DIANA F. WILDER

MSO, Department of NanoEngineering, UC San Diego
Office: 153 Powell-Focht BioEngineering Hall
Phone: 858-534-6112
Fax: 858-534-9553
e-mail: dfwilder@ucsd.edu

Education:
MS, University of Michigan, School of Natural Resources (1990)
BA, UC Santa Barbara (1986)

AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY:

UCSD Service (Current):

Staff Representative, UCSD Advisory Committee on Sustainability

PERSONAL INTERESTS:

Inspired by the real food movement, we recently acquired a small flock of chickens - Flighty, Whitey, Yelper and Sen - as an experiment in backyard farming. We enjoy watching them interact with each other and our Pug, Theodore. This shot was taken from outside our kitchen. We get about one egg per day from each hen, although this varies with the temperature (cold weather stops the laying). If you stop by NanoEngineering you might find some fresh eggs in a basket free for the taking, courtesy of the girls”!
My husband (Rob Wilder) and I are also intensely involved in renewable energy; our Encinitas home is a solar demonstration site. We harvest photons from the sun via solar PV panels. Our array is 'grid-intertie' meaning we are connected to the power-grid; during daylight hours we're generally making much more power than we consume and automatically 'sell' power back into the grid. At night it's reversed; we 'buy' power from the utility. Our electric bill in summer months is usually about $7.00 …it used to be over $175!
Our 3.85 kilowatt (kW) solar PV system should achieve payback in ~10 years (see solar PV system costs). Besides solar PV for electric power, we have two different solar water heating systems, one for our residential hot water, and the other for our in-ground swimming pool. Both are thermal and so rely on collecting and focusing the sun's warmth to heat water.