2025 Shultz Energy Fellowships: Western Area Power Administration (WAPA): Asset Health and Wildfire Susceptibility Analysis
Regional-, state-, and city-level efforts are essential in our fight against climate change, especially in the field of energy. Stanford University is committed to helping by integrating its students into energy and climate ecosystems in the West through the Shultz Energy Fellowships program, an energy-related summer fellowship program for undergraduate and graduate students.
Named in honor of former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, one of the most widely admired American public servants of the past half-century, the program offers a suite of paid, energy-related public service fellowships for Stanford students in California, Colorado, Nevada, Utah, and Hawaii during the summer.
The fellowships run from Monday, June 23, 2025 to Friday, August 29, 2025.
Office description:
Western Area Power Administration (WAPA) is one of four power marketing administrations within the U.S. Department of Energy, whose role is to market and transmit wholesale electricity from multi-use water projects. Our service area encompasses a 15-state region of the central and western U.S. where our approximately 17,000 circuit mile transmission system carries electricity from 57 hydropower plants operated by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the International Boundary and Water Commission.
We wholesale this clean and carbon free power to preference customers such as Federal and state agencies, cities and towns, rural electric cooperatives, public utility districts, irrigation districts and Native American tribes. They, in turn, provide retail electric service to over 40 million consumers in the West.
WAPA recently finished a new strategic plan, PowerForward 2030, that was developed with our customers and employees that lays out the roadmap for safeguarding a sustainable energy future, modernizing the grid and investing in our employees.
WAPA is seeking a Stanford Shultz Energy Fellow that is interested in learning more about the bulk electric power system operated by WAPA across its 15-state region in the Western US. WAPA is looking for assistance in evaluating asset health metrics of transmission electric assets within areas of increased wildfire risk.
Passing wildfires can cause direct physical damage to utility infrastructure, or even disrupt power service along transmission lines, resulting in decreased reliability and higher costs to customers and other key stakeholders. This analysis will be used to better estimate the potential wildfire impacts to electric transmission assets and help in identifying the most vulnerable assets that might benefit from system hardening.
Opportunity:
WAPA is seeking a Stanford Shultz Energy Fellow that is interested in learning more about the bulk electric power system operated by WAPA across its 15-state region in the Western US. WAPA is looking for assistance in evaluating asset health metrics of transmission electric assets within areas of increased wildfire risk.
Passing wildfires can cause direct physical damage to utility infrastructure, or even disrupt power service along transmission lines, resulting in decreased reliability and higher costs to customers and other key stakeholders. This analysis will be used to better estimate the potential wildfire impacts to electric transmission assets and help in identifying the most vulnerable assets that might benefit from system hardening.
Project objective:
Build upon last year’s Shultz Fellow wildfire risk analysis output by now including asset condition data into a more comprehensive risk assessment. The candidate will work to develop a model that can estimate the relative risk of wildfire impacts and better prioritize WAPA assets requiring mitigation solutions based on key factors such as recent asset inspection data, asset health indices, and other relevant asset characteristics.
The analysis will primarily focus on wildfire risk, but if time allows it can be expanded to also include analysis of extreme weather events that can damage electric transmission assets (e.g. extreme winds, severe icing events, extreme tornado outbreak, or other frequently occurring natural hazards).
Ideal Candidate:
The candidate should possess a natural curiosity and attention to detail combined with a desire to apply critical thinking, research skills, and a variety of analysis and modeling techniques to assist WAPA on this challenging problem.
- Apply best available wildfire research to identify a range of options for asset hardening
- Research and gather asset health data to estimate the relative health of WAPA’s assets
- Incorporate Climate Assessment projections to identify future areas of increased risk
Work environment:
WAPA anticipates staff will have a flexible work policy for summer 2025. If this is the case, the fellow will have the option to work fully in-person, partially remote, or fully remote, with in-person work highly encouraged. WAPA has offices in the following locations:
- Folsom, California
- Billings, Montana
- Lakewood, Colorado (HQ)
- Loveland, Colorado
- Phoenix, Arizona
Potential mentor:
- Jason Mauch, WAPA Enterprise Risk Manager
2024 WAPA Fellows:
- Lisa Fung, Computer Science ’27
- Danielle Amir-Lobel, MS in Management Science & Engineering, BS in Symbolic Systems, and BA in Economics
- Learn more about their experiences:
Eligibility and Requirements:
Desired Skills:
- Experience and/or coursework in Engineering, Data Analytics, Business, Finance, or Economics
- Prior experience with research and data analytics techniques
- Proficient with Microsoft Office applications (MS Excel, MS Word, MS PowerPoint, etc.)
- Excellent attention to detail and interest in diving into wildfire analysis and research
- Interest in learning asset management concepts and methods to evaluate asset health
- Strong research, quantitative analysis, and communication skills are highly desired
- Ability to build productive relationships and work with diverse teams and perspectives
- Prior experience or familiarity with wildfire mitigation techniques and trends
Eligibility:
- Must be a U.S. citizen
- All Shultz fellows must be enrolled in the spring quarter before their fellowship.
- All Shultz fellows must take a one-unit spring workshop course, ‘Energy Policy in California and the West’ taught by Professor Bruce Cain and Visiting Fellow Felicia Marcus that will provide an in-depth analysis of the role of California state agencies, the Western Interstate Energy Board, and the Western Electricity Coordinating Council in driving energy policy development, technology innovation, and market structures. Course number is CEE 263G / POLISCI 73 / PUBLPOL 73 / ENERGY 73. Schedule: Wednesdays from 1:30 pm – 2:50 pm.
Amount
$7500 – $9,500
Learn More About This Opportunity >