The Team Building Emerald AI

Steven So is Emerald AI's Head of People & Talent. He brings over a decade of experience scaling high-growth AI and technology startups, most recently leading people operations at CentML (acquired by NVIDIA). Steven specializes in building world-class technical teams and talent strategies.

Michael Panfil serves as Head of Legal and Policy at Emerald AI. He brings deep expertise in energy policy and law, with over 15 years of experience leading legal and policy activities across the energy sector.

Jack joined Emerald after advising over $2 billion across M&A and equity markets across the country and internationally with Barclays’ Global Power, Utilities, and Infrastructure Group.

With a decade of machine learning expertise, Dr. Colangelo has a proven track record of delivering solutions across diverse hardware platforms, from data centers to client-side NPUs.

Chris brings three decades of technical expertise in deep learning, distributed systems, infrastructure automation, and DevOps/MLOps across currency trading, autonomous medical robots, and more.

Dr. Roberts is an expert in grid optimization and demand response systems, with over a decade of specialized expertise that includes leadership roles at SPAN and the Berkeley Lab.

Dr. Wilson has published groundbreaking research in software power pathfinding for HPC systems since developing performance-aware, site-wide data center power management in his PhD at Boston University.

Daniel Padilla brings deep expertise in industrial decarbonization and energy strategy. He joins Emerald from Rondo Energy where he served as Chief of Staff & Director of Commercial Strategy & Operations. Previously, Daniel spent six years at Boston Consulting Group in the climate and sustainability practice after his time at RMI.

Ethan brings experience from robotics software development startups as well as The White House where he implemented the CHIPS & Science Act. He holds a Master's degree in Computer Science from Stanford University.

Sarah Soares is a member of Emerald AI’s technical team, where she contributes her experience in cloud and AI infrastructure. She earned her undergraduate degree in Computer Science from UC Berkeley.

Scott has experience at the intersection of data science, software systems and energy systems modeling and optimization, with research experience at the Pacific Northwest National Lab and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Charles brings a combination of AI research and practical energy sector experience to his work at Emerald. Prior to joining Emerald, Charles worked on load flexibility, grid modernization, and interconnection reform for the Massachusetts state energy office (DOER). He received a PhD in Autonomous Systems from MIT.

Andy is a frontend specialist and product designer and developer with 25 years of experience designing and building websites and applications. He joins Emerald AI after three years leading product development at Global Press Journal.

Nikhil is a full-stack engineer who builds reliable, measurable systems at scale. He joins Emerald AI after shipping production software at Amazon, Credit Karma, and Intuit (Mint).

Swasti Jain is a Policy and Operations Associate at Emerald AI. She is pursuing her Master of Public Administration in Energy and Technology Policy at Columbia SIPA and brings experience in financial services consulting from KPMG.

Ethan Levine is a member of Emerald AI’s technical team and is currently pursuing a computer engineering degree with a concentration in machine learning at Boston University, where he was an undergraduate researcher.