Sarah Sausan and Josh Romo win the Department of Energy’s EnergyTech Prize
A team comprising Stanford ESE doctoral students, Sarah Sausan and Josh Romo, won the National Lab Prize at the 2025 Energy Technology University Prize competition, organized by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Technology Commercialization.
Their proposed software solution, Maestro, is based on an innovative GOOML framework from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and is designed to deliver agentic optimization for geothermal operations. The team was supported by faculty advisors Roland Horne and Adam Brandt and mentored by NREL subject-matter expert Nicole Taverna.
Nominated first as a finalist by the Geothermal Technologies Office during the regional competition, the team advanced to the national round and delivered their final pitch in person at the Colorado School of Mines in July 2025. As the category winner in the IP Licensing Bonus Prize, the team was awarded an additional $20,000.
Congratulations to Sarah and Josh!
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