From DDL Wiki

Elizabeth Traut is a PhD student in Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, where she is a member of the Design Decisions Laboratory and the Green Design Institute. Her advisor is Professor Jeremy J. Michalek.

Brief Biography

Elizabeth earned her M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 2010, and her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Virginia Tech in 2008, with a concentration in Green Engineering. Her past research projects include work on solar thermal absorption refrigeration at the University of Zaragoza in Zaragoza, Spain (2006); work with a PEM fuel cell at the Center for Intelligent Material Systems and Structures at Virginia Tech (2005-2006); and an NSF REU project on technology and policy in sustainable road transportation decisions at Southern University and A&M College, Baton Rouge, Louisiana (2005).

Elizabeth's primary areas of research include green design, engineering design, sustainability, and environmental policy. Her current work examines tradeoffs between electrified vehicle design and deployment of charging infrastructure, including implications for social cost, greenhouse gas emissions, and fuel consumption of personal vehicles. Methods include life cycle cost and GHG emissions modeling of electrified vehicles and infrastructure for slow-charging, fast-charging, and battery swapping; developing scenarios of electrified vehicle penetration and charging availability; optimizing those scenarios with respect to electrified vehicle design parameters and charging infrastructure deployment; and examining the implications for policy and for engineering design and consumer adoption of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and pure electric vehicles.

Contact Information

Elizabeth Traut, PhD Student
c/o Department of Mechanical Engineering
Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Avenue, Scaife Hall
Pittsburgh, PA 15213