Daniel Merson Kammen

Daniel Kammen studies decarbonization of energy systems, energy access in under-served regions, energy storage, the impacts of energy systems on health, innovation, and the life-cycle carbon footprints of energy systems and other technologies.  He has authored over 400 journal articles, 50 reports, and has testified to Congress over 40 times.  Kammen founded and directs the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory (http://rael.berkeley.edu) where his team collaborates with colleagues worldwide, with long-term research partnerships in East Africa, Southeast Asia, and China. He was an assistant professor of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, where he chaired the Science, Technology and Environmental Policy (STEP) Program (1994 - 1999). In 1999 he moved to the University of California, Berkeley where he is now Chair of the Energy and Resources Group, as well as Professor in the Goldman School of Public Policy (where he is the faculty director of the Environmental Policy Program), and Professor of Nuclear Engineering. Kammen has been a Coordinating Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) since 1999.  The IPCC shared the 200 Nobel Peace Prize. He led the first team to quantify the exposure-response relationship between indoor air pollution from cookstoves and health in Kenya (1994 - 2003).  He lead a team that determined the life-cycle carbon cost of fossil, biofuel, and electric transportation, which led to California adopting a low-carbon fuel standard (S-7-01), something that has been under discussion for the US EPA, and adopted in several other nations. Kammen's team developed the SWITCH power system planning model that is in use in over 10 nations, including the US and China, to evaluate energy innovation for decarbonizing power systems. Kammen has served the US government as a member of the US EPA's National Advisory Council for Environmental Policy, on US Department of Energy Expert Panels on Solar and Nuclear Energy, and as the inaugural Fellow of the US Department of State's Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas (2010 - 2016).   In 2016 he was appointed Science Envoy for the US State Department.  In this capacity, he coordinated energy partnerships in a number of countries, with a special focus on energy and climate in the Middle East and Africa. Kammen served as the first Chief Technical Specialist for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency for the World Bank (2010 - 2011).