{"id":102696,"date":"2024-11-18T14:36:23","date_gmt":"2024-11-18T20:36:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/engineering.wisc.edu\/?p=102696"},"modified":"2024-12-03T08:30:09","modified_gmt":"2024-12-03T14:30:09","slug":"eric-anderson-2024-early-career-award-recipient","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/engineering.wisc.edu\/blog\/eric-anderson-2024-early-career-award-recipient\/","title":{"rendered":"Eric Anderson: 2024 Early Career Award recipient"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Eric<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

BS applied math, engineering and physics \u201909; MSIE \u201911, PhDIE \u201915
Principal Engineer, Anderson Optimization by PVCase<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An industrial and systems engineer and energy-industry entrepreneur who is helping leading global power companies adopt renewable energy and storage solutions.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Eric Anderson co-founded his own consulting firm to help guide energy companies\u2019 planning for renewable energy projects, Anderson Optimization didn\u2019t have many competitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, nine years later, he says other companies use similar geographic information system (GIS) software platforms to identify building sites for renewable facilities\u2014which he takes as a compliment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of cool when people start copying what we created,\u201d he says. \u201cWe kind of defined a new niche.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anderson served as his company\u2019s head of technology before it was acquired by the solar energy tech company PVCase in 2023. Now, he\u2019s happy to once again spend more of his time working directly on the company\u2019s software.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI really enjoy solving problems,\u201d says Anderson, who earned his PhD under the direction of Harvey D. Spangler Professor Jeffrey Linderoth, applying optimization methods to energy systems. \u201cA lot of the problems I\u2019m solving right now are trying to make this system that we\u2019ve developed work for more users or more edge cases that we didn\u2019t think about when we developed it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which engineering professor made the greatest impact on you?<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Professor Stephen Robinson. He\u2019s such a smart guy and had so many relevant classes. I had a few classes with him, and he ended up being my advisor for the sub-specialty in my undergrad degree. A lot of the stuff he was thinking about, around trying to make decisions with limited information or information with uncertainty, was very applicable to so many problems that I was interested in. He was just very happy to work with me in designing a curriculum that helped me grow as a student throughout undergrad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did your engineering education enable your success?<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

These degrees help you build up this toolbox to solve problems, and I think they did that very well. Having done some of this before in the more abstract sense, when you go through your studies and work on the problems that the professors assign, they showcase different ways to think about and solve problems\u2014and if you get stuck, ways you can work with that. They also show you the power of trying to find people who can help solve problems. You don\u2019t want to reinvent the wheel and there are a lot of really smart people in the world. I really enjoyed my education there. I kind of wish I was in school still.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which do you prefer?<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Fun on the Terrace or fun on Lake Mendota?<\/strong>
I\u2019d probably say the Terrace. I always enjoyed when there\u2019s music and you can go out to the Terrace and have a beer and brat. It\u2019s just great.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bascom Hill or Observatory Hill?<\/strong>
I\u2019d say Bascom Hill, just because it\u2019s so iconic in a lot of ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Engineering Mall or Library Mall?<\/strong>
Engineering Mall\u2014definitely spent a lot more time there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UW Arboretum or Picnic Point?<\/strong>
I like the Arboretum. It\u2019s very cool, it\u2019s very big, there are a lot of different areas to it. It\u2019s close to Lake Wingra, which was my go-to spot for running. The six miles around Lake Wingra was my go-to run. I\u2019ve done that probably a hundred times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Top photo: Award recipient Eric Anderson receives his plaque. To his right is Department Chair Shiyu Zhou. To his left is Professor Jeff Linderoth, Anderson’s faculty advisor.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BS applied math, engineering and physics \u201909; MSIE \u201911, PhDIE \u201915Principal Engineer, Anderson Optimization by PVCase An industrial and systems engineer and energy-industry entrepreneur who is helping leading global power…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":69,"featured_media":103868,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_tec_requires_first_save":true,"_mbp_gutenberg_autopost":false,"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_tribe_blocks_recurrence_rules":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_description":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_exclusions":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2644],"tags":[],"department":[2390],"class_list":["post-102696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","department-industrial-systems-engineering"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/engineering.wisc.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/engineering.wisc.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/engineering.wisc.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engineering.wisc.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/69"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engineering.wisc.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102696"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/engineering.wisc.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103871,"href":"https:\/\/engineering.wisc.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102696\/revisions\/103871"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engineering.wisc.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/engineering.wisc.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engineering.wisc.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engineering.wisc.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102696"},{"taxonomy":"department","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engineering.wisc.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/department?post=102696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}