Dylan McDowell

Dylan J. McDowell is a computational economist and software developer currently working in tool development, time series analysis, techno-economics, and cyber security. Since joining INL in 2019, Dylan has contributed to several software suites developed by the laboratory. Dylan started at INL working on MOOSE, a multiphysics simulation environment, and BISON, a finite-element nuclear fuel performance code. In 2020, Dylan transferred to work on RAVEN, an uncertainty and risk analysis software, and HERON, a techno-economic analysis framework. He has since become the lead developer of HERON and manages the ongoing development of new features to the software in collaboration with universities and commercial partners. 

Most recently, Dylan has served as a work package manager for the Integrated Energy Systems (IES) program. His work primarily revolves around researching and improving the treatment of stochastic, time-dependent, market demand and pricing signals for use in techno-economic modeling and simulation.  

Dylan’s skills shine particularly when it comes to project management and strategy. He prides himself on being able to bridge the gap between technical fidelity and business utility. Dylan works at his highest level when he can develop and campaign a vision that benefits both engineers and high-level decision makers.  

Dylan has earned two undergraduate degrees. A B.S. in Economics and a B.S. in Applied Mathematics from Brigham Young University - Idaho. Before INL, Dylan worked as a data scientist for an agronomy research consulting firm and interned at Goldman Sachs during his junior year of undergrad.  

Stochastic optimization, uncertainty quantification, bayesian modeling, probabilistic programming, time-series analysis, signal processing and behavioral & energy economics.