CalPlug Team

Head Director

G. P. Li is a professor at the University of California, Irvine, with appointments in two departments: Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Biomedical Engineering, and Materials and Manufacturing Technology program. Dr. Li serves as director of California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) from 2007 to 2025, which develops solutions for digital transformation of energy and environmental industrial sectors. Dr. Li also serves as director of the Integrated Nanosystems Research Facility (INRF) in The Henry Samueli School of Engineering, which researches and develops sensors and actuators for industry 4.0 applications. Furthermore, he serves as director of California Plug Load Research Center (CalPlug), which research and develop solutions for improving flexible demand plug loads’ energy efficiency and their active management. Dr. Li holds 38 U.S. patents with additional 11 patents pending and has published more than 400 research papers involving microelectronic technologies, microwave circuit design, Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) for communication and biomedical instrumentation applications, bio-nano-IT technology, and AI for efficient energy utilization and manufacturing.

G.P. Li, Ph.D.
Director of CalPlug, Former Director of Calit2 UCI Division
Email: gpli@calit2.uci.edu

Research Specialists

Shuoyu (Arnold) Wang joined CalPlug as a postdoctoral scholar in 2024. Prior to joining CalPlug, he was a post-graduate intern within the Building Energy Science Group at National Renewable Energy Laboratory(NREL). Dr. Wang holds a Ph.D. in structural engineering from Lehigh University and a M.S. in civil engineering from University of Southern California. He also received his B.S. in civil engineering from Southwest Jiaotong University, China. Dr. Wang’s research focuses on development of intelligent AI-based management and control of energy systems from end-devices to whole-building levels, optimization of grid operations through load forecasting, and energy storage systems with focus on sensible and latent thermal energy storage (TES) in industrial and building applications. He has a diverse expertise in actionable intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML)/deep learning (DL), thermal computation analysis with transient heat transfer and computational fluid dynamic (CFD) modeling, material characterization in TES applications, and integration of building structral components with energy efficiency and energy storage systems.

Shuoyu (Arnold) Wang, Ph.D.
Assistant Project Scientist
Email: shuoyuw@uci.edu

Affiliated Team Members

Chelsea Choudhary
Program Manager of SMART ITAC
Email: sgagomas@calit2.uci.edu

Sergio Gago-Masague, Ph.D
Director of ETAD and Associate Director for Training Programs of Calit2 UCI Division
Email: sgagomas@calit2.uci.edu

Shelly Nazarenus
Director of Communications
Email: snaz@calit2.uci.edu


Erick Castellanos-Ramirez Mechanical Engineering Post-graduate	Daniel Ceja Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate	Jordan Chan Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate	Yash Deole Data Science Post-graduate

Arnav Dhariya Computer Science Undergraduate	Jacob Horne Computer Science Undergraduate	Haritejas Kallu Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate	Anirudh Kaushal Computer Science Undergraduate

Siddharth Kurra EECS Undergraduate	Nhu (Nadine) Mai Computer Engineering Undergraduate	Darien Ngo Aerospace Engineering Undergraduate	Rahul Pandit Computer Engineering Graduate

Rowan Richards Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate	Aaron Taniguchi Aerospace Engineering Undergraduate	Aryaman Tyagi Data Science Post-graduate	Santhosh Uppu Computer Science Undergraduate

Yudong (Wayde) Wan EECS Graduate	Tianle Wang EECS Post-graduate	Gensen Xiao Computer Science Graduate	Keven Zhuang Applied and computational Mathematics Undergraduate

Head Director

Research Specialists

Affiliated Team Members

Student Researchers