Renewable Energy

Overview
Featured Research
Featured Commentary
Publications
Research Team
Fellows
Explore

Key Research Teams

learn more

George P. Shultz Energy Policy Working Group

Fellows in this Policy Area

Arun Majumdar

Senior Fellow (courtesy)

Learn more

Arun Majumdar

Senior Fellow (courtesy)

Dr. Arun Majumdar is the inaugural Dean of the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and the Jay Precourt Provostial Chair Professor at Stanford University. He holds faculty appointments in Mechanical Engineering, Energy Science and Engineering, and Photon Science at SLAC, and is a Senior Fellow at both the Precourt Institute for Energy and the Hoover Institution (courtesy). Appointed by President Obama, Dr. Majumdar was the Founding Director of ARPA-E from 2009 to 2012, where he built the agency into a model for government innovation. He also served as Acting Under Secretary of Energy and Senior Advisor to Secretary Steven Chu, helping lead initiatives like SunShot and the response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. During the Biden-Harris transition, he led the Department of Energy review team and later chaired the DOE Advisory Board under Secretary Jennifer Granholm. He also served as Science Envoy for the U.S. State Department, focusing on innovation in the Baltics and Poland. Before joining Stanford, he was Vice President for Energy at Google. Dr. Majumdar is a member of the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He holds a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley and a B.Tech from IIT Bombay.

James L. Sweeney

Senior Fellow (courtesy)

Learn more

James L. Sweeney

Senior Fellow (courtesy)

James L. Sweeney, known for his work energy economics and energy policy, was a Hoover Institution senior fellow (courtesy). Sweeney analyzes economic and policy issues, especially those involving energy systems and/or the environment. He has particular research interests in global climate change, automotive fuel economy regulation, electricity market problems, and market structure issues. He is a professor of management science and engineering at Stanford University, where he was appointed to the faculty in 1971. He also is director of the Precourt Energy Efficiency Center and a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. At Stanford, Sweeney was chairman, Department of Engineering-Economic Systems & Operations Research, 1996–98; chairman, Department of Engineering-Economic Systems, 1991–96; director, Center for Economic Policy Research, 1984–86; chairman, Institute for Energy Studies, 1981–85, and director, Energy Modeling Forum, 1978–84. He recently served on the review panel for the State of California Public Interest Energy Research Program, the National Research Council's Committee on Benefits of DOE R&D in Energy Efficiency and Fossil Energy, and the National Research Council's Committee on Effectiveness and Impact of Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) Standards. In 2000, Sweeney was appointed a fellow of the California Council on Science and Technology. He was elected a senior fellow of the U.S. Association for Energy Economics in 1999. He won an Excellence in Teaching Award from the Stanford Society of Black Scientists and Engineers in 1989 and the Federal Energy Administration Distinguished Service Award in 1975. Sweeney's publications include Energy Efficiency: Building a Clean, Secure Economy (Hoover Institution Press, 2016), California Electricity Crisis (Hoover Institution Press, 2002), "Trade and Industry Impacts of the Kyoto Protocol," with W. D. Montgomery, in The Business Roundtable, October 1999; "Natural Resource Economics," The Social Science Encyclopedia, 2d ed. (London: Routledge, 1996), "Energy Economics," International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (Elsevier Science, 2001), and Handbook of Natural Resource and Energy Economics, with A. V. Kneese (North Holland: Volumes I and II, 1993 and Volume III, 1995). Sweeney earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1966 and a doctoral degree in engineering-economic systems from Stanford University in 1971.