Profile: Gilbert Michaud

Meet Gilbert Michaud. Assistant Professor of Practice, Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs at Ohio University.

Name: Gilbert Michaud

Job: Assistant Professor of Practice, Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs at Ohio University

City: Athens

Hometown: Fort Kent, Maine

Q: Tell us about your work...
I am a faculty member at Ohio University’s Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs, which is a leading public service college that specializes in applied research to develop solutions to challenges facing communities, the economy and the environment across Ohio and throughout the region. My research, in particular, focuses on renewable energy policy, electric utilities, and economic and workforce development.

Q: What’s a challenge you're working to solve?
One of the biggest challenges I’ve been working on is how to ensure that there is a prepared workforce in the face of renewable energy transitions. This energy transition continues to unfold given the emerging threats of climate change and the opportunities of rapidly declining technology costs, and more wind and solar farms are now being constructed.

In Ohio, many large solar farms are being installed in rural communities, as they often have cheaper and larger pockets of land. However, these communities are not often equipped to handle this new activity. We want to make sure that these areas can deal with these developments, especially from a workforce perspective.

So a lot of the work that I’ve been doing is investigating skills gaps, wage gaps, and pathways forward to ensure a skilled labor force to maximize the local economic impacts of renewable energy.

Q: What’s a lesson you’ve learned that's shaped your work?
Not only is it okay to make mistakes, but sometimes they are desirable. Research can be really challenging, and we’re always learning new tools, data and approaches. New technologies or policies will emerge that push a new angle on research, and mistakes are inevitable. I think it’s about whether we can use these mistakes as opportunities to think creatively about innovative solutions to public problems, to consider new methods, and ultimately to create value for our partners and stakeholders.

Q: What’s a trend in technology or innovation that doesn’t get enough attention?
Colleagues and I have started to integrate machine learning techniques into our research, which is basically a branch of artificial intelligence that can help identify patterns in data to make better decisions. This is a growing, but still underutilized, approach in the social sciences.

To illustrate, we’ve used machine learning to develop mapping tools that can help facilitate the transition of workers in declining occupations to emerging renewable energy ones. In essence, we’re using data science to better inform program and policy initiatives that strengthen workforce development efforts, which I think is an innovative and useful approach.

Q: What’s one moonshot idea that could help make Ohio a world leader in technology and innovation?
When it comes to renewable energy, natural market forces (e.g., cost declines and corporate sustainability missions) are driving development to some extent. I believe that we have amazing engineers, chemists, and other scientists making groundbreaking progress from a materials science perspective, but what ultimately drives renewable energy in most states is supportive policy mechanisms.

Governments are continuously addressing issues of electricity production and consumption, waste management, air pollution, and many others. But it’s complicated. This is why I do what I do: I’m trying to figure out how governments are adopting renewable energy policies, and what lessons can be learned as we think about smarter, more cost-effective ways to spur new jobs and protect the environment.

Q: What’s a recent book, podcast or news story that you found interesting?
My favorite podcast is The Energy Gang. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in renewable energy and CleanTech. What’s exciting about the energy transition from fossil fuels to renewables is how rapidly this market transformation is occurring, and the podcast does a great job of hitting on current events such as the Texas grid failure, Biden’s climate policy, and many others. I was actually fortunate enough to meet one of the members of the “Gang,” Katherine Hamilton, in Chicago a few years ago, which was phenomenal.

Q: What's your favorite place in Ohio?
I’ll offer two: Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati, and Progressive Field in Cleveland. I’m a huge baseball fan, and when I found out I would be coming to Ohio University, I was excited that I’d be in a state with not one, but two major league baseball teams. I try to go to games as often as I can.

Q: What makes Ohio special to you?
The people, their friendliness, and their hard work ethic. As an academic, I’ve lived in a number of different states over the years, and the pride, compassion, and overall welcoming nature of Ohioans has been second to none. Given the applied and engaged nature of the work that I do, it’s been a true pleasure to meet so many hardworking professionals in state and local government, nonprofits, and industry, and I find these practitioners so inspiring when it comes to stimulating positive change across the state.

Connect with Gilbert on LinkedIn.