his energy-related work Justin built power plant simulations that integrated machine performance models, weather predictions, electricity price data, gas price data, and contractual dispatch commitments. The resulting simulations modeled the financial performance of proposed energy-storage-augmented power plants. Justin’s models were used to assess the concepts of operation related to making market and forecast driven 'store versus sell' energy dispatch decisions.
Justin was a technical subject matter expert and leader of public policy matters during formative years of today’s data communication infrastructure. He was long active in the standardization bodies that took up the telecommunication industry’s commercial collaboration on new technology adoption, while simultaneously attending to appropriate consideration of government regulatory frameworks and needs.
Justin earned a BA degree in Engineering from Dartmouth College, a BE degree in Electrical Engineering from Dartmouth's Thayer School of Engineering and completed the Greater Boston Executive Program (GBEP) at MIT's Sloan School of Management. Justin is an inventor on over eighteen granted patents in technologies that range from telecommunications systems to compressed air energy storage systems. Justin served as a U.S. State Department delegate to two international telecommunications forums and co-chaired the Federal Communications Commission's Network Reliability and Interoperability Council (NRIC) Broadband Focus Group. Justin was named a “Mass High Tech All-Star” by The Mass High Tech Journal.
Chirayu Batra
Chief Technology Officer
Chirayu Batra is a Nuclear Engineer with extensive experience on advanced reactor technology development. He worked as a nuclear engineer and a Project Officer on advanced reactor technologies at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for over 7 years. He has led the planning, organising and implementing several IAEA’s activities and projects in the field of Small Modular Reactors (SMR) and their applications, including their coupling with renewable and non-electric applications. He also served as the first scientific secretary for the IAEA’s platform on small modular reactors and their applications, where he coordinated the development of the IAEA’s medium-term strategy for near term deployment of small modular reactors as well as the international SMR Coordination and Resource Portal for Information Exchange, Outreach and Networking (SCORPION). He has also led the IAEA’s activities on codes and standards, design engineering and manufacturing of components for SMRs. He served as member of several international scientific committees and regularly provided technical insights.
Chirayu has experience in advanced reactor modelling and simulations and also coordinated several international benchmark studies on modelling and simulations and led the IAEA’s initiative on open-source nuclear codes for reactor analysis (ONCORE) as well as IAEA’s project on nuclear power plant simulators. He has trained over 1000 professionals from across the world on system engineering and physics and technology of advanced reactors. He also served as the lead trainer for IAEA’s integral PWR simulator.
Chirayu holds a double master degree in nuclear engineering and nuclear reactor physics, and undergraduate degree in Material Science. He loves to read and can always be found with a book.
Romana Vysatova
Production and Operations Manager
Romana Vysatova manages production and operations at LucidCatalyst in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Co-founder of Lucid Strategy, she helped develop product, market, marketing, organizational, and investment strategies and wrote dozens of business plans for companies and non-profits seeking growth and investment. She worked with the First National Bank of Chicago to help set up one of the first Venture Capital funds in China; with Drexel Burnham Lambert as a financial analyst in the Mergers & Acquisitions Department in New York; and with the White House Domestic Policy Council and the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington D.C. on rural economic development with a focus on supporting new business creation. Romana led a strategic planning and facilitation initiative to integrate and streamline the rural development and assistance programs of multiple Federal agencies. She also works with a variety of non-profits in the Boston area as a communications consultant and photographer. Romana received a Master in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and graduated from Harvard College.
Ian Woodhouse
Analyst
Ian Woodhouse began working with LucidCatalyst in June 2020, focusing on researching the drivers of local opposition to Wind and Solar, and tracking instances and development of this opposition over time. He has contributed to work on the Energy Transition done in partnership with CATF, a collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on a course concerning advanced nuclear reactor design, and now with TerraPraxis, our work on Repowering Coal. Ian is a 2019 graduate of Haverford College with a BA in English.