Dr. Carlos Gamarra is the Vice President of Energy, Air, and Digital Solutions at HARC. He joined HARC in 2017, where he serves as department lead and executive team member. Since 2020, Carlos has secured $8 million in federal, foundation and state funding, acting as principal investigator in four DOE-funded programs. He is an Advisory Council Member for the Texas Industrial Energy Efficiency Program (TIEEP) and serves as President of the Houston Chapter of the Association of Energy Engineers. Dr. Gamarra began his career as an EPC engineer, designing, constructing, and commissioning industrial plants and energy infrastructure. In 2008, he started his own business as an independent engineering consultant in the energy field. Working part-time as an Assistant Professor at the University of Burgos sparked his interest in research, which culminated in joining the Instituto Tecnológico de Castilla y León in 2011. In 2020, he received his Doctorate in Community Energy Systems Planning from the University of Burgos, which later resulted in his first DOE-funded project. In 2023, he received the Young Professional Award from the Combined Heat and Power (CHP) Alliance for his work on promoting the deployment of distributed generation technologies through DOE’s Southcentral CHP TAP and Onsite Energy TAP programs. Since 2017, Dr. Gamarra’s team has pushed the boundaries of innovation in commercial buildings on HARC’s Living Lab.