C. Birk Jones was born and raised in Santa Fe, NM where he enjoyed spending time in the mountains, on riverbanks, and on baseball fields. He studied Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Davis and went on to work for two engineering firm in Boston, MA and Carson City, NV. As an engineer in training he helped inspect bridges, analyze trusses, and design water catchment systems for parking lots and roads. He later enrolled in a construction engineering master’s program at the University of New Mexico (UNM) and then the mechanical engineering doctoral program at UNM. Birk is a member of technical staff at Sandia National Laboratories where he researches photovoltaic (PV) system reliability, building system control and cybersecurity, PV controls and security, grid integration of PV and electric vehicles, and fault detection of feeder level faults. Away from work he enjoys spending time with his wife and two young boys. In the evenings or weekends he and his family take walks to the nearby Rio Grande or travel to the mountains to hike, camp, and fish.