Melvyn S. Manalis

Dr. Mel Manalis is a Research Physicist and Senior Lecturer for the Environmental Studies Program and a member of the Institute for Energy Efficiency’s Economics and Policy Solutions Group. His research interests surround the development of quantifiable sustainability measures. Dr. Manalis has taught at UCSB for 35 years and has developed courses related to energy. During the 1980’s, he led a seminal delegation of wind energy experts to advise the Chinese government on how to initialize a large-scale wind energy effort that has become a major underpinning of today’s rapid advance in China’s wind power development. He conducted the first wind energy study of Vandenberg Air Force Base in Lompoc, California and the nascent study of solar energy applications for the California Energy Commission following the 1973 oil embargo.

Research Interests:

Wind energy conversion and assessment; solar energy conversion; total energy planning; spectroscopy and stratospheric ozone depletion; global warming; nuclear energy, and economic evaluation of renewable energy.