Sarah Tinsley, a third year Economics student, has been invited to compete in the JUMP into STEM Final Event for the chance to intern with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) or the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Tinsley, along with team members, Mckenzie Rhone (EIA), Varun Gupta (CS), and Roderick Tyler (ECON), participated in the JUMP into STEM "What if..." Challenge, focusing on connecting the right data at the right time to improve residential building performance. Their interdisciplinary team proposed a solution titled, “Home Energy Score Interactive Dashboard,” which can be integrated into the Department of Energy’s (DOE) existing Home Energy Score (HES) System. 

Tinsley's team proposal would present the HES in an interpretable and interactive manner to homeowners through an online dashboard, which would not only aid the homeowner in understanding the HES but also help the DOE track this information and collect additional useful data. The long-run goal is to reduce the current information asymmetry in the real estate market by educating homeowners on their score, and consequently, on household energy efficiency, in general. Moreover, this will help formalize the HES as a variable that influences prices in the real estate market. 

Tinsley and her team were named winners of the first round of this challenge and have been invited to compete in the finalist competition weekend in Golden, Colorado, this April!

JUMP into STEM is an online crowdsourcing community, launched by ORNL in 2015. JUMP into STEM engages university and college professors to promote the challenges as either a modular component for course work or extracurricular development opportunities. ORNL is collaborating with NREL to offer challenges that will culminate in a Final Event competition to select and award up to six paid summer internships at ORNL or NREL.This initiative is being funded by the Department of Energy's Building Technologies Office.