Natasa Vulic, PhD
Scientist
Laboratory for Urban Energy Systems, Empa
Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology
Überlandstrasse 129
CH-8600 Dübendorf
Tel: + 41 58 765 61 11
About
Natasa Vulic is a Scientist in urban energy systems with a PhD in Electrical Engineering and more than nine years of research experience. She has an interdisciplinary background in energy systems, and demonstrated skills in data analysis, visualization, modeling and simulation. Her main research interests are renewable energy integration and energy-related retrofits within the built environment. Specifically, her research work involves modeling and simulation of enabling strategies and technologies, including the environmental and economic impacts of their implementation.
During her graduate studies, she broadened her perspective on the technological, economic, and policy challenges of transitioning to renewable energy as part of a highly-selective interdisciplinary program IGERT: SUN. Her doctoral thesis focused on a more fundamental aspect of solar energy generation, where she utilized both experimental and computational methods to conduct in-depth research on ways to improve solar cell performance, while keeping the big picture in mind. Prior to this, she received concurrent BSc degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Sustainability.
Projects
Ongoing projects
- ETH SCENE
- Energetische Analyse des BBL Gebäudeparks
- SWEET PATHFNDR
- VSE Verteilnetzstudie
Past projects
- Abklärungen Sanierungen (MuKEn)
- VSE Energiezukunft 2050, final report
- aliunid - Versorgung "neu," final report
Publications
- N Vulic, M Rüdisüli, K Orehounig, ”Evaluating energy flexibility requirements for high shares of variable renewable energy: A heuristic approach,”Energy, 2023. (link)
- N Vulic, M Sulzer, M Rüdisüli, K Orehounig, ”Role of temporary thermostat adjustments as a fast, low-cost measure in reducing energy imports,” Environmental Research Communications, 2022. (link)
- S Eggimann, N Vulic, M Rüdisüli, R Mutschler, K Orehounig, M Sulzer, ”Spatiotemporal upscaling errors of building stock clustering for energy demand simulation,” Energy and Buildings 258, 2022. (link)
- K Orehounig, L Fierz, J Allan, S Eggimann, N Vulic, A Bojarski, ”CESAR-P: A dynamic urban building energy simulation tool,” Journal of Open Source Software, 7 (78), 2022. (link)
- N Vulic, Nanostructured approaches to light-management in thin silicon solar cells and silicon-based tandems, PhD Diss., Arizona State University, 2019. (link)
- N Vulic, JV Carpenter, P Firth, N Rodkey, ZC Holman and SM Goodnick, “Pore formation in silicon nanoparticle thin films and their impact on optical properties,” ACS Applied Energy Materials 2 (12), 2019. (link)
- N Vulic and SM Goodnick, “Analysis of recombination processes in polytype gallium arsenide nanowires,” Nano Energy 56, 2019. (link)
Full list available on GoogleScholar.
Student supervision
2023, Spring semester
- Bachelor thesis student, Matthias Vogt, BSc ETH Zurich
2022, Fall semester
- Master thesis student, Qiuxian Li, MSc ETH Zurich. Co-supervision with Dr. Hanmin Cai
- Semester project student, Nina Bichsel, MSc ETH Zurich
2022, Spring semester
- Semester project student, Qiuxian Li, MSc ETH Zurich
- Master thesis student, Sven Tröber, MSc ETH Zurich
Teaching
2023, Spring semester
- Lecturer on Dynamic Heat Transport, Building Physics III: Building Energy Demand and Urban Physics, ETHZ
2022, Fall semester
- Guest lecturer on BIPV Theory & Methods, Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) Workshop, ETHZ
2022, Spring semester
- Guest lecturer on Solar PV Fundamentals, Building Systems II, ETHZ
Grants
- Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship / U.S. Fulbright Student (2015-2016)
- NSF EAPSI Fellowship (2015)
- NSF IGERT:SUN Fellowship (2013-2015)