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. Fan Dai is the Director of the California-China Climate Institute, University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Dai was appointed by Governor Jerry Brown as Special Advisor to chair the state's China Interagency Working Group and served as the liaison on critical economic and environmental initiatives with China. Previously, she served as a senior advisor at the California Environmental Protection Agency and the California Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development, where she provided counsel on the state's international policy and global climate partnerships. At the California-China Climate Institute, she led several critical research projects on subnational climate policy and long-term planning for carbon neutrality and executed Governor Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom’s successful trip to China as well as other high-level US-China climate dialogues. Her research expertise includes market mechanisms for climate change mitigation, climate diplomacy and governance.
Dr. Dai graduated from the School of Law, University of California, Berkeley, with a master’s in law, and the State University of New York, College of Environmental Science and Forestry with a Ph.D. in Environmental Economics and Policy.
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.
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). With over 15 years of experience in climate science and policy, Jenn has advanced international climate cooperation in academia, think tanks, and non-profits. At the California-China Climate Institute (CCCI), Jenn supports climate policy research, dialogues, and training aimed at strengthening climate action. 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, including on sectoral decarbonization approaches, energy transitions, and climate diplomacy. Before that, she managed external partnerships and community engagement at MIT’s Center for Collective Intelligence’s Climate CoLab - an online crowdsourcing platform - where she also coordinated a cohort of more than 150 global volunteers and contributed to social science research. Previously, she led network engagement on international climate policy for a non-profit climate network, leading dialogues, workshops, and civil society engagement processes. 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, adaptive capacity, and building community resilience, and in the role of the networks advancing multilateral environmental governance processes.
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 Research Director 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.
Anni Dai is a climate policy fellow at the California-China Climate Institute. Currently pursuing an S.J.D. degree from the University of Connecticut School of Law, her research focuses on comparative analysis of prominent renewable energy incentives implemented globally. She aims to propose effective methodologies for China to systematically integrate renewable energy, thereby contributing to climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts.
Anni Dai has contributed to various esteemed journals, where she has shared insights on the political and legal frameworks surrounding renewable portfolio standards in China, drawing lessons from the experiences of the United States. Additionally, she has provided recommendations for establishing regulatory frameworks for energy planning related to ultra-high voltage transmission systems in China, with the aim of facilitating the integration of renewable energy sources. Prior to joining the California-China Climate Institute, Anni Dai gained professional experience working at law firms and energy companies in both China and the United States.
Weila Gong is a Climate Policy Fellow at UC Berkeley’s California-China Climate Institute. Her scholarship explores comparative climate and environmental policy and politics. Her research has been driven by understanding the political dynamics of global climate leadership across different levels of government. She focuses specifically on China, notably its low-carbon energy transitions, low-carbon cities, and greening the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), as well as the U.S.-China Climate Cooperation on Climate Change. Her work has appeared in journals such as The China Quarterly, Environmental Politics, and Energy Research and Social Science. Her forthcoming book, Implementing the Low-Carbon Future: Climate Leadership in Chinese Cities, will be published by Oxford University Press.
She was previously a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Environment and Natural Resources Program (ENRP) and Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program (STPP) at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and the Science, Technology and International Affairs Program (STIA) at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, as well as a visiting Predoctoral Fellow at the Brookings-Tsinghua Center. Weila holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Technical University of Munich, as well as a Master’s degree in International Relations and a Bachelor’s degree in History from Sun Yat-sen University, China.
Xueqin Cui is a Climate Policy Fellow at the California-China Climate Institute (CCCI), UC Berkeley. His expertise centers on integrated energy-environment-economic modeling, with a research focus on exploring China's energy system transition pathways toward a zero-carbon future. His work comprehensively assesses the multi-dimensional impacts of these transition strategies, examining critical areas such as air quality, human health, water scarcity, and labor market dynamics.
Xueqin's research has been published in prestigious scientific journals, including Lancet Public Health, Environmental Science & Technology, Applied Energy, and Environmental Research Letters, among others. Before joining CCCI, he gained significant professional experience as a consultant at World Resources Institute and a Visiting Research Fellow at the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
His academic journey includes a postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Earth System Science, Tsinghua University, and a Visiting Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory (RAEL) at UC Berkeley. Xueqin holds a Ph.D. and Master's degree in Environmental Economics, and a Bachelor's degree in Environmental Management from Renmin University of China.
Juan Wei is the Director of Programs at the California-China Climate Institute. Prior to joining CCCI, Juan was the Associate Director of the Environment and Climate Program at the Asia Foundation where she played a leading role in strategic planning, program development, and research and analysis. Juan also provided technical support to the Foundation's regional and country-specific environmental initiatives and programs, including sustainable infrastructure development, urban sustainability, climate resilience, renewable energy promotion, forest and land governance, transboundary water resource management, and air pollution monitoring and mitigation.
Prior to the Asia Foundation, Juan served as Senior Program Manager-Sustainability for the Asia Society in San Francisco; there she led the Asia Society's U.S.-China Collaboration on Clean Air project and the Pacific Cities Sustainability Initiative. Among her other experiences, Juan has served as Senior Program Officer for IUCN, Program Manager for WWF, National Advisor for the Danish International Development Agency's Wind Energy Development Program in Beijing, and Research Associate for the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance at Stanford University.
Juan has an M.A. in International Policy Studies on Energy, Environment and Natural Resources from Stanford University, a Master of Energy and Environmental Policy from the University of Delaware, and an LLB in International Relations and Intercultural Communication from Peking University.
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.
Dr. Nan Zhou is Co-Chair of the Academic Advisory Board of the California-China Climate Institute, a Senior Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a global expert in energy efficiency, greenhouse gas mitigation, and sustainable energy systems. She currently serves as the Technical Program Manager for the Net Zero World Action Center, a U.S. government initiative supporting countries in implementing net-zero, resilient, and inclusive energy transitions.
Over her career, Dr. Zhou has led numerous international collaborations to advance climate and clean energy solutions, with a strong focus on innovation and implementation in developing economies.
Her work has been widely recognized, including the 2024 ACEEE Champion of Energy Efficiency in Buildings Award, the 2020 Lab Director’s Technology Transfer Award, multiple R&D 100 Awards, and being named a finalist for the 2016 C3E Awards for Women’s Leadership in Clean Energy. She has published over 300 papers and contributed to the development of more than 20 software tools and influential policy instruments.
Dr. Zhou serves on editorial boards for Nexus (Cell Press), Applied Energy, and Advances in Applied Energy. She is a Council Member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council, and the U.S.-designated Advisory Board Member to the Asia Pacific Energy Research Centre (APERC). She holds a Ph.D. in Engineering and began her academic career in Japan.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
Visiting Scholars and Visiting Students
Dr. Xander Wang is currently a Visiting Scholar with the California-China Climate Institute at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Wang works as a Professor in the School of Climate Change and Adaptation at the University of Prince Edward Island (UPEI), where he directs the Climate Smart Lab in the Canadian Centre for Climate Change and Adaptation. Dr. Wang is a member of the Royal Society of Canada (RSC) College of New Scholars and has received numerous awards for his pioneering contributions to climate change research, such as the Charles S. Falkenberg Award by American Geophysical Union (AGU) and Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP), and the Whitman Wright Award by Canadian Society for Civil Engineering (CSCE). Before joining UPEI, Dr. Wang worked as an Assistant Professor in the School of Geosciences at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, US.
Dr. Lu is currently a Visiting Scholar with the California-China Climate Institute at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. LU is director of SEE Foundation, she leads the Climate Change and Business Sustainability team to promote projects such as the green supply chain action, energy transition in rural China, corporate carbon neutrality initiatives, environmental governance and waste management, with an aim to bring together the best of businesses and NGOs to reduce pollution and carbon emissions and to improve the environment. Zhiyao received her PhD in Ethnoecology from a joint-doctoral program with Minzu University of China and Yale University, she was a visiting scholar at Columbia University, UC Berkeley, and New York Botanical Garden, and got her B.S. from Ocean University of China. Zhiyao spent years on ecological research, especially the relationships between environment, traditional culture and the ethnic minority groups in China, and have published several academic articles. She is the Chinese Representative of Homeward Bound Project, a global female scientists leadership training and Antarctic expedition project. She is also a co-author of book The Selves We Choose, the chief editor of book Carbon Neutral Action - Environmental Philanthropy for Climate Governances, and a TEDx speaker.
Runxin Yu is a Visiting Student Scholar with the California-China Climate Institute in Spring 2025, and a PhD candidate in management at Tsinghua University’s Institute of Energy, Environment, and Economy. Her research focuses on advancing climate policy design and evaluation, particularly through price-based instruments for carbon neutrality, with a particular emphasis on China’s Emissions Trading System. She has examined critical aspects such as cap-setting design, sectoral coverage, allowance allocation, and market stability measures, contributing to the development of China’s carbon market through academic publications, public reports, and confidential policy briefs. Skilled in utilizing both quantitative and qualitative methodologies, she has provided robust insights into policy frameworks. Currently, she investigates the voluntary carbon market and inclusive decarbonization mechanisms, focusing on the integrity of carbon credits, such as forestry carbon offset projects, as well as the design of personal carbon accounts to promote low-carbon lifestyles. Her future research aims to deepen insights into price-based instruments, carbon price management, and the environmental and social benefits of policy designs, while exploring innovative climate solutions.
2025 Student Travel Grant Recipients
Xixi Jiang is a doctoral student in the Department of City and Regional Planning, where she studies two concurrent trends taking place in China's electricity system: the large-scale deployment of renewable sources of generation, and the rollout of liberalizing reforms that introduce competition into the generation and delivery of electric power. She is particularly interested in questions of scalar governance and interactions between local state and non-state actors with the electricity system.
Prior to coming to Berkeley, she has worked at the Committee on Environment, Geography, and Urbanization, an interdisciplinary research center at the University of Chicago, and as researcher and organizer with the Right to the City Alliance in New York City.
Ruiting Wang is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Systems Engineering in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at the University of California, Berkeley. She received her B.S. degree in Building Energy Engineering from Tsinghua University in 2020, and her M.S. degree in Systems Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 2021. Her research interests include planning, control, and optimization in future mobility systems. She also investigates the social and environmental impacts of electrified mobility, devises innovative strategies for sustainable freight and logistics, and advances the engineering design of coupled cyber-physical systems in both transportation and energy infrastructures.
Bobing Qiu is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics. He is interested in applying tools in economics to study issues related to environment, energy, and climate change. His current project aims to quantitatively understand the benefits of China's large-scale transmission lines to the power system and local economic agents.
Prior to coming to Berkeley, he worked as a pre-doctoral research fellow at the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago-China, where he studied the mortality effects of air pollution, and political economy of policy experimentations in China. He holds a bachelor's degree in financial economics from Peking University.
Nathaniel Dolton-Thornton is a PhD student in the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California, Berkeley. His research centers on the political, economic, and environmental aspects of critical mineral supply chains for energy transitions, with a focus on China and Latin America. At UC Berkeley, he is a member of Prof. Meg Mills-Novoa's Climate Futures Lab and Prof. Nancy Lee Peluso's Land Lab. He is also affiliated with Dean Kelly Sims Gallagher's Climate Policy Lab in The Fletcher School at Tufts University and Prof. Julie Klinger's lab at the University of Delaware.
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 | Rachel Wam |
| David White | Sarina Shohet | Esther Shears | Elizabeth Weinlein |
| Kaifeng Huo | Paulina Sandoval | Sharaban Tahura Zaman | Renee Serota |
| Jie Han |