Executive Team
Edmund G. Brown Jr. was born in San Francisco on April 7, 1938. He graduated from St. Ignatius High School in 1955 and entered Sacred Heart Novitiate, a Jesuit seminary. He later attended the University of California, Berkeley, graduating in 1961 before earning a J.D. at Yale Law School in 1964.
Brown was elected Trustee for the Los Angeles Community College District in 1969, California Secretary of State in 1970 and Governor of California in 1974 and 1978. After his governorship, Brown lectured and traveled widely, practiced law, served as chairman of the state Democratic Party and ran for president.
In 1998, Brown was elected Mayor of Oakland and California Attorney General in 2006. He was elected to a third gubernatorial term in 2010 and to a historic fourth term in 2014.
As Governor, Brown eliminated the state’s multi-billion dollar budget deficit, spearheading successful campaigns to establish a robust Rainy-Day Fund to prepare for the next economic downturn and provide billions in new funding for California’s schools and roads. Under Brown, California cut its unemployment rate to a record low, added nearly 3 million new jobs and expanded health coverage to millions more Californians, while enacting sweeping criminal justice, immigration, workers’ compensation, water, pension, education, housing and economic development reforms.
While Brown was Governor, California also established nation-leading targets to protect the environment and fight climate change and by 2045, the state will generate 100 percent of its electricity from renewable sources and achieve carbon neutrality.
Brown founded two public charter schools, the Oakland Military Institute and the Oakland School for the Arts. He currently serves as chair of the California-China Climate Institute, executive chair of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and on the board of the Nuclear Threat Initiative. Brown lives in Colusa County with his wife Anne Gust Brown and two dogs, Colusa and Cali, on land first settled by his great-grandfather August Schuckman more than 150 years ago.
Mary Nichols is the Vice Chair of the California-China Climate Institute.
Nichols is the former Chair of the California Air Resources Board, where she occupied the attorney seat. She has served on the Board under Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr. (1975–82 and 2010–18), Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (2007–2010) and Governor Gavin Newsom (2019–present). She also served as California’s Secretary for Natural Resources (1999–2003), appointed by Gov. Gray Davis.
When not working for the State of California, Mary was a senior staff attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council; Assistant Administrator for U.S. EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, in the administration of President William Jefferson Clinton; and headed the Institute of Environment and Sustainability at UCLA.
Over a career as an environmental lawyer spanning over 45 years, Mary Nichols has played a key role in California and the nation’s progress toward healthy air. She has also led the Board in crafting California’s internationally recognized climate action plan.
Dr. Dai has played a significant role leading California’s collaboration with China on climate, energy and environment. She was appointed by Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr as Special Advisor on China. Under Brown, Dr. Dai chaired the state’s China Interagency Working Group, and acted as the state’s liaison on its critical economic and environmental initiatives on China. Previously, Dr. Dai served as senior advisor at California Environmental Protection Agency and California Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development, advising on the state’s international policy and global climate partnership. In 2017, she organized Governor Brown’s trip, which resulted in a successful meeting with President Xi Jinping and the commitment to establish the California-China Climate Institute.
Dr. Dai is a graduate of Berkeley Law, University of California, and holds a doctoral degree on Environmental Policy and Economics from State University of New York. Her research has been focused on market mechanisms for climate change mitigation, energy efficiency and innovations.
Dan Farber is the Sho Sato Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also the Faculty Director of the Center for Law, Energy, and the Environment. Professor Farber serves on the editorial board of Foundation Press. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Life Member of the American Law Institute. He is the editor of Issues in Legal Scholarship.
Professor Farber is a graduate of the University of Illinois, where he earned his B.A., M.A., and J.D. degrees. He graduated, summa cum laude, from the College of Law, where he was the class valedictorian and served as Editor-in-Chief of the University of Illinois Law Review. After graduation from law school, he was a law clerk for Judge Philip W. Tone of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and then for Justice John Paul Stevens of the Supreme Court of the United States. Professor Farber practiced law with Sidley & Austin, where he primarily worked on energy issues, before joining the University of Illinois College of Law faculty in 1978. He was a member of the University of Minnesota Law School faculty from1981 to 2002, where he was the McKnight Presidential Professor of Public Law. He also has been a Visiting Professor at the Stanford Law School, Harvard Law School, and the University of Chicago Law School.
Among Professor Farber’s eighteen books are RESEARCH HANDBOOK ON PUBLIC CHOICE AND PUBLIC LAW (Elgar 2010) (with A. O’Connell); JUDGMENT CALLS: POLITICS AND PRINCIPLE IN CONSTITUTIONAL LAW (Oxford University Press 2008) (with S. Sherry); RETAINED BY THE PEOPLE: THE “SILENT” NINTH AMENDMENT AND THE RIGHTS AMERICANS DON’T KNOW THEY HAVE (Basic Books 2007); and LINCOLN’S CONSTITUTION (University of Chicago Press 2003).
Ken spent eight years as a Senior Policy Advisor to Governor Jerry Brown, the Director of the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research, and the Chair of the Strategic Growth Council, focusing on climate, environment, and land use issues. Before joining the Governor’s Office, Ken was the Senior Assistant Attorney General heading the environment section of the California Attorney General’s Office, and the co-head of the Office’s global warming unit. From 2000 to 2006, He led the California Attorney General’s energy task force, investigating price and supply issues related to California’s energy crisis.
Ken is a graduate of Harvard Law School and holds a B.A. in political theory from the University of California at Santa Cruz.
Louise Bedsworth is the Executive Director of the Center for Law, Energy and the Environment (CLEE), and also serves as a Senior Advisor to the California China Climate Institute. Prior to assuming the role of Executive Director, she was CLEE's Director of their Land Use Program.
Before joining CLEE, Louise spent nearly a decade working for the State of California, most recently as the Executive Director of the Strategic Growth Council, a Cabinet-level State institution that brings together multiple agencies and departments to support sustainable communities emphasizing strong economies, social equity, and environmental stewardship.
Prior to joining SGC, Louise was the Deputy Director of the Office of Planning and Research in Governor Jerry Brown’s office. At OPR she led work on a number of collaborative research initiatives and climate change adaptation and resilience, including development of the Integrated Climate Adaptation and Resiliency Program and implementation of the State’s $70 million grant awarded under the National Disaster Resilience Competition.
Before joining OPR, Louise was a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, where her work focused on climate change adaptation, local government action on climate change, and transportation. She has also held positions at the Union of Concerned Scientists, Redefining Progress, and the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis.
Louise received a B.S. in Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an M.S. in Environmental Engineering and Ph.D. in Energy and Resources, both from the University of California at Berkeley.
Aimee Barnes is a Senior Advisor with the California-China Climate Institute at UC Berkeley.
Prior to this, she was senior advisor to California Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr., following an appointment to the California Environmental Protection Agency where she served as deputy secretary for border and intergovernmental relations. Barnes has worked for more than a decade on climate change and environmental sustainability issues in the public, private, and non-profit sectors. Before joining the Governor’s Office, Barnes was a partner at Allotrope Partners, an investment firm specializing in early-stage companies in the carbon and clean energy sectors.
Earlier in her career, she served as an international climate change policy advisor for the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where she helped establish a new department to manage the country’s climate and clean energy policies.
She is the recipient of the 2018 U.S. Clean Energy Education & Empowerment (C3E) Government Award in recognition of her work in advancing climate solutions. Barnes holds an MPA in Environmental Science and Policy from Columbia University and a degree in Environmental Studies from Dartmouth College.
Evan Westrup is a Senior Advisor with the California-China Climate Institute at UC Berkeley.
He has worked with former California Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. for more than a decade, including serving as press secretary, communications director and chief spokesperson for the Governor from 2013 until the end of the administration in 2019.
Prior to that, Westrup was Deputy Press Secretary in the Governor’s Office, on the Governor's 2010 campaign and at the California Department of Justice. He also served as Deputy Youth Vote Director on President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign in New Mexico, Associate Communications Director to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and as an aide to a member of Scottish Parliament.
Westrup earned his bachelor’s degree from UC San Diego and master’s degree in International and European Politics from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. He started his career as a Capital Fellow in Sacramento and as a Coro Fellow in Los Angeles and was recently selected to participate in the Marshall Memorial Fellowship, the German Marshall Fund's flagship Transatlantic leadership development program.
Staff
Jenn Perron is a Senior Climate Policy Fellow with the California-China Climate Institute (CCCI). She has worked on global climate change for over a decade, in academia, think tanks, and non-profits, often focused on broadening stakeholder engagement and awareness on the issue.
Prior to joining CCCI, Jenn worked as a Project Manager at The Brookings Institution, facilitating inter-disciplinary collaboration and research scholarship on climate and energy issues. Before that, she served as a Community & Partnerships Manager at MIT’s Center for Collective Intelligence, and an International Climate Policy Coordinator for an international advocacy network.
Jenn has a strong background in both the science and politics of global climate change, with areas of interest in international climate policy and diplomacy and its nexus with U.S. domestic climate policies, in adaptation and building community resilience, and in the role of the networks in broadening civil society engagement and advancing multilateral environmental governance processes. She has conducted social science research on urban climate adaptation and adaptive capacity, explored the uptake of scientific information on climate impacts by agricultural decision-makers, researched sectoral decarbonization strategies, examined the effects of Latin American climate mitigation strategies on livelihoods, and tracked the UN climate negotiations, and written on the nexus of climate policy, finance, food security and sustainable land use.
She holds a Master’s in Environmental Policy from the University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources and Environment, and a Bachelor’s in environmental science.
M.S., Environmental Policy, University of Michigan
Dr. Jessica Gordon is a Senior Climate Policy Fellow at the California-China Climate Institute. She is an international climate and environment policy expert. Her research and work have focused on China and linking research and policy to develop equitable and integrated solutions to climate, development and environmental challenges. Her earlier work experience includes working on global climate policy at the United Nations Development Program and leadership of Oxfam’s adaptation research program in China.
For her research, Dr. Gordon was awarded fellowships from the Fulbright Program (China), the Social Science Research Council and the East-West Center. She holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Policy and Planning from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a Master’s in Environmental Science from the Yale School of the Environment and a BA in International Development from Brown University.
Rixin Zhu is a Methane Policy Fellow at the California-China Climate Institute (CCCI), UC Berkeley. He has worked on a broad range of environmental issues, such as methane control in China, air pollution, and corporate social responsibility.
Before joining CCCI, Rixin worked as a research assistant in an Environment Economics and Law Interdisciplinary Research Group at the Renmin University of China, conducting interdisciplinary research on environmental policies and helping construct an environment-law database. During his graduate work at Yale University, he served as a corporate social responsibility consultant at the Yale School of Management.
Rixin has rich experience in researching environmental economics and policy issues. He has co-authored a report about the environmental and economic effects of an air pollution control policy in northern China. The report was submitted to the Ministry of Ecology and Environment of China and noted by former Minister Ganjie Li.
He has also conducted research on various topics, such as China’s water price setting, biodiversity, and methane emission control in China. His areas of interest are methane emission reduction, China’s decarbonization path, and the function of policy design in promoting sustainable economic development and joint effort to tackle climate change.
Rixin holds a master’s degree in Environmental Science from the Yale School of Environment and a Bachelor’s degree in Economy of Resources and Environment from the Renmin University of China.
Academic Advisory Committee
David Ackerly is the Dean of the Rausser College of Natural Resources at the University of California, Berkeley.
He joined the faculty of the Department of Integrative Biology 2005, held the Virginia G. and Robert E. Gill Chair in Natural History from 2010 to 2015, and had been serving as Associate Dean of the College of Letters and Science's Biological Sciences Division since before his appointment as Rausser College Dean.
His work has tackled a variety of topics including the study of climate change impacts on biodiversity, focusing on the native flora of California, and implications for future challenges in conservation and land management.
He co-directs the Terrestrial Biodiversity and Climate Change Collaborative (tbc3.org), a partnership with the Dwight Center for Conservation Science at Pepperwood Preserve, focused on climate change and resource management in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Michael C. Lu is the Dean of the School of Public Health at the University of California. Berkeley.
Lu was formerly the Senior Associate Dean for Academic, Student and Faculty Affairs at George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health, where he led efforts to expand the undergraduate program, overhaul the MPH curriculum, strengthen doctoral training, institute a Master Teachers Academy, and improve the student experience.
Prior to joining George Washington University, Lu was the director of the Maternal and Child Health Bureau for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from 2012 to 2017. Before joining the federal government, he was with UCLA Schools of Medicine and Public Health, where he was Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Public Health.
He is a staunch and passionate advocate for public health, research and community engagement.
Alex Wang is Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law, and a leading expert on environmental law and the law and politics of China. His research focuses on the social effects of law, and the interaction of law and institutions in China and the United States.
His previous research work examined, among other things, the institutional design of environmental law and policy, environmental bureaucracy, public interest litigation, information disclosure, and environmental courts. His work has addressed air pollution, climate change, and other environmental issues.
Prior to joining UCLA, Wang was a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) based in Beijing and the founding director of NRDC's China Environmental Law & Governance Project. In this capacity, he worked with China's government agencies, legal community, and environmental groups to improve environmental rule of law and strengthen the role of the public in environmental protection. Before that, he was an attorney at the law firm of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP in New York City, where he worked on mergers & acquisitions, securities matters, and pro bono Endangered Species Act litigation.
Nan Zhou is a Senior Scientist, Head of the International Energy Analysis Department, and Lead of the China Research Program at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Zhou is also the U.S. Director of the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center-Building Energy Efficiency (CERC-BEE), a 10-year presidential level research-based consortium of U.S. and Chinese scientists and private companies. Zhou is a Lead Author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC)'s forthcoming Sixth Assessment Report. She serves on the Advisory Board of the Asia Pacific Energy Research Centre (under the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation, APEC) and the APEC Sustainable Energy Center.
She was appointed to the Applied Energy Editorial Board in 2017, served as the Co-Chair of the 2016 Buildings Summer Study of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), and has been a Committee Member of the China Green Building Council since 2015.
Zhou received the Outstanding Research and Contribution Prize for her 2019 publication in Applied Energy entitled, A roadmap for China to peak carbon dioxide emissions and achieve a 20% share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy by 2030, led the Berkeley Lab team that received the 2017 R&D100 Award for the BEST City tool, and 2020 R&D100 Award for BETTER tool development. She was a finalist for the 2016 C3E Awards for mid-career women's leadership and achievement. She also a recipient of the National Excellent Young Scholar Award by Architectural Institute of Japan.
Max Auffhammer is the George Pardee Jr. Professor of International Sustainable Development and Associate Dean in the Division of Social Sciences at UC Berkeley.
His work focuses on environmental and resource economics, energy economics and applied econometrics. He is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research in the Energy and Environmental Economics group, a Humboldt Fellow, and a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
His research has appeared in The American Economic Review, the Review of Economic Studies, The Review of Economics and Statistics, The Economic Journal, the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, The Energy Journal and other academic journals. Auffhammer has been awarded several teaching awards among them, the Cozzarelli Prize awarded by the National Academies of Sciences, and the Sarlo Distinguished Mentoring Award.
Jonas Meckling is Assistant Professor of Energy and Environmental Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, Goldman School of Public Policy.
From 2012 to 2013, he served as Senior Advisor to the German Federal Ministry of the Environment, the lead agency for Germany's clean energy policy. There he worked on a broad range of clean energy, climate and gas policy issues.
Prior to working in government, Meckling was a Pre-doctoral and Post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He worked with the Energy Technology Innovation Policy Group, the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements and the Geopolitics of Energy Project at Harvard.
He is the author of two books, the latest of which is, Carbon Coalitions: Business, Climate Politics, and the Rise of Emissions Trading. Meckling previously worked at the European Commission and the Allianz Group.
David Anthoff is an assistant professor in the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California, Berkeley.
Previously he was an assistant professor in the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan, a postdoc at the University of California, Berkeley and a postdoc at the Economic and Social Research Institute in Ireland. He also was a visiting research fellow at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford.
Anthoff is an environmental economist who studies climate change and environmental policy. He co-develops the integrated assessment model FUND that is used widely in academic research and in policy analysis.
His research has appeared in Science, the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Environmental and Resource Economics, the Oxford Review of Economic Policy and other academic journals.
He contributed a background research paper to the Stern Review and has advised numerous organizations (including US EPA and the Canadian National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy) on the economics of climate change.
Eric Biber is Professor and Director for Environmental and Energy Law Programs at UC Berkeley. His research interests are environmental law, natural resources law, energy law, land-use law, federal Indian law, administrative law, and property.
Prior to joining Berkeley, he worked as a litigator in the Denver office of Earthjustice, a public-interest nonprofit organization specializing in public lands and other environmental cases. He taught public lands law as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law in fall 2005. He is a memeber of both the Colorado and California bars.
His scholarship has appeared in a wide range of law reviews, including the University of Chicago Law Review, UCLA Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Vanderbilt Law Review, University of Colorado Law Review, Harvard Environmental Law Review, Environmental Law, NYU Environmental Law Journal, and Administrative Law Review.
Biber has published in several leading peer-reviewed natural science and social science journals, including Society and Natural Resources, Frontiers in Ecology and Environment, Ecography, and Science.
William Collins is Professor in Residence, Earth and Planetary Science; Director, Climate & Ecosystem Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Director, Accelerator for Climate, Energy & Environment Solutions.
Before joining UC Berkeley and Berkeley Lab, Dr. Collins was a Senior Scientist and Chair of the Scientific Steering Committee for the DOE/NSF Community Climate System Model project at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
He is a Coordinating Lead Author of the Sixth Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a Lead Author of the Fifth IPCC Assessment, and a Lead and Collaborating Author of the Fourth IPCC Assessment, for which the IPCC was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.
He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the American Physical Society (APS). Dr. Collins was awarded the DOE Secretarial Honor Award for launching DOE’s Accelerated Climate Model for Energy in 2015
Inez Fung is Professor of Atmospheric Science, in the Department of Earth & Planetary Science at UC Berkeley. She joined the Berkeley faculty in 1998 as the founding director of the Berkeley Atmospheric Sciences Center. She was also the founding director of the Berkeley Institute of the Environment.
Fung studies the interactions between climate change and biogeochemical cycles, and focus on the processes that maintain and alter the composition of the atmosphere, and hence the climate. She contributed to the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.
Fung is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and of Academia Sinica (Taiwan); a fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society; and a recipient of NASA's Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal, the Roger Revelle Medal from the American Geophysical Union, and a Distinguished Achievement Award for climate system modeling from the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Fung was appointed to the National Science Board in 2012.
Solomon Hsiang is the Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, a Co-Director at the Climate Impact Lab, Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a National Geographic Explorer, an Andrew Carnegie Fellow and a Senior Fellow with the Berkeley Institute of Data Science.
He combines data with mathematical models to understand how society and the environment influence one another. In particular, he focuses on how policy can encourage economic development while managing the global climate.
Hsiang earned a BS in Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Science and a BS in Urban Studies and Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and he received a PhD in Sustainable Development from Columbia University.
He was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Applied Econometrics at the NBER and a Postdoctoral Fellow in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy at Princeton University.
Dan Kammen is a Professor of Energy at the University of California, Berkeley, with parallel appointments in the Energy and Resources Group where he serves as Chair, the Goldman School of Public Policy where he directs the Center for Environmental Policy, and the department of Nuclear Engineering.
Kammen is the founding director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory and the co-director of the Berkeley Institute of the Environment. He is a former Science Envoy for the U.S Department of State and was chief technical specialist for renewable energy and energy efficiency at the World Bank Group where his work included funding electrified personal and municipal vehicles in China, and a “green corridor “ transmission project linking renewable energy assets in Kenya and Ethiopia.
He is an author or co-author of 12 books and more than 300 peer-reviewed journal publications. He is also a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. Kammen is a permanent fellow of the African Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, and the American Physical Society. In the US, he has served on several National Academy of Sciences boards and panels.
Jiang Lin is the Nat Simons Presidential Chair in China Energy Policy at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, a Staff Scientist at its China Energy Group, and an Adjunct Professor at the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of California at Berkeley.
His research is focused on energy and climate policy, energy and emissions pathways, electricity market and planning, low-carbon economics transition and appliance efficiency issues in China.
Previously, he worked the Energy Foundation China, first as a Senior Vice President for Strategy and Analysis and then as its Director of Sustainable Energy Program and Senior Vice President for Strategy and Analysis. He managed the growth of Energy Foundation China into one of the largest international NGOs devoted to promoting clean energy and climate solutions in China. Before joining the Energy Foundation, he was at LBNL conducting research in the Appliance Standards and China Energy Groups.
Lin holds a PhD in Demography from the University of California, Berkeley, an MS in Population Studies and BS from the Department of Cybernetics Engineering from Xi'an Jiaotong University, China.
Research Affiliates
Research Affiliate, California-China Climate Institute
Former Chair, California Energy Commission
Robert Weisenmiller is a former Chair of the California Energy Commission and one of the world’s leading voices on energy.
For more than nine years, he served at the California Energy Commission under both Republican and Democratic administrations. Weisenmiller’s work is instrumental in shaping California’s pioneering energy policies including addressing exponential electricity growth, costs, and environmental impacts through greenhouse gas-reducing solutions, advancing cost-effective energy efficiency standards for buildings and appliances, encouraging innovative clean energy Research & Development projects, and developing the state’s electricity demand forecast.That forecast is the foundation of California’s highly analytical and comprehensive electric system planning.
He co-founded and managed MRW & Associates, using his expertise to assist businesses, financial institutions, and public regulatory agencies in strategic planning, policy development, energy market analysis and regulation, power pricing for qualifying facility projects, marginal cost analysis, rate design, and implication of utility mergers.
He has provided expert witness testimony to more than 100 state and federal public regulatory agencies and court proceedings, did power market due diligence for dozens of project financings, and has authored numerous publications on electricity and natural gas markets.
Veerabhadran Ramanathan is the Edward A. Frieman Endowed Presidential Chair in Climate Sustainability at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego.
He discovered the greenhouse effect of halocarbons, particularly chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) used in such applications as refrigeration and manufacturing. This discovery showed how gases such as CFCs that deplete the ozone layer could also have ramifications for climate.This led to establishing the now accepted fact that non-CO2 gases are a major cause of planet warming and also enabled the Montreal Protocol to become the first successful climate mitigation policy. Ramanathan is a distinguished contributor to several areas of the atmospheric sciences including developments to climate models, radiative forcing of climate change, atmospheric pollution and brown clouds. He has been a part of major projects such as the Indian Ocean Experiment (INDOEX) and the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE). His work has led to numerous policies including the formation of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition by the United Nations. He now heads the Bending the Curve: Climate Change Solutions project of the University of California; and editor and author of the 2019 book: Bending the Curve: Climate Change Solutions.
For his illustrious work, he received the Tyler Prize by Nobel Laureate Sherwood Rowland in 2009 and named as Earth Champion by UN in 2013.He is a recipient of numerous honors and awards, and was named as Science Advisor to Pope Francis’ Holy See delegation to the Paris Climate Summit; is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and council member of the Pontifical Academy of Science and a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Daniel Sperling is Distinguished Blue Planet Prize Professor of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science and Policy, founding Director of the Institute of Transportation Studies, and founding Chair of the Policy Institute for Energy Environment and Economy at the University of California, Davis.
He is a leading international expert on transportation and climate policy with leadership positions on key boards and committees, including the California Air Resources Board, appointed by Governors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown. He was 2013 chair of the California Fuel Partnership, and 2015 chair of the National Academies’ Transportation Research Board.
In recognition of his illustrious work, Sperling received the 2010 Heinz award and the 2013 Blue Planet Prize, described as the Nobel Prize for the environmental sciences. He has testified eight times to the U.S. Congress, and has authored or edited over 250 technical articles and 12 books, including, Three Revolutions: Steering Automated, Shared, and Electric Vehicles to a Better Future (2018), and Two Billion Cars (2009).
Benjamin Houlton is the Ronald P. Lynch Dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University and a professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology as well as Global Development. Previously, he was a Professor of Global Environmental Studies at the University of California Davis, and held the distinction of Chancellor's Fellow and Director of the John Muir Institute of the Environment.
Houlton’s work is focused on ecosystem processes, climate change solutions, and changes to global carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus cycles for enhanced energy and food production. At the John Muir Institute, he directs over 150 staff and catalyzes research across more than 300 faculty experts from all of UC Davis’s colleges and professional schools with the goal of devising innovative solutions to the environmental sustainability challenges. Most recently, he has been spear-heading the new OneClimate 'Big Idea,' an interdisciplinary, team-based approach to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and help people and ecosystems adapt to an uncertain climate future. Houlton is Co-Chair of the California Collaborative for Climate Change Solutions and member of the UC Global Climate Leadership Council.
His work has appeared in leading scientific journals and popular media outlets. He is a recipient of numerous awards, including the Gene E. Likens Award from the Ecological Society of America, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Young Investigator Award, and the NSF-CAREER award.
Susan Shirk is Research Professor and Chair of the 21st Century China Center at UC San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy.
She is one of the most influential experts working on U.S.-China relations and Chinese politics. She previously served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State (1997-2000), responsible for U.S. policy toward China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Mongolia and she founded and continues to lead the Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue, an unofficial forum for discussions of security issues. She is Director Emeritus and Advisory Board chair of the University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, has served as a member of the U.S. Defense Policy Board, the Board of Governors for the East-West Center in Hawaii, the Board of Trustees of the U.S.-Japan Foundation and the Board of Directors of the National Committee on United States-China Relations.
For her distinguished teaching, research and service, she was awarded the 2015 Roger Revelle Medal, the highest honor given by the Chancellor to a UC San Diego faculty member. She is the author of China: Fragile Superpower; Changing Media, Changing China; and The Political Logic of Economic Reform in China.
Dr. Fredrich (Fritz) Kahrl is managing partner at 3rdRail Inc., a research fellow at the California-China Climate Institute (CCCI), and an affiliate with the Electricity Markets and Policy Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He works primarily on energy markets, regulation, and policy in the U.S., China, and India. He received MS and PhD degrees from the Energy and Resources Group at UC Berkeley and a BA in philosophy from the College of William & Mary. He currently teaches DEVP (Development Practice) 221: Climate, Energy, and Development at UC Berkeley.
Ashley Conrad-Saydah is a public policy expert whose work has focused on finding inter-disciplinary solutions to seemingly intractable climate and energy challenges.
Conrad-Saydah’s work with CCCI is in collaboration with colleagues from UC Berkeley’s Rausser College of Natural Resources, and The Nature Conservancy, where she will be building and implementing regional frameworks to improve natural resources and public health, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Before joining CCCI she was Deputy Secretary for Climate Policy at the California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA), appointed by Governor Edmund G. Brown 2012.
Prior to joining CalEPA, she served as California’s Renewable Energy Program Manager for the United States Department of Interior, Bureau of Land Management (BLM). In that position, she helped to establish and advance key state-federal partnerships, engaged stakeholders in determining the best places for utility-scale solar, wind and transmission development and drafted and instituted national monitoring and mitigation policies for renewable energy development on public lands.
Current Research Assistants and Student Assistants
Rachel Wam is a Master of Laws (LLM) candidate in Berkeley Law, with an intended specialization in environmental law. She has a focused interest in environmental law and policy, and climate change law. At CCCI, Rachel is researching on the public health benefits of concurrently addressing climate and air quality issues in California and China, which aims to inform future climate and air quality policies.
Prior to joining Berkeley Law and CCCI, Rachel assisted Professor Jolene Lin at the National University of Singapore with research on climate change litigation in the Global South. She was also a research assistant at the Asia-Pacific Centre for Environmental Law, where she updated and edited the United Nations Environment Program’s report titled “Environmental Courts & Tribunals – 2022: A Guide for Policy Makers.”
Rachel was enrolled in the double degree program in law and liberal arts at the National University of Singapore and Yale-NUS College, where she obtained a Bachelor of Laws (First Class Honors) and Bachelor of Arts with Honors (Liberal Arts). She graduated second in her class at the Faculty of Law, and summa cum laude with a minor in literature at Yale-NUS College.
Kaifeng Huo is an undergraduate research assistant on Methane Policy with the California-China Climate Institute (CCCI). His primary role is to conduct policy and literature reviews to support research on methane mitigation while drafting academic articles and policy briefs. He focuses on identifying the lessons and challenges across policies and practices implemented in California and China on waste management.
Kaifeng is a fourth-year student majoring in Economics and Global Studies. He is interested in the progress of the transition towards renewable energy and the electrified future, especially the phase-out of internal combustion engine vehicles. He intends to apply to Applied Economics or Public Policy programs upon graduation.
Ms. Sharaban Tahura Zaman is an environmental lawyer and academic working to promote climate justice. She is a second year JSD candidate at Berkeley Law with Lloyd M. Robbins Fellowship. Under the supervision of Professor Daniel Farber with CCCI, Ms. Zaman is conducting independent research, a case study on California’s Law and Policy framework to evaluate preparedness and IRA’s long-term impacts on securing NDCs Implementation and achieving USA’s 2050 Net-Zero Targets.
USA’s first NDCs, submitted by 2021, aimed to achieve a net-zero target by 2050, with the target to reduce 50-52% below the 2005 level by 2030. The existing works of the literature show that the USA will need to implement other laws and policies to reach its proposed targets. Therefore, it is essential to evaluate how IRA will impact in the long term to achieve these committed targets. The research aims to consider California’s law and policy framework as a case study to examine the preparedness, opportunity, and long-term impact the IRA can offer to facilitate enhanced implementation of NDCs and achieve 2050 targets. The research also aims to identify possible law and policy challenges. The case study is conducted on literature review, policy assessment, expert interviews, and consultations.
Renee Serota is a second-year JD student at Berkeley Law. She is a Graduate Student Researcher working with Dr. Fan Dai on her research on decarbonization pathways in the United States and China. Renee supports Dr. Dai's research on legal and policy frameworks for decarbonization, including exploring methods for cooperation between the U.S. and China on the sub-national level. She is currently collaborating with Dr. Dai to draft sections of an upcoming law review article that will provide a comparison of climate federalism in the U.S. and China and the implications for decarbonization and transnational collaboration. She began her work with CCCI in Fall 2022.
Paulina Sandoval is a Chilean environmental lawyer and a Master of Public Affairs (MPA) candidate in Berkeley School of Public Policy (GSPP). She has a focused interest in environmental law and policy, and climate change law. At CCCI, Paulina is researching on climate change policy. Prior to joining Berkeley GSPP and CCCI, Paulina was the Head of Legal Affairs at the Ministry of Environment in Chile (2018-2022), where she led the approval of the Climate Change Framework Law, recently enacted. She also has extensive experience in environmental policy both in the public and private sectors, including carbon pricing, environmental impact assessment, protected areas, waste management, and air/water quality issues. Paulina holds a Master of Laws (LLM) degree at New York University, with a specialization in environmental law, and a law degree from Universidad Catolica in Chile.
Elizabeth Weinlein is a Masters of Public Health (MPH) candidate concentrating in Global Health and Environment. Academically and professionally interested in exposure assessment and policy development, Elizabeth is excited to join the CCCI team focusing on the public health aspects of air and climate policy. Elizabeth has over 4 years of experience working in the environmental policy field, including as an Environmental Specialist for the Federal Emergency Management Agency and through the Princeton in Asia Fellowship with the Natural Resources Defense Council in Beijing. Last summer, Elizabeth interned for the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service, researching collaborative opportunities to support the US and Brazil in meeting their shared climate goals. Elizabeth earned a BA in Environmental Policy and Asian Studies from Pitzer College.
Jie Han is a Graduate Student Research Assistant collaborating on tracking subnational progress toward carbon neutrality in the U.S. and China. Her primary role is to develop indicators and milestones for tracking progress and help collect, analyze, and visualize the data. Prior to joining CCCI, Jie was a full-time research assistant of the Resilience City and Comprehensive Disaster Prevention research group at Tongji University, focusing on the assessment and adaptation strategies of urban infrastructures under the changing climate. Jie is currently a graduate student of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning (LAEP) at Berkeley College of Environmental Design. Her experience of studying LAEP has exposed her to many disciplines and approaches, allowing her to examine how landscape combines with different disciplines to take on other forms. Her current research interest focuses mainly on climate policies and environmental economics.
Prior Student Research Assistants, Student Assistants, and Volunteers
| Steven Chu | Emily Yen | Yi Fang | Erik Hagstrom |
| Hae Jeong Cho | Jane Sadler | Jasmine Chen | Michelle Johnson-Wang |
| Jack Chang | Angela Luh | Carlos Torres | Kelly Zhao |
| Erica Grignashci | Anjika Pai | Jane Sadler | Mia Eisenberg |
| Curtis Wong | Julia Finney | Celine Yang | Julia Whitehead |
| Qianhui Jin | Nate Dolton-Thornton | Christina Qinqin Chen | Audrey Taylor |
| Camille Zuber | Angela Luh | Jillayne Ren | |
| David White | Sarina Shohet | Esther Shears |