Kumar Venkat's CV

• Highlights
• Experience
• Education
• Publications
• Press
• Patents
• Contact Info

Highlights

• Proven sustainability expert and thought leader.
• Experienced engineer, software developer and project/business manager.
• Founded two small technology firms in sustainability and electronic design, served as chief technologist and software developer in both, and directly supported numerous customers.
• Technical expertise includes: life cycle assessment (LCA), carbon footprinting/GHG emissions, supply chains, resource efficiency, waste reduction, computer modeling, simulation, and analytics.
• Master's degree in electrical and computer engineering. Graduate certificate in computer modeling and simulation.
• Extensive research, technical and freelance publications, and two engineering patents.

Experience

• 12/07 - present: President & Chief Technologist, CleanMetrics Corp., Portland, OR
• Providing environmental performance and sustainability solutions to customers in diverse economic sectors. Served nearly three dozen customers to-date. (Company overview, products, solutions and customers.)
• Solutions include software tools (ASP.NET web apps written in C#) and consulting for: life cycle assessment (LCA), carbon footprinting, GHG emissions inventories, supply-chain/value-chain analysis including scope 3 emissions, water footprinting, resource efficiency, and waste reduction.
• Software tool innovations include:
  • LCI database: Includes the largest set of commercial North American food LCI data.
  • Food LCA software: The most complete food/beverage LCA tool available today.
  • Resource efficiency software: An industry-first business analytics solution for resource efficiency and waste reduction.
• Selected recent results:
  • Completed the largest cradle-to-grave LCA study of North American food production and consumption (for the Environmental Working Group) – results disseminated nationally.
  • Quantified the climate change and economic impacts of US food waste – first complete LCA-based analysis for the US (to appear in the Journal on Food System Dynamics).
  • Conducted LCA study comparing life-cycle carbon footprints of 12 organic and conventional crops – one of the first such analyses for US production (published in the Journal of Sustainable Agriculture).
• 09/95 – 12/07: President & Chief Technologist, Surya Technologies, Inc., Cupertino, CA & Portland, OR
  • Provided electronic design automation (EDA) software for modeling, analysis, simulation, optimization and verification of large integrated circuit designs.
  • Software tools and technologies delivered to customers include: timing analyzer, design rules/constraints verifier, signal coupling and noise analyzer, timing optimizer, and timing-driven design partitioner.
  • Programming languages and platforms used for software development: C, C++, Yacc, Lex, Perl, UNIX, Linux.
  • Key customers in the US, Japan and India: Advanced Micro Devices, Equator Technologies, C-Cube Microsystems, Seiko Instruments, 3Dfx Interactive, Fujitsu Microelectronics, CadMOS Design Technology (now part of Cadence), Procket Networks,  ReShape, SII EDA Technologies, Atrenta, and JEDAT Innovation.
• 06/91 - 8/95: Member of Technical Staff & Project Leader, Silicon Graphics, Mountain View, CA
• Led a software R&D team in the development of a new gate-and-transistor-level static timing verifier that includes a number of innovative features. Developed detailed timing models for electronic circuits at the transistor and gate levels. Directed and participated in a 2-year software development project. This tool has been used to analyze/verify large standard-cell and custom integrated circuit designs.
• Led a hardware design team in the development of a high-bandwidth memory subsystem for SGI's Challenge multiprocessor server systems. Responsible for two large ASICs and complex system design. Also, developed CAD methodology and tools to support/enhance testability, timing analysis and design rule checking. Received a US patent for part of this work.
• 06/89 - 06/91: Member of Technical Staff, Sun Microsystems, Mountain View, CA
  • Designed a secondary cache-controller chip for Sun's SuperSparc microprocessor. Also, designed the scan/JTAG test logic for the chip. Contributed to CAD methodology including timing analysis, synthesis and circuit verification. Received a US patent for part of this work.
• 03/88 - 06/89: Senior Design Engineer, Intel Corp., Santa Clara, CA
  • Member of the 486 microprocessor design team. Responsible for processor architecture issues, microcode development, architecture/microcode verification, and verification tools.
• 03/85 - 03/88: Systems Engineer, Reflectone Inc., Tampa, FL
• 06/84 - 02/85: Design Engineer, Dynamic Computer Architecture, St. Petersburg, FL

Education

• 1/05 – 3/06: Portland State University, Portland, OR
• Graduate Certificate in Computer Modeling and Simulation. Focus: System dynamics, discrete-event simulation, agent-based simulation, optimization, and statistical analysis. Used software tools such as Vensim, Arena, NetLogo, and MATLAB. GPA: 4.0.
• 1/99 – 12/99: University of California, Berkeley, CA
• Undergraduate and graduate courses in the natural sciences. Focus: Biology, biochemistry and ecology. Grades: A's.
• 9/88 – 3/90: Stanford University, Stanford, CA
• Graduate courses in electrical/computer engineering. Focus: VLSI design and parallel computer architectures. Grades: A's.
• 8/85 – 12/87: University of South Florida, Tampa, FL
• Graduate courses in electrical engineering. Focus: Digital communication systems and digital signal processing. GPA: 4.0.
• 1/83 – 8/84: University of Texas, El Paso, TX
• MS in Electrical Engineering. Focus: Computer engineering. Thesis: Performance Analysis of Three Interconnection Networks for Large Multimicrocomputer Systems. Graduate teaching assistant and recipient of university president's scholarship award. GPA: 4.0.
• 7/77 – 5/82: University of Madras, India
• BS in Electrical Engineering. Senior project: Stability Analysis of Electric Grids. Grade: Honors.

Publications

• Recent Technical Articles
• Getting a Handle on Geographic Emissions, Environmental Leader, 2012.
• When Emissions are Outsourced, Environmental Leader, 2012.
• Is There a Leaner Way to Footprint?, GreenBiz, 2012.
• Six Lesser-Known Climate Facts, Environmental Leader, 2012.
• 3 Ways to Get Ahead of Climate Change, Without Ditching Oil (Yet), GreenBiz, 2012.
• Resource Efficiency vs. Carbon Reduction, Environmental Leader, 2011.
• Climate Change and the Consumption Trap, GreenBiz, 2011.
• Will 10 Billion of Us Have Enough to Eat?, Sustainable Business Oregon, 2011.
• Closing the Materials Loop, Environmental Leader, 2011.
• The Anatomy of Food Waste, Environmental Leader, 2011.
• Scope 3: Pivoting to Material Efficiency, Environmental Leader, 2011.
• Is Sustainability All about the Supply Chain?, Environmental Leader, 2011.
• Framing the Food Sustainability Challenge, Environmental Leader, 2011.
• Waste Not: The Case for Material Efficiency, Sustainable Industries, 2011.
• Recent Research Articles
  • Comparison of Twelve Organic and Conventional Farming Systems: A Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions Perspective, Journal of Sustainable Agriculture, 2012. (Previous draft full-text here.)
  • The Climate Change and Economic Impacts of Food Waste in the United States, Journal on Food System Dynamics, 2012.
  • Measuring the Effects of Food Carbon Footprint Training on Consumers, Sustainability: The Journal of Record, 2009
  • The Energy and Carbon Intensity of Wine Distribution: A Study of Logistical Options for Delivering Wine to Consumers, Journal of Cleaner Production 2009.
  • Institutional Food Footprint: The Impact of Food Packaging, Waste, and Transportation, Meeting of the American Association of Wine Economists, 2009.
  • Red, White and Green: Investigating the Energy Intensity of Wine Distribution, International Conference on Business and Sustainability, November 2007.
  • Determining the Effects of a Food Carbon Footprint Training Tool on Consumer Knowledge, Transfer Intentions, and Environmental Self-Efficacy, International Conference on Business and Sustainability, November 2007.
  • Greening the Supply Chain: Improving Carbon Emissions in the Distribution of Food and Beverages, INFORMS Annual Meeting, November 2007.
  • Analyzing and Optimizing the Environmental Performance of Supply Chains, ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Industry, July 2007.
  • An Agent-Based Model of Trade with Distance-Based Transaction Cost, Summer Computer Simulation Conference, July 2006.
  • Is Lean Necessarily Green?, 50th Annual Meeting of the International Society for the Systems Sciences, July 2006.
  • Emergence of Networks in Distance-Constrained Trade, InterJournal & International Conference on Complex Systems, June 2006.
  • Using Simulation to Understand and Optimize a Lean Service Process, Spring Simulation MultiConference, April 2006.
• Book Chapters
• Food Transportation Issues and Reducing the Carbon Footprint, in Green Technologies in Food Production and Processing (ed: Y. Arcand & J. Boye), Springer, 2012.
• Emergence of Networks in Distance-Constrained Trade, in Unifying Themes in Complex Systems (ed: A. Minai, et al), Springer, 2010.
• Enhancing the Environmental Performance of Supply Chains, in Positive Development: from vicious circles to virtuous cycles through built environment design (ed: J. Birkeland), Earthscan Publishers, 2008.
• Technical Reports
• Meat Eater's Guide to Climate Change and Health - Life-cycle Assessments: Methodology and Results, Environmental Working Group, 2011. (Plus, clarifying notes on beef and lamb LCAs)
• MyPlate: An Analysis of Climate Change Impact, CleanMetrics Technical Brief, 2011.
• System dynamics model of municipal recycling, policy options and social dynamics, Portland State University, 2005.
• System dynamics model of predator-prey dynamics, wildlife management and policy options, Portland State University, 2005.
• Ecological Consequences of Doubling the Atmospheric CO2 Concentration University of California, Berkeley, 1999.
• Older Research/Technical Articles - Electronic Design and Computer Architecture
• Timing Verification of Dynamic Circuits, IEEE Journal of Solid-state Circuits, Vol. 31, Issue 3, March 1996.
• Timing Verification of Dynamic Circuits, Custom Integrated Circuits Conference, May 1995.
• Follow these guidelines to design testable ASICs, boards and systems, EDN, August 19, 1993.
• Generalized Delay Optimization of Resistive Interconnections Through an Extension of Logical Effort, IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems, May 1993.
• A Structured Design for Test Methodology, 11th IEEE VLSI Test Symposium, April 1993.
• ATPG Tools are a Varied Lot, Electronic Engineering Times, September 21, 1992.
• Analysis of Ring, Cube and Tree Multimicrocomputer Systems, IEEE Region 5 Conference, April 1986.
• A Monitor for a Dynamic Multicomputer System, First International Conference on Supercomputing Systems, December 1985.
• Other Selected Writings
• Sustainable consumption: For all our ingenuity, it still comes down to using less, The Oregonian, 2011.
• Modernization of India Leaves Most of Its People Behind, San Jose Mercury News, 2005.
• The Hidden Costs of Comparative Advantage, GreenBiz, 2005.
• The Trouble with Sustainability, The Oregonian, 2004.
• Choosing the Right Technologies, GreenBiz, 2004.
• We Need a Balanced View of Productivity, San Jose Mercury News, 2004.
• What Kind of Productivity Do We Need?, GreenBiz, 2004.
• Free Trade: Benefit or Peril for the Environment?, GreenBiz, 2004.
• Global Trade = Global Warming, Salon, 2003.
• Global Trade and Climate Change, GreenBiz & ClimateBiz, 2003.
• Globalization's Unanswered Questions, Common Dreams News Center, 2003.
• Beware the Life Cycle of 'Recycled', The Christian Science Monitor, 2003.
• Making Globalization Work,  Business Line, 2003.
• Thinking Small: Globalization and the Choice of Technology, Orion Online, 2003.
• Can Small Still Be Beautiful?, The Christian Science Monitor, 2003.
• Can Silicon Valley Stay Relevant?, San Jose Mercury News, 2002.
• Combatting E-waste, San Francisco Chronicle, 2002.
• Deadly Distraction - Kashmir Conflict Bleeds Two Poor Nations, Pacific News Service, 2002.
• Delving into the Digital Divide, IEEE Spectrum, 2002.
• Digital Divide and Poverty, Journal of Poverty, 2001.
• The Consumption Trap, Business Line, 2001.
• Linking Global Warming to the Energy Crisis, San Francisco Chronicle, 2001.
• Wrong Solution: Technology is Not What the Third World Hungers For, San Jose Mercury News, 2001.
• Blog:  
Green Metrics, Clean Metrics
• Columnist: GreenBiz and Environmental Leader

Recent Press & Interviews

• Portland Tribune: Food waste and climate change
• Sustainable Business Oregon: CleanMetrics releases software for business waste reduction
• NPR: How that food you throw out is linked to global warming
• Portland Tribune: Lamb, beef, cheese top the charts for climate-change impact
• Sustainable Business Oregon: CleanMetrics, EWG release meat impact report
• Sustainable Business Oregon: CleanMetrics releases food impact calculator
• The Oregonian: Get trendy with a reusable bag...just don't go overboard with too many bags
• All other press coverage of CleanMetrics

Patents

• US patent # 5,987,570:“Performing overlapping burst memory accesses and interleaved memory accesses on cache misses”, Nov. 16, 1999.
• US patent # 5,272,664:“A high memory capacity DRAM SIMM”, Dec. 21, 1993.

Contact Information

• E-mail: info@cleanmetrics.com
• Address: 4804 NW Bethany Blvd., Suite I-2, #191, Portland, Oregon 97229, USA
• Also on LinkedIn and Twitter

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