In Memoriam: Mel Manalis

Mel Manalis is a Research Physicist and Senior Lecturer for the Environmental Studies Program at UC Santa Barbara. Manalis has taught at UCSB for 35 years and has developed courses related to energy. During the 1980s, he led a seminal delegation of wind energy experts to advise the Chinese government on how to initialize a large-scale wind energy effort that has become a major underpinning of today’s rapid advance in China’s wind power development. He conducted the first wind energy study of Vandenberg Air Force Base in Lompoc California and the nascent study of solar energy applications for the California Energy Commission following the 1973 oil embargo.