Carlos Quiroz-Arita, PhD, has over 20 years of experience in civil and environmental engineering and energy systems. He has managed and contributed to more than 30 projects involving wastewater and water resource systems, municipal solid waste management, and agricultural waste anaerobic digestion across Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Dr. Quiroz-Arita has served as Principal Investigator (PI) for numerous high-impact initiatives, including the DOE Energy I-Corps program, Sandia’s University Partnerships LDRD program, and DARPA/DoD system integration efforts. He currently leads process simulations, techno-economic analysis (TEA), and life cycle assessments (LCA) for several Department of Energy (DOE) and Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) projects focused on biorefinery systems and emerging biotechnologies. He was also recognized as Sandia’s PI for the DOE Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) project on waste analysis and transportation end-use strategies.
An accomplished researcher, Dr. Quiroz-Arita is the lead, corresponding, or co-author of peer-reviewed articles in areas such as wastewater treatment, environmental biotechnology, anaerobic digestion, biofuels, system and process dynamics, fluid mechanics, energy systems, TEA, and LCA. At Sandia, he has demonstrated leadership by spearheading the cement exemplar for Sandia’s Industrial Roadmap and leading the Synthetic Aviation Fuel (SAF) Program Definition Study. He has co-chaired symposiums on industrial efficiency, biorefining, and petroleum and gas refining systems at the TechConnect World Innovation Conference. In 2024, he served on the technical committee for the DOE-BETO Refinery Integration Workshop and co-authored Sandia’s report “Unlocking the Bioeconomy via Refinery Integration: Workshop Report” in collaboration with the Systems Development and Integration subprogram at DOE-BETO.